Human Rights at Home and Abroad: Past, Present, and Future

help in military efforts. In the statement released by the American Anthropological Association on the
HTS Project, it says that an anthropologist‘s inability to distinguish themselves from military personnel
places a ―significant constraint on their ability to fulfill their ethical responsibility as anthropologists to
disclose who they are and what they are doing.‖ According to the code of ethics ―anthropological
researchers must be open about the purpose, potential impacts, and source of support for research projects
with funders, colleagues, persons studied or providing information, and with relevant parties affected by
the research.‖ Anthropologists working with the military to provide them information about potential
threats from communities in Iraq or Afghanistan may not be honest to their informants about why they are
collecting information from them. This information therefore could potentially harm informants, their
families and communities. Their names and information can be released without their knowledge putting
them at risk. This violates one of the most important rules of the AAA code of ethics, which states that an
anthropologist must ―do no harm.‖ Informed Consent must also be taken into account when studying
populations during ethnographic research.
The issue with anthropologists involving themselves in the War Relocation Authority is mirrored
also with the Human Terrain System. Many violations can be seen throughout the AAA code of ethics as
well as in informed consent. In an article written in The Washington Post titled, ―Rough Terrain‖ it states
that ―Under an experimental program in Afghanistan, teams of anthropologists and social scientists are
working alongside soldiers to help win the war by winning over the Afghan people.‖ This quote tells the
main idea of the Human Terrain System. The idea that by bringing in social scientists, people that are
trained to talk with and retrieve information from individuals, they are able to learn everything about an
entirely different culture of people with plans to use this information to conquer these people. They want
to find their weak points and use that to cause destruction. This goes against the duties of an
anthropologist. Anthropologists must follow the guidelines of the American Anthropological Association
code of ethics. The code of ethics states, ―anthropological researchers must determine in advance whether
their hosts/providers of information wish to remain anonymous or receive recognition, and make every
effort to comply with those wishes.‖ Furthermore, the American Anthropological association‘s statement
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