Ethics and Letters:
Appearing in the letters section of Monday's edition of the New York Times:
A group of epidemiologists has determined a link between this season's strain of influenza and mutants, at least so far as A appears to affect B. I offer them my congratulations -- establishing even something that most would assume is a 'logical' conclusion is difficult, when one has to prove it to acceptable standards of scientific rigor. So congratulations to the researchers, they've put some hard work into this, and they've gotten their results.
Unfortunately for us all, what they forgot to put into their research was ethics.
It may seem like a small thing, to use the MRA database instead of taking an informed and consenting sample of the population. It would be terribly convenient, a way out of that dark hole of number crunching and hoping and praying that you get enough data to make your statistics worth the computer time needed to process them. It's a challenge that mutant researchers run into time and time again, so I can sympathize -- there just aren't enough mutants out there to be sure you'll get enough response on your first call for volunteers. Given the current social climate in this country, those mutants who can 'pass' are inclined to stay very firmly out of sight, and who can blame them?
So it must have been a great relief when the government came calling and said "Here, you can use our list." All the registered mutants in America, gathered in one neat little database? Your entire sample population handed to you with a big shiny bow on top? It's the sort of thing that scientists dream of. There are names on one list, there are names on another. Match the names of the ill with the names of the mutants, run a few statistical analyses to see if mutants are over-represented for their numbers, and you've got yourself a paper. All of a sudden, research is made easy. But that which is easy is not always that which is right.
Informed consent is one of the highest strictures of ethics where human subjects are concerned, and the people whose names are in the MRA database were neither informed they might be used as scientific subjects, and neither did they consent to it. A number of them would probably be willing to do so if asked, but asked they were not, and consent after the fact isn't consent at all. These people registered themselves in good faith because their government required it of them. That requirement alone -- it is illegal not to register -- means that the MRA database cannot be used for research purposes, because consent cannot be coerced.
So I congratulate the researchers on their hard work, but in the end, I condemn their lack of ethics. When the government offered them an easy way out, their answer should have been to say "No, thank you." and to head for the phones and get started with sampling the old fashioned way. The right way.
Dr. Jean Grey B.Sc., M.D., Ph.D
X-Men: Movieverse 2 - Thursday, February 22, 2007, 10:54 PM
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=NYC= The McClintock Center - Financial District - Manhattan
A large central atrium full of skylights and water greets visitors to this example of one of the many new buildings created to meet the growing demands of a scientific economy. The new headquarters of the NYPD's CSU division means that there's government money behind the elegant marble flooring and neoclassical design, but the rest of the seven floors of laboratories and rooftop greenhouses is owned or rented by private enterprise. With its plethora of benches and greenery surrounding the central fountain, where a sculpture suggesting DNA's double helices, and a couple of food carts providing meals and caffeine for hungry scientists, the atrium is designed as a semi-public space where ideas can be exchanged and fertile minds allowed time to puzzle over new problems before disappearing back into the elevators waiting at the back wall. Despite the open, even inviting, feel of the place, security is tight, if discreet, with keycards needed to access even the service hallways that wait beyond, and polite security guards and occasional police officers waiting to discourage those without a reason to be present.
[Exits : [O]ut, [CSU] Headquarters - NYPD, and [Ele]vators]
[Players : Bahir ]
It's rather late of an evening, but science and scientists are not bound to the puny idea of 'nine to five' that restrict the workings of mere mortals! The lights of the McClintock Center blaze to all hours, aided and abetted by the 24 hour service of the CSU. And where there is science, there must be coffee. Taking a break while a lot of tiny little test tubes replicate their transgenic contents, Dr. Grey is partaking of said coffee, queued in a small line at the cart with a newspaper tucked, unread, in the crook of one lab-coated arm (Fie on taking them off outside the lab. Labcoats are too cool for safety.) and fending off subtle inquiries over the fate of the sudoku puzzle within from the fellow behind her in line.
Bahir does not have a lab coat. He has an overcoat, despite the warmth that has natives changing to lighter jackets. The wool is heavy and warm, but he has forgone scarf and gloves in deference to spring's slow advance. His hands are tucked into his pockets, dark charcoal open against the vivid pink of his hoodie and dark line of his jeans. His shirt beneath is a lime green. He walks a familiar path to Gradient Genetech but checks his advance when the unfolding of telepathy to send advance greeting finds Jean elsewhere. He knocks, rocking back on his heels as he turns to find her. << Doctor Grey. >>
"You can have the Sudoku -if- the crossword's hard enough that I don't finish it before my PCR run's done." Negotiations have intensified over the puzzle, with the supplicant going so far as to jokingly offer a spare lab assistant. Said lab assistant glowers. But the line moves onwards, and with it, Bahir's mindvoice comes a-calling. Jean offers her colleague a small smile, and turns away, ostensibly to study the chalked menu of coffee types she's long since memorized. << Bahir! >> she greets, her own tone a touch more flooded with emotional cues than usual, control just a touch patchy, stressed ever so slightly by what ought to be effortless. But those emotional cues seem pleased enough to see him, even if there's a reflexive analysis, whisper-soft, of Bahir-Emma-Circle-Trouble? << Finally got tired of greener pastures and came to visit? >>
An absent thread of empathy soothes away analysis, folding back the concern; the touch of Bahir's mind is fairly controlled, blend of emotion behind his shields muted to a neutral goodwill. << Hah. Greener pastures. No -- not really, at least. I think my pastures are full of rocks. >> Undertones and associations clarify which pastures: research, not circle; academics, not cloak-and-dagger. << Or at least a few. I'm having trouble plowing -- this metaphor is getting bizarre, isn't it? I called ahead and talked to Sam. She said you were still in, and not overrun, so I thought I would stop by. Have a minute? >>
Jean's expression is unseen, turned to the coffee cart as she is, but the dry amusement at empathy's touch is clear enough across the mind, and so the smile accompanying can be easily guessed at. "Grande caramel macchiato," she orders, as her turn comes up. "And two of the monster cookies." Letting green eyes drift half-closed behind her reading glasses, she pays up, then steps aside to wait for her half of the monetary exchange. << The best metaphors are left reasonably unexamined, >> she assures, before sneaking a glance at her wrist watch. << And... I've got 84 minutes left that I can offer you. More, if you help me unload my PCR tubes. >>
<< Will you pay me? >> Tones of teasing threading through his words, Bahir meanders in the direction of the cart to eye the handfulls as Jean exchanges money for goods, paper already in her arm. "Need a hand?" he offers. "Good to see, Doctor Grey," he adds aloud for the poor non-telepaths of the world.
