Ethical Conflicts Faced by Auditors

Please prepare a response post to the following:
When ethical conflicts arise in performing professional accounting services, there is only one option to go in this situation. The route that is taught to us by the standards of accounting, principles of accounting, as well as the laws, is the route that we should go. If there are options in terms of whether to cover up something bad or hide something that isn't supposed to be there, all of these could come back to hurt not only yourself, but the company as well as any stakeholders that are invested in the company. The CPA should refer back to what they have learned throughout the history of their accounting career and understand no good can come of choosing the immoral route. They know they have a duty and responsibility to always put their best foot forward in preparing the financial statements and any other information in the most accurate ways possible.
Personally I would find it very difficult to assume an auditor to be 100% objective and impartial if they are not independent from the firm they are working at. However, the SEC sees it a little bit differently in their recent rule changes regarding loosening independence requirements. About 2.5 years ago, the SEC said that the auditor's objectivity and impartiality is more important than the relationships with the companies they audit. This is an amendment to a rule which focuses more on the entire goals behind auditing instead of the housekeeping details behind the scenes. In essence, they wanted to eliminate times where auditors' relationships with the companies they are auditing has hindered the ability to make an effective and timely audit happen due to working around all of the rules. They want the option to still exist for the auditors out there who have zero problem with the independence issue and will do their job the exact same regardless of who they are auditing. I do not agree with this because if anything shouldn't be loosened, it is this concept right here. Independence has always been a battle and has always been the cornerstone of audit engagements and it is upsetting to see this statement come out from the SEC. You never want to have to question whether an auditor is being objective and impartial when preparing an audit and loosening this requirement will only make people question it more if it ever becomes an issue.