'Informing' on the flu: when my flight to China landed, health officials in full protective gear took everyone's temperature with noncontact sensors. Before landing, we were given questionnaires asking if we had a fever or cough, and if we had noticed anyone with flu symptoms to provide their seat numbers. Was I obliged to inform on other passengers?

• Author: Locker, Larry
• Position: THE ETHICIST: Life's full of questions; he's got answers.

IT'S ALL in how you phrase the question. If asked whether you should "inform" on other people, the instinctive answer is no. But when asked if you have a duty to give honest answers to health officials working to deter a pandemic like swine flu, the answer is yes, you do.

Those officials were not trying to stifle anyone's free expression or political. thought. They were performing a legitimate function, worthy of cooperation.

Passengers eager to enter China might tie to hearth officials, and so the tatter were wise to seek information from multiple sources.

You might phrase the question yet another way: Should you cover up a potential disease carrier and abet the spread of flu?

UPDATE: Locker responded only generally to the health officials, that there were people seated near him who coughed frequently, but he did not give their seat numbers, as requested on the form. "I didn't finger them,'" he said.

I'M WITH YOU. Such liberties might be taken during a genuine emergency--had it been raining frogs, for example--but not if it was merely raining rain. The dangers of getting wet do not justify commandeering someone else's car.

Nor was car-squatting their only option. Your friends were in Connecticut, not up the Amazon. Had they...