<< Like you need the money, >> Even in teasing, light and with a crooked grin over her shoulder, there is an awareness of who holds Bahir's leash. It is not, in fact, Jean. "Likewise, Bahir." she agrees, switching over to speech with a smooth smile. "And sure... if you promise to keep the sudoku out of enemy hands." The newspaper is transferred over, and Jean collects cookies and coffee mug, now brimming with freshly-brewed caffeine. "But want to grab a seat by the fountain and catch me up on your research?"
Bahir acknowledges silence with a certain smugness due to a well-funded graduate student. "Enemy hands, is it?" Taking the newspaper, he scans over the pages, starting below the fold and then flipping up to the top. Unease jars across his shields and he follows after Jean absently as he reads the front page article, unfolding the paper as he settles next to her at the fountain. Seat taken. Catching up? Delayed. "Huh?"
I don't understand that.
"Perkins in suite 620 is too cheap to buy his own paper," Jean explains, floating Bahir one of the cookies with an absent flick of her hand, and then promptly paling at the normally-effortless movement and dropping the cookie on his lap with more speed than finesse. A gulp of heavily-sugared coffee is taken, along with a sigh. "I think the worst part of this whole 'flu strain is the recovery afterwards," she admits, before late-breaking realization informs her than Bahir is distracted. Articulate in the extreme, she inquires "What?"
"Tell me about it. Recovery was a bitch. I didn't even have it that bad," Bahir says, taking the cookie with a twitch of a smile. He breaks off half and then offers her the other half with one hand, while with the other, he offers the paper: folded to highlight the article in question. "Catchy headline."
I don't understand that.
"I'm just glad I managed to be isolated away from the students before they could apparently catch it," There's a pause, Jean's expression hollow as she considers an entire mansion of wee little mutants, all with powers firing off at random moments. The image, leaked past recovering shields, is vivid. It soon dissolves into abstract and absent concentration once distracted with a paper, however. Dr. Grey settles into skimming. She does not whip out a highlighter. Empathy tracks and pulses a slow shift from abstract interest to very concrete irritation, building as the short article reaches its conclusions. Crisp and crackling at the end, she hands the paper back for Bahir to read. "Well," quoth Jean. "I have to say I'm not surprised at the -government-."
"Happened elsewhere. Did you hear about that safehouse out in Pennsylvania?" Bahir gives a miniature shudder. "That was bad enough. Didn't have a fifth the number of the school." He takes a bite of his cookie as Jean reads, watching, and reading the pulse of her mood absently. A certain grimness settles over his features as he takes it back to skim over again. "I'm a little surprised--" << Well. Surprised that I didn't know about it. >> Thoughts form Circles, pointedly. "You know, I read that journal, too. Just hadn't picked it up yet."
<< No matter how big the web, there are always other spiders. >> A chess piece bobs in a large spiderweb, wrapped like a fly. Fingers crumbling a bit of cookie free, Jean nibbles it, eyes closing again to focus on the feel of a sugar rush, and try and defuse her own tension before it can cause problems. It's only moderately successful. "I can't believe the editors let them publish. I mean, name one bit of ethics of consent that -doesn't- call into question! MRA isn't some shopping list for-- -Christ-," Jean concludes, not dignifying the topic with another word. For the moment. The cookie, monstrous in size though it is, dies a rapid, violent death.
Bahir watches the cookie's passage with idle fascination. His ire is a mild thing next to Jean's, with more tones of, 'Why didn't I know--?' than, 'Damn lack of ethics!' "Well. Why not? I bet they could search a database and find everyone with blue eyes," he says, deadpan advocate for the devil.
"Just wait until I tell Moira..." The silence didn't last long, as a Jean now decidedly irritable lights upon an idea most entrancing. Sadly, she appears so entranced that she ignores or misses Bahir's comment entirely.
<< You could write a stern letter to the editor, >> Bahir suggests, mouth occupied with cookie. He touches on the name, Moira, with idle curiosity.
"MacTaggart," Jean supplies, as she doesn't have a cookie any more. She does have coffee, however, and sips at it, the better to channel her green-eyed glowering over the edge of the travel mug. << I could, I can, and I will. I don't give a shit if slippery slope arguments are bad philosophy, they've been bad in practical circumstance anywhere MRA's been, and that's on top of the idea that it's all right to torpedo good sampling ethics and the right to consent if the situation's pressing enough! >> Telepathy has the advantage that one needn't pause for breath. Beneath/behind the driven words, Jean's mind crackles, familiar flame motifs appearing.
Bahir's unease when flame makes its show does not take telepathy to sense -- although it helps. He angles his body ever so slightly away, legs crossing in the betraying language of the body. "Ah. Right. I forgot you knew her." He rubs at the bridge of his nose. << 9/11 saw these same sorts of things, you know. I mean, not the /exact/ same, but it really doesn't surprise me. >>
"Know her, strange sort of surrogate daughter to her..." Jean tips a hand vaguely, but is not to be distracted. << A lack of surprise doesn't mean it should be left lying. >> she opines, before slipping back to vocalizing, and slurping her coffee. The flames persist, but don't intensify. 'Nor do they leave the mental realms. "Even at the height of 9/11 hysteria, -scientists- weren't combing lists of Arab immigrants, looking for God knows what. The government doesn't have ethical standards. We do. Those -august- researchers should have said 'Thanks, but no thanks'." she decides, with enough vitriol to turn a few heads, even over the rush and splash of the fountain.
Bahir sits silently, his expression caught somewhere /around/ amused, but not quite there. He waits as attention turns away, looking bland, and speaks silently. Heavy irony pervades all. << Yes, but most Arabs require some sort of outside help to go blowing other people up. Mutants don't. I wonder if I could use my special access to the database to find patients when my PhD project proceeds to human trials! >>
Jean snorts irritably. "Not on my bloody watch," says she, even if what she's watching is far from the hallowed halls of the government and the CDC. "I need to get their names," she decides. "If a single one of them is on Gradient's client list, no more mice for them."
"Harsh." A grin teases at the corners of Bahir's lips as he ducks his head, hair in need of a curling forward in a fall as he finishes off the last of his cookie half. "What do you think about it, though? Aside from the ethics."
"I'd need to read the study," Jean admits, the flames dying to embers, broody and biding their time. Outwardly, she settles as well, the straight rise of her spine slipping to a comfortable lean against a marble upright. "But the premise isn't all that surprising to anyone in the community," By the mental colour, it's not a community of scientists she refers to. "If they'd actually bothered to pull their own sample -- for God's sake, the -Safehouses- give enough of a population -- and -get- individual consent for the case studies, I'd have nothing to complain about."
"These," Bahir says solemnly, "are going to be very /scathing/ letters to the editor, won't they?"
"Cathartic," is the word Jean chooses to use. She manages a smile.
"Sometimes science can be cutthroat." Stating the obvious, Bahir shrugs. "Maybe they were afraid if they followed /proper/ procedure, they'd get scooped. A friend of mine, math student, just had her thesis published -- by someone else. I'm a little terrified the same will happen to mine, which -- if you are done being outraged -- I'd like to talk to you about, Doctor Grey." His smile is somewhat sheepish for the abrupt shift.
"If you can't balance competition with ethics, you have no business being within ten feet of a lab." Jean is clearly not done being outraged, evidenced by the low grumble to her tone, and the rumble of building, banking storm fronts within her thoughts, but does consent to give a nod, and rise from her seat by the fountain, only lightly misted with spray. "That's a shame about your friend, though -- are there at least alternate applications to her theory?" Towards the elevators she nods. << We can talk upstairs. Less curious ears. >>
Bahir, due to his backwards lean, is a little more than misted -- but his coat saves him from dampness, and he rises next to her with a nod. "Probably, but I wouldn't dare suggest it to her. She's taking it all very hard!" He is being sarcastic. Voice and mind drip with it -- and also with a certain sympathy, as he would take it hard too. He follows Jean to the elevator, already falling into technobabble.
"No... -really-?" Jean asks, rhetorical, although not without a sympathetic follow-up of her own. "If she needs a bottle of the good stuff, I have a line on aged Scotch." And with that offer of alcohol by proxy, the elevator doors open, and the technobabble doubles in density.
Jean and Bahir read the paper. Strangely enough, the crossword doesn't get done.
X-Men: Movieverse 2 - Friday, February 23, 2007, 10:37 PM
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=NYC= The Sanctuary - McLaughlin Alley - Greenwich Village
Accessible through one of the nondescript doorways from the filthy, unpopulated alleyway outside, those who find their way to The Sanctuary usually have been pointed in the right direction. The single room of the coffee joint is deceptively large, despite the only natural lighting being from a pair of windows almost too grimy to see through. The remaining dimness is cured effectively, however, by a series of well-placed wall sconces amidst bookshelves and abstract paintings by little-known local artists. The main counter with its impressive menu of caffeinated goodness dominates most of one wall, but arranged in the still plentiful leftover space are any number of seating arrangements from small, iron-wrought tables and chairs to a battered old couch and stained table as well as patched and repatched beanbag furniture.
But the focus of The Sanctuary is not so much its comfortable atmosphere as the eccentric crowd it runs with. A crowd so eccentric, in fact, that it's no secret to the patrons of this joint that the majority of them are mutants. No doubt the owners and operators of the shop are mutants themselves, and in this easygoing crowd it's not uncommon to have your double espresso served to you by a fellow with three eyes and a tail.
As the day draws into evenings, those who linger in the shop at this hour may begin to detect a rhythmic pulse of music from underfoot. Not loud or obtrusive, per say, but present nonetheless, and wanting of investigation.
[Exits : [O]ut and [U]nderground [S]anctuary]
The Sanctuary has wireless. The Sanctuary has coffee. The Sanctuary has tables, chairs, a few power bars, and, currently, an open mike night going on off to one side. There are a pair of bongo drums. What The Sanctuary does -not- have is a single current student of Xavier's School for Gifted Youngsters. Thus, The Sanctuary has one Jean Grey, closeted with a large black coffee, three sugars, and a manic energy in the wake of recovering from Mutant 'Flu. Tappity-tappity-tappity, pause. She murmurs to herself, reading a line back, and then tappity-tappity-tappity begins anew. Reading glasses sliding down her nose, hair back in a butterfly clip it's trying its best to escape from, she could easily pass for any of the local aspiring authours that dot the coffee shop.
Elliott, on the other hand, is more likely to be taken for a frantic college student fast approaching deadline, hunched as she is over her own computer, lower lip clenched firmly between her teeth as pores over a block of text on her own screen - tilted carefully so that no one might easily spy the possibly-embarassing wiki page. She frowns suddenly, straightening with a grumble as publicly acessible wireless does what publicly acessible wireless does: flickers at the most inopportune time. "Damnit."
"The broadcast point's over here," Jean calls from somewhere behind Elliott's shoulder. The cry of the wireless-denied is unmistakeable. Moreso if one's decided that a certain level of surface thoughts and emotions are just going to have to be put up with, if one is Jean Grey and one wants an evening out. Tappity-tappity-tappity. "God damn it, Word, leave my grammar alone."
"I think it just wants me to give up," Elliott replies ruefully. "Possibly it takes offense to researching Victorian clothing." She gives the screen a glance, then closes the laptop. Click. "Oh, God. Word. I just disable the grammar check myself - any time I use its suggestions, it comes out looking like I've got the communication skills of a dull-witted five year old who speaks English as a seventh language, after pig latin." It is here that she pauses and glances back over her shoulder to see to whom she is speaking. There is a pause, and a blink of vague familiarity that has not yet crystallized into embarassed recognition.
Jean is lacking in a three year old today, after all. She shuffles over a stack of papers, the top of which appears to be a preliminary report on some long chain of numbers and letters and Latin italics that, by the CDC logo on the top corner, is probably a disease. "If you want to sit closer to the broadcast point, there's room here," she offers. "I know the network from the next building over plays hell with my card if I'm anywhere near the fringes of it -- and I just upgraded to Office 2007. It took me 20 minutes to find where they moved the print option."
Elliott feigns a look of horrified pity. "Find a priest," she suggests. "Quickly, before it has time to breed." Her laptop, coffee, and backpack are gathered, a touch precariously, as she shuffles over to make use of the offered room. "Thanks. I usually sit over there without any problems. Wonder if my card's dying; it's been acting up a lot lately." Brown eyes flick down almost compulsively to take in the visible papers. She cannot make heads nor tails of the content at a glance (or upside down), but the logo's clear enough. She blinks once, gaze tracking back to Jean. The report perhaps makes up for the lack of a three year old. Meep.
"Prima Donnas of the computer world," is Jean's verdict on wireless cards, albeit while giving her own laptop a reassuring pat to let it know that it's loved and appreciated. She returns to her typing, ignoring the green underlines of doom, until the feeling of recognition ripples over from across the table. Busted. She looks back up with a sheepish smile, and then focuses more intently on Elliott's face. "Wait..." she says. "I know you from somewhere."
"The Park," Elliott supplies quickly, cheeks colouring reflexively under the increased scrutiny. "Your little boy snuck out of the playground to make friends with my dog, a few weeks ago?" Her flush deepens almost as soon as the words are out of her mouth. << Way to sound like a crazy fangirl. >> "Um. I'm Elliott. Schrodinger's person."
The words prompt memories, and Jean soon replaces the intent look with a snap of her fingers and a relieved laugh. "Marieta Elliott," she agrees. "Good, I'm not going crazy." There's perhaps a little more relief at the normally-joking phrase than anothe rmight imbue it with, but only a little, and only for a moment. "Good to see you again -- Schroedinger not allowed coffee?"
Elliott winces slightly at the mental image conjured by that, the gesture mostly feigned, judging by the persistant twitching at the corners of her lips. "Oh, God. He's hyper enough without it. I think he'd probably sprout wings and fly around the Statue of Liberty if I let him get within lapping distance of caffeine!"
"Thus prompting a new strain of panicking media reports. The flu has jumped species to dogs, and is turning them into mutants." There's irony there. Just a bit. With her lips thinning, Jean turns back to her typing, clattering away with renewed vengeance.
"As long as they don't develop telekinesis. Too many people overfeed their dogs without the dogs being able to reach the cookies on the tall shelves." Elliott's gaze veers back towards the stack of papers, drawn as though by some strange form of magnetism. "Is..." She stops, nose wrinkling, then clears her throat. "Is there something serious to worry about, with the flu? --In mutants, I mean. Not dogs."
Jean's immediate answer is an indeterminate noise, and a wave of one hand. More coherently, she answers a beat later that "The 'flu itself is no worse than any other bad strain of it, in my experience. This was just a bad strain, which means that some people were hit hard by it. And since mutants are people, some mutants were hit hard too. You just -notice- the mutants," she reflects. "Higher energy requirements. I apparently left one or two of my students thinking the woods around the school are haunted. Speaking of telekinesis." Her fingers have stopped typing as she talks, the better to pitch her tone to even and easy.
If Elliott is not precisely hiding behind her mug of mocha, it is still a near thing. She takes a sip, nose wrinkling a little. "I'd wondered if it was just another scare. Thus no hazmat suit." There is a note of strain to the forcibly light tone, honesty strung amongst the humour. "There weren't ghost stories already? I thought all boarding schools had ghost stories."
"It's a good reason to make sure you get your 'flu shot," is Jean's advice, medically predictable as she turns back to her laptop. Tappity-tappity-tappity, pause... "Have you read the latest news about the Mutant Flu?" she wonders, apropos of something.
Elliott huffs softly, levity giving way, if briefly, to a grimace. "About the correlation study? Yeah, I've read it. I. Um. Try to keep up on the news." She takes another gulp of mocha, coughing when it does not consent to following the proper channels for liquid intake. Mmm, coffee-lung.
Jean doesn't say what she was intending, attention instead caught by the coughing. Sitting up and leaning forward, she wonders instead a concerned "Are you all right? I can't perform emergency surgery in a coffee shop, y'know..."
Elliott waves the hand not clutching her cup, a fluttering gesture of attempted reassurance. "Fine," she replies hoarsely, cheeks colouring from more than the coughing jag. "I. Um. Apparently don't know how to not drink and breathe at the same time?"
"I'm sure there's a mutation out there that allows for it," Jean reflects, slowly easing back into her seat again, and picking up the top report from her pile. "Which certain, I hesitate to call the -colleagues- of mine, probably know all about, thanks to getting their hands on access to the MRA database. I can't believe they're still allowed in a -lab-, with ethics like that!"
"I'd lay the blame mostly at the feet of the people who granted them access, myself." Elliott frowns, the expression out of place in its severity. "And hope that they had the good sense to scrub any copies of the records they might've made, or at least keep them away from anything with an external connection." Her hand, done fluttering, dips to brush along the edge of her closed laptop.
"They should have had the moral strength to say no when it was offered," is Jean's opinion, offered with a glower at her laptop screen, and the beginnings of a letter to the editor. "Their conclusions are solid. Their sampling methods... there is -no reason- to jump across the ethics of informed consent like that. The savings in time? Getting their report in a couple months early? -This- is what they violate other people's privacy-- Oooh." Jean pauses. "I like that." Tappity tappity tap.
"They probably tell themselves it's for the greater good," Elliott muses. "Easier than waiting and hoping that anyone will be willing to offer that sort of personal information to another group of people to plug into a database that may or may not actually be secure. Which doesn't make it right. But violating people's right to privacy seems to be kinda in vogue these days for a whole lot of organizations. Doesn't seem like most of the people who aren't being violated - that sounded wrong."
"Well, then I'll just have to tell them that the ends don't justify the means." Jean murmurs, distracted as she types in another sentence, and pauses to consider it. And then loses her train of thought as the end of Elliott's speech catches up to her. The dignified, driven Dr. Grey sniggers appreciatively. "Yeah," she agrees. "Just a little bit of double entendre there, perhaps."
"It wasn't intentional," Elliott assures hurriedly, ducking her head to take another swallow of her drink. This time, at least, she does not choke, though the visible blush might indicate that she might wish otherwise. Those poor capillaries are getting quite the workout "Even if it does sometimes seem like watchdog organizations want us all to just bend over and. Um. Take it."
Blushing is a useful way of testing circulatory health. Jean snorts another laugh, and shakes her head. "Quis custodiet ipsos custodes?" she wonders, more seriously. "I'm writing a few letters to the editor. It'd be nice if I could do more, but at least they'll print them, if I write them properly."
"I've been mulling over the idea of staging formal protests," Elliott admits, with a somewhat guilty air. "But I've got the horrible feeling someone, somewhere would decide it's terrorist activity. And while running a forum's useful for maintaining channels of communication within a group that seems to consider itself largely underground, it feels a little like preaching to the converted, you know?"
"There's always room for more letters to more editors... would you like a copy of the group's actual findings?" Jean wonders, hefting the printed pages. "The abstract is in reasonable english, and the methods section is where the real ethical problems are recorded."
"I can probably speak more coherently on the risk of security leaks than on ethical dilemmas regarding scientific procedure," Elliott replies a touch ruefully. "Though I've been known to write about ethics, now and then. And I do have to confess to being curious about just what's going on - the news has a habit of slanting things."
Jean's answer takes the form of scribbling an email address at the top of the paper, before handing it over, saving her document, and closing her laptop. "Then have fun reading it from the source... and that's my email there, if oyu get hung up on any technobabble."
Elliott's smile is startled, though bright. "Thanks. Hopefully the research sites won't fail me - though if they do, I guess it's probably just karmic retribution for the technobabble I inflict on the unwary."
"Then happy reading," Jean bids, and rises from her seat, the better to stow her laptop in her bag, and take her leave "And enjoy the wireless, if yo can get it to cooperate."
Definitely grumpy letters to the editor.
A group of epidemiologists has determined a link between this season's strain of influenza and mutants, at least so far as A appears to affect B. I offer them my congratulations -- establishing even something that most would assume is a 'logical' conclusion is difficult, when one has to prove it to acceptable standards of scientific rigor. So congratulations to the researchers, they've put some hard work into this, and they've gotten their results.
Unfortunately for us all, what they forgot to put into their research was ethics.
It may seem like a small thing, to use the MRA database instead of taking an informed and consenting sample of the population. It would be terribly convenient, a way out of that dark hole of number crunching and hoping and praying that you get enough data to make your statistics worth the computer time needed to process them. It's a challenge that mutant researchers run into time and time again, so I can sympathize -- there just aren't enough mutants out there to be sure you'll get enough response on your first call for volunteers. Given the current social climate in this country, those mutants who can 'pass' are inclined to stay very firmly out of sight, and who can blame them?
So it must have been a great relief when the government came calling and said "Here, you can use our list." All the registered mutants in America, gathered in one neat little database? Your entire sample population handed to you with a big shiny bow on top? It's the sort of thing that scientists dream of. There are names on one list, there are names on another. Match the names of the ill with the names of the mutants, run a few statistical analyses to see if mutants are over-represented for their numbers, and you've got yourself a paper. All of a sudden, research is made easy. But that which is easy is not always that which is right.
Informed consent is one of the highest strictures of ethics where human subjects are concerned, and the people whose names are in the MRA database were neither informed they might be used as scientific subjects, and neither did they consent to it. A number of them would probably be willing to do so if asked, but asked they were not, and consent after the fact isn't consent at all. These people registered themselves in good faith because their government required it of them. That requirement alone -- it is illegal not to register -- means that the MRA database cannot be used for research purposes, because consent cannot be coerced.
So I congratulate the researchers on their hard work, but in the end, I condemn their lack of ethics. When the government offered them an easy way out, their answer should have been to say "No, thank you." and to head for the phones and get started with sampling the old fashioned way. The right way.
Dr. Jean Grey B.Sc., M.D., Ph.D
X-Men: Movieverse 2 - Thursday, February 22, 2007, 10:54 PM
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=NYC= The McClintock Center - Financial District - Manhattan
A large central atrium full of skylights and water greets visitors to this example of one of the many new buildings created to meet the growing demands of a scientific economy. The new headquarters of the NYPD's CSU division means that there's government money behind the elegant marble flooring and neoclassical design, but the rest of the seven floors of laboratories and rooftop greenhouses is owned or rented by private enterprise. With its plethora of benches and greenery surrounding the central fountain, where a sculpture suggesting DNA's double helices, and a couple of food carts providing meals and caffeine for hungry scientists, the atrium is designed as a semi-public space where ideas can be exchanged and fertile minds allowed time to puzzle over new problems before disappearing back into the elevators waiting at the back wall. Despite the open, even inviting, feel of the place, security is tight, if discreet, with keycards needed to access even the service hallways that wait beyond, and polite security guards and occasional police officers waiting to discourage those without a reason to be present.
[Exits : [O]ut, [CSU] Headquarters - NYPD, and [Ele]vators]
[Players : Bahir ]
It's rather late of an evening, but science and scientists are not bound to the puny idea of 'nine to five' that restrict the workings of mere mortals! The lights of the McClintock Center blaze to all hours, aided and abetted by the 24 hour service of the CSU. And where there is science, there must be coffee. Taking a break while a lot of tiny little test tubes replicate their transgenic contents, Dr. Grey is partaking of said coffee, queued in a small line at the cart with a newspaper tucked, unread, in the crook of one lab-coated arm (Fie on taking them off outside the lab. Labcoats are too cool for safety.) and fending off subtle inquiries over the fate of the sudoku puzzle within from the fellow behind her in line.
Bahir does not have a lab coat. He has an overcoat, despite the warmth that has natives changing to lighter jackets. The wool is heavy and warm, but he has forgone scarf and gloves in deference to spring's slow advance. His hands are tucked into his pockets, dark charcoal open against the vivid pink of his hoodie and dark line of his jeans. His shirt beneath is a lime green. He walks a familiar path to Gradient Genetech but checks his advance when the unfolding of telepathy to send advance greeting finds Jean elsewhere. He knocks, rocking back on his heels as he turns to find her. << Doctor Grey. >>
"You can have the Sudoku -if- the crossword's hard enough that I don't finish it before my PCR run's done." Negotiations have intensified over the puzzle, with the supplicant going so far as to jokingly offer a spare lab assistant. Said lab assistant glowers. But the line moves onwards, and with it, Bahir's mindvoice comes a-calling. Jean offers her colleague a small smile, and turns away, ostensibly to study the chalked menu of coffee types she's long since memorized. << Bahir! >> she greets, her own tone a touch more flooded with emotional cues than usual, control just a touch patchy, stressed ever so slightly by what ought to be effortless. But those emotional cues seem pleased enough to see him, even if there's a reflexive analysis, whisper-soft, of Bahir-Emma-Circle-Trouble? << Finally got tired of greener pastures and came to visit? >>
An absent thread of empathy soothes away analysis, folding back the concern; the touch of Bahir's mind is fairly controlled, blend of emotion behind his shields muted to a neutral goodwill. << Hah. Greener pastures. No -- not really, at least. I think my pastures are full of rocks. >> Undertones and associations clarify which pastures: research, not circle; academics, not cloak-and-dagger. << Or at least a few. I'm having trouble plowing -- this metaphor is getting bizarre, isn't it? I called ahead and talked to Sam. She said you were still in, and not overrun, so I thought I would stop by. Have a minute? >>
Jean's expression is unseen, turned to the coffee cart as she is, but the dry amusement at empathy's touch is clear enough across the mind, and so the smile accompanying can be easily guessed at. "Grande caramel macchiato," she orders, as her turn comes up. "And two of the monster cookies." Letting green eyes drift half-closed behind her reading glasses, she pays up, then steps aside to wait for her half of the monetary exchange. << The best metaphors are left reasonably unexamined, >> she assures, before sneaking a glance at her wrist watch. << And... I've got 84 minutes left that I can offer you. More, if you help me unload my PCR tubes. >>
<< Will you pay me? >> Tones of teasing threading through his words, Bahir meanders in the direction of the cart to eye the handfulls as Jean exchanges money for goods, paper already in her arm. "Need a hand?" he offers. "Good to see, Doctor Grey," he adds aloud for the poor non-telepaths of the world.
<< Like you need the money, >> Even in teasing, light and with a crooked grin over her shoulder, there is an awareness of who holds Bahir's leash. It is not, in fact, Jean. "Likewise, Bahir." she agrees, switching over to speech with a smooth smile. "And sure... if you promise to keep the sudoku out of enemy hands." The newspaper is transferred over, and Jean collects cookies and coffee mug, now brimming with freshly-brewed caffeine. "But want to grab a seat by the fountain and catch me up on your research?"
Bahir acknowledges silence with a certain smugness due to a well-funded graduate student. "Enemy hands, is it?" Taking the newspaper, he scans over the pages, starting below the fold and then flipping up to the top. Unease jars across his shields and he follows after Jean absently as he reads the front page article, unfolding the paper as he settles next to her at the fountain. Seat taken. Catching up? Delayed. "Huh?"
I don't understand that.
"Perkins in suite 620 is too cheap to buy his own paper," Jean explains, floating Bahir one of the cookies with an absent flick of her hand, and then promptly paling at the normally-effortless movement and dropping the cookie on his lap with more speed than finesse. A gulp of heavily-sugared coffee is taken, along with a sigh. "I think the worst part of this whole 'flu strain is the recovery afterwards," she admits, before late-breaking realization informs her than Bahir is distracted. Articulate in the extreme, she inquires "What?"
"Tell me about it. Recovery was a bitch. I didn't even have it that bad," Bahir says, taking the cookie with a twitch of a smile. He breaks off half and then offers her the other half with one hand, while with the other, he offers the paper: folded to highlight the article in question. "Catchy headline."
I don't understand that.
"I'm just glad I managed to be isolated away from the students before they could apparently catch it," There's a pause, Jean's expression hollow as she considers an entire mansion of wee little mutants, all with powers firing off at random moments. The image, leaked past recovering shields, is vivid. It soon dissolves into abstract and absent concentration once distracted with a paper, however. Dr. Grey settles into skimming. She does not whip out a highlighter. Empathy tracks and pulses a slow shift from abstract interest to very concrete irritation, building as the short article reaches its conclusions. Crisp and crackling at the end, she hands the paper back for Bahir to read. "Well," quoth Jean. "I have to say I'm not surprised at the -government-."
"Happened elsewhere. Did you hear about that safehouse out in Pennsylvania?" Bahir gives a miniature shudder. "That was bad enough. Didn't have a fifth the number of the school." He takes a bite of his cookie as Jean reads, watching, and reading the pulse of her mood absently. A certain grimness settles over his features as he takes it back to skim over again. "I'm a little surprised--" << Well. Surprised that I didn't know about it. >> Thoughts form Circles, pointedly. "You know, I read that journal, too. Just hadn't picked it up yet."
<< No matter how big the web, there are always other spiders. >> A chess piece bobs in a large spiderweb, wrapped like a fly. Fingers crumbling a bit of cookie free, Jean nibbles it, eyes closing again to focus on the feel of a sugar rush, and try and defuse her own tension before it can cause problems. It's only moderately successful. "I can't believe the editors let them publish. I mean, name one bit of ethics of consent that -doesn't- call into question! MRA isn't some shopping list for-- -Christ-," Jean concludes, not dignifying the topic with another word. For the moment. The cookie, monstrous in size though it is, dies a rapid, violent death.
Bahir watches the cookie's passage with idle fascination. His ire is a mild thing next to Jean's, with more tones of, 'Why didn't I know--?' than, 'Damn lack of ethics!' "Well. Why not? I bet they could search a database and find everyone with blue eyes," he says, deadpan advocate for the devil.
"Just wait until I tell Moira..." The silence didn't last long, as a Jean now decidedly irritable lights upon an idea most entrancing. Sadly, she appears so entranced that she ignores or misses Bahir's comment entirely.
<< You could write a stern letter to the editor, >> Bahir suggests, mouth occupied with cookie. He touches on the name, Moira, with idle curiosity.
"MacTaggart," Jean supplies, as she doesn't have a cookie any more. She does have coffee, however, and sips at it, the better to channel her green-eyed glowering over the edge of the travel mug. << I could, I can, and I will. I don't give a shit if slippery slope arguments are bad philosophy, they've been bad in practical circumstance anywhere MRA's been, and that's on top of the idea that it's all right to torpedo good sampling ethics and the right to consent if the situation's pressing enough! >> Telepathy has the advantage that one needn't pause for breath. Beneath/behind the driven words, Jean's mind crackles, familiar flame motifs appearing.
Bahir's unease when flame makes its show does not take telepathy to sense -- although it helps. He angles his body ever so slightly away, legs crossing in the betraying language of the body. "Ah. Right. I forgot you knew her." He rubs at the bridge of his nose. << 9/11 saw these same sorts of things, you know. I mean, not the /exact/ same, but it really doesn't surprise me. >>
"Know her, strange sort of surrogate daughter to her..." Jean tips a hand vaguely, but is not to be distracted. << A lack of surprise doesn't mean it should be left lying. >> she opines, before slipping back to vocalizing, and slurping her coffee. The flames persist, but don't intensify. 'Nor do they leave the mental realms. "Even at the height of 9/11 hysteria, -scientists- weren't combing lists of Arab immigrants, looking for God knows what. The government doesn't have ethical standards. We do. Those -august- researchers should have said 'Thanks, but no thanks'." she decides, with enough vitriol to turn a few heads, even over the rush and splash of the fountain.
Bahir sits silently, his expression caught somewhere /around/ amused, but not quite there. He waits as attention turns away, looking bland, and speaks silently. Heavy irony pervades all. << Yes, but most Arabs require some sort of outside help to go blowing other people up. Mutants don't. I wonder if I could use my special access to the database to find patients when my PhD project proceeds to human trials! >>
Jean snorts irritably. "Not on my bloody watch," says she, even if what she's watching is far from the hallowed halls of the government and the CDC. "I need to get their names," she decides. "If a single one of them is on Gradient's client list, no more mice for them."
"Harsh." A grin teases at the corners of Bahir's lips as he ducks his head, hair in need of a curling forward in a fall as he finishes off the last of his cookie half. "What do you think about it, though? Aside from the ethics."
"I'd need to read the study," Jean admits, the flames dying to embers, broody and biding their time. Outwardly, she settles as well, the straight rise of her spine slipping to a comfortable lean against a marble upright. "But the premise isn't all that surprising to anyone in the community," By the mental colour, it's not a community of scientists she refers to. "If they'd actually bothered to pull their own sample -- for God's sake, the -Safehouses- give enough of a population -- and -get- individual consent for the case studies, I'd have nothing to complain about."
"These," Bahir says solemnly, "are going to be very /scathing/ letters to the editor, won't they?"
"Cathartic," is the word Jean chooses to use. She manages a smile.
"Sometimes science can be cutthroat." Stating the obvious, Bahir shrugs. "Maybe they were afraid if they followed /proper/ procedure, they'd get scooped. A friend of mine, math student, just had her thesis published -- by someone else. I'm a little terrified the same will happen to mine, which -- if you are done being outraged -- I'd like to talk to you about, Doctor Grey." His smile is somewhat sheepish for the abrupt shift.
"If you can't balance competition with ethics, you have no business being within ten feet of a lab." Jean is clearly not done being outraged, evidenced by the low grumble to her tone, and the rumble of building, banking storm fronts within her thoughts, but does consent to give a nod, and rise from her seat by the fountain, only lightly misted with spray. "That's a shame about your friend, though -- are there at least alternate applications to her theory?" Towards the elevators she nods. << We can talk upstairs. Less curious ears. >>
Bahir, due to his backwards lean, is a little more than misted -- but his coat saves him from dampness, and he rises next to her with a nod. "Probably, but I wouldn't dare suggest it to her. She's taking it all very hard!" He is being sarcastic. Voice and mind drip with it -- and also with a certain sympathy, as he would take it hard too. He follows Jean to the elevator, already falling into technobabble.
"No... -really-?" Jean asks, rhetorical, although not without a sympathetic follow-up of her own. "If she needs a bottle of the good stuff, I have a line on aged Scotch." And with that offer of alcohol by proxy, the elevator doors open, and the technobabble doubles in density.
Jean and Bahir read the paper. Strangely enough, the crossword doesn't get done.
X-Men: Movieverse 2 - Friday, February 23, 2007, 10:37 PM
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=NYC= The Sanctuary - McLaughlin Alley - Greenwich Village
Accessible through one of the nondescript doorways from the filthy, unpopulated alleyway outside, those who find their way to The Sanctuary usually have been pointed in the right direction. The single room of the coffee joint is deceptively large, despite the only natural lighting being from a pair of windows almost too grimy to see through. The remaining dimness is cured effectively, however, by a series of well-placed wall sconces amidst bookshelves and abstract paintings by little-known local artists. The main counter with its impressive menu of caffeinated goodness dominates most of one wall, but arranged in the still plentiful leftover space are any number of seating arrangements from small, iron-wrought tables and chairs to a battered old couch and stained table as well as patched and repatched beanbag furniture.
But the focus of The Sanctuary is not so much its comfortable atmosphere as the eccentric crowd it runs with. A crowd so eccentric, in fact, that it's no secret to the patrons of this joint that the majority of them are mutants. No doubt the owners and operators of the shop are mutants themselves, and in this easygoing crowd it's not uncommon to have your double espresso served to you by a fellow with three eyes and a tail.
As the day draws into evenings, those who linger in the shop at this hour may begin to detect a rhythmic pulse of music from underfoot. Not loud or obtrusive, per say, but present nonetheless, and wanting of investigation.
[Exits : [O]ut and [U]nderground [S]anctuary]
The Sanctuary has wireless. The Sanctuary has coffee. The Sanctuary has tables, chairs, a few power bars, and, currently, an open mike night going on off to one side. There are a pair of bongo drums. What The Sanctuary does -not- have is a single current student of Xavier's School for Gifted Youngsters. Thus, The Sanctuary has one Jean Grey, closeted with a large black coffee, three sugars, and a manic energy in the wake of recovering from Mutant 'Flu. Tappity-tappity-tappity, pause. She murmurs to herself, reading a line back, and then tappity-tappity-tappity begins anew. Reading glasses sliding down her nose, hair back in a butterfly clip it's trying its best to escape from, she could easily pass for any of the local aspiring authours that dot the coffee shop.
Elliott, on the other hand, is more likely to be taken for a frantic college student fast approaching deadline, hunched as she is over her own computer, lower lip clenched firmly between her teeth as pores over a block of text on her own screen - tilted carefully so that no one might easily spy the possibly-embarassing wiki page. She frowns suddenly, straightening with a grumble as publicly acessible wireless does what publicly acessible wireless does: flickers at the most inopportune time. "Damnit."
"The broadcast point's over here," Jean calls from somewhere behind Elliott's shoulder. The cry of the wireless-denied is unmistakeable. Moreso if one's decided that a certain level of surface thoughts and emotions are just going to have to be put up with, if one is Jean Grey and one wants an evening out. Tappity-tappity-tappity. "God damn it, Word, leave my grammar alone."
"I think it just wants me to give up," Elliott replies ruefully. "Possibly it takes offense to researching Victorian clothing." She gives the screen a glance, then closes the laptop. Click. "Oh, God. Word. I just disable the grammar check myself - any time I use its suggestions, it comes out looking like I've got the communication skills of a dull-witted five year old who speaks English as a seventh language, after pig latin." It is here that she pauses and glances back over her shoulder to see to whom she is speaking. There is a pause, and a blink of vague familiarity that has not yet crystallized into embarassed recognition.
Jean is lacking in a three year old today, after all. She shuffles over a stack of papers, the top of which appears to be a preliminary report on some long chain of numbers and letters and Latin italics that, by the CDC logo on the top corner, is probably a disease. "If you want to sit closer to the broadcast point, there's room here," she offers. "I know the network from the next building over plays hell with my card if I'm anywhere near the fringes of it -- and I just upgraded to Office 2007. It took me 20 minutes to find where they moved the print option."
Elliott feigns a look of horrified pity. "Find a priest," she suggests. "Quickly, before it has time to breed." Her laptop, coffee, and backpack are gathered, a touch precariously, as she shuffles over to make use of the offered room. "Thanks. I usually sit over there without any problems. Wonder if my card's dying; it's been acting up a lot lately." Brown eyes flick down almost compulsively to take in the visible papers. She cannot make heads nor tails of the content at a glance (or upside down), but the logo's clear enough. She blinks once, gaze tracking back to Jean. The report perhaps makes up for the lack of a three year old. Meep.
"Prima Donnas of the computer world," is Jean's verdict on wireless cards, albeit while giving her own laptop a reassuring pat to let it know that it's loved and appreciated. She returns to her typing, ignoring the green underlines of doom, until the feeling of recognition ripples over from across the table. Busted. She looks back up with a sheepish smile, and then focuses more intently on Elliott's face. "Wait..." she says. "I know you from somewhere."
"The Park," Elliott supplies quickly, cheeks colouring reflexively under the increased scrutiny. "Your little boy snuck out of the playground to make friends with my dog, a few weeks ago?" Her flush deepens almost as soon as the words are out of her mouth. << Way to sound like a crazy fangirl. >> "Um. I'm Elliott. Schrodinger's person."
The words prompt memories, and Jean soon replaces the intent look with a snap of her fingers and a relieved laugh. "Marieta Elliott," she agrees. "Good, I'm not going crazy." There's perhaps a little more relief at the normally-joking phrase than anothe rmight imbue it with, but only a little, and only for a moment. "Good to see you again -- Schroedinger not allowed coffee?"
Elliott winces slightly at the mental image conjured by that, the gesture mostly feigned, judging by the persistant twitching at the corners of her lips. "Oh, God. He's hyper enough without it. I think he'd probably sprout wings and fly around the Statue of Liberty if I let him get within lapping distance of caffeine!"
"Thus prompting a new strain of panicking media reports. The flu has jumped species to dogs, and is turning them into mutants." There's irony there. Just a bit. With her lips thinning, Jean turns back to her typing, clattering away with renewed vengeance.
"As long as they don't develop telekinesis. Too many people overfeed their dogs without the dogs being able to reach the cookies on the tall shelves." Elliott's gaze veers back towards the stack of papers, drawn as though by some strange form of magnetism. "Is..." She stops, nose wrinkling, then clears her throat. "Is there something serious to worry about, with the flu? --In mutants, I mean. Not dogs."
Jean's immediate answer is an indeterminate noise, and a wave of one hand. More coherently, she answers a beat later that "The 'flu itself is no worse than any other bad strain of it, in my experience. This was just a bad strain, which means that some people were hit hard by it. And since mutants are people, some mutants were hit hard too. You just -notice- the mutants," she reflects. "Higher energy requirements. I apparently left one or two of my students thinking the woods around the school are haunted. Speaking of telekinesis." Her fingers have stopped typing as she talks, the better to pitch her tone to even and easy.
If Elliott is not precisely hiding behind her mug of mocha, it is still a near thing. She takes a sip, nose wrinkling a little. "I'd wondered if it was just another scare. Thus no hazmat suit." There is a note of strain to the forcibly light tone, honesty strung amongst the humour. "There weren't ghost stories already? I thought all boarding schools had ghost stories."
"It's a good reason to make sure you get your 'flu shot," is Jean's advice, medically predictable as she turns back to her laptop. Tappity-tappity-tappity, pause... "Have you read the latest news about the Mutant Flu?" she wonders, apropos of something.
Elliott huffs softly, levity giving way, if briefly, to a grimace. "About the correlation study? Yeah, I've read it. I. Um. Try to keep up on the news." She takes another gulp of mocha, coughing when it does not consent to following the proper channels for liquid intake. Mmm, coffee-lung.
Jean doesn't say what she was intending, attention instead caught by the coughing. Sitting up and leaning forward, she wonders instead a concerned "Are you all right? I can't perform emergency surgery in a coffee shop, y'know..."
Elliott waves the hand not clutching her cup, a fluttering gesture of attempted reassurance. "Fine," she replies hoarsely, cheeks colouring from more than the coughing jag. "I. Um. Apparently don't know how to not drink and breathe at the same time?"
"I'm sure there's a mutation out there that allows for it," Jean reflects, slowly easing back into her seat again, and picking up the top report from her pile. "Which certain, I hesitate to call the -colleagues- of mine, probably know all about, thanks to getting their hands on access to the MRA database. I can't believe they're still allowed in a -lab-, with ethics like that!"
"I'd lay the blame mostly at the feet of the people who granted them access, myself." Elliott frowns, the expression out of place in its severity. "And hope that they had the good sense to scrub any copies of the records they might've made, or at least keep them away from anything with an external connection." Her hand, done fluttering, dips to brush along the edge of her closed laptop.
"They should have had the moral strength to say no when it was offered," is Jean's opinion, offered with a glower at her laptop screen, and the beginnings of a letter to the editor. "Their conclusions are solid. Their sampling methods... there is -no reason- to jump across the ethics of informed consent like that. The savings in time? Getting their report in a couple months early? -This- is what they violate other people's privacy-- Oooh." Jean pauses. "I like that." Tappity tappity tap.
"They probably tell themselves it's for the greater good," Elliott muses. "Easier than waiting and hoping that anyone will be willing to offer that sort of personal information to another group of people to plug into a database that may or may not actually be secure. Which doesn't make it right. But violating people's right to privacy seems to be kinda in vogue these days for a whole lot of organizations. Doesn't seem like most of the people who aren't being violated - that sounded wrong."
"Well, then I'll just have to tell them that the ends don't justify the means." Jean murmurs, distracted as she types in another sentence, and pauses to consider it. And then loses her train of thought as the end of Elliott's speech catches up to her. The dignified, driven Dr. Grey sniggers appreciatively. "Yeah," she agrees. "Just a little bit of double entendre there, perhaps."
"It wasn't intentional," Elliott assures hurriedly, ducking her head to take another swallow of her drink. This time, at least, she does not choke, though the visible blush might indicate that she might wish otherwise. Those poor capillaries are getting quite the workout "Even if it does sometimes seem like watchdog organizations want us all to just bend over and. Um. Take it."
Blushing is a useful way of testing circulatory health. Jean snorts another laugh, and shakes her head. "Quis custodiet ipsos custodes?" she wonders, more seriously. "I'm writing a few letters to the editor. It'd be nice if I could do more, but at least they'll print them, if I write them properly."
"I've been mulling over the idea of staging formal protests," Elliott admits, with a somewhat guilty air. "But I've got the horrible feeling someone, somewhere would decide it's terrorist activity. And while running a forum's useful for maintaining channels of communication within a group that seems to consider itself largely underground, it feels a little like preaching to the converted, you know?"
"There's always room for more letters to more editors... would you like a copy of the group's actual findings?" Jean wonders, hefting the printed pages. "The abstract is in reasonable english, and the methods section is where the real ethical problems are recorded."
"I can probably speak more coherently on the risk of security leaks than on ethical dilemmas regarding scientific procedure," Elliott replies a touch ruefully. "Though I've been known to write about ethics, now and then. And I do have to confess to being curious about just what's going on - the news has a habit of slanting things."
Jean's answer takes the form of scribbling an email address at the top of the paper, before handing it over, saving her document, and closing her laptop. "Then have fun reading it from the source... and that's my email there, if oyu get hung up on any technobabble."
Elliott's smile is startled, though bright. "Thanks. Hopefully the research sites won't fail me - though if they do, I guess it's probably just karmic retribution for the technobabble I inflict on the unwary."
"Then happy reading," Jean bids, and rises from her seat, the better to stow her laptop in her bag, and take her leave "And enjoy the wireless, if yo can get it to cooperate."
Definitely grumpy letters to the editor.