I recently came across the above article from AOL on information that was released through Wikileaks from high-profile Guantanamo Bay detainees. One of the key findings from the documents was that in 2002, a senior Al-Qaida military commander had actually warned against killing Wall Street Journal Reporter, Daniel Pearl. If we rewind back to 2002, when Pearl was first kidnapped, taken hostage, and later decapitated, we could easily find evidence of the media firestorm that immediately followed which further galvanized American citizens into war. Though this atrocity was ascribed to Al Qaida as an organization, the documents reveal the complex power dynamics of Al- Quida's leaders and that his murder was not uniformly pre-meditated. The leaked documents also reveal damning evidence that officials at Guantanamo Bay had knowingly detained two innocent men as well as gave an eye-full into the government's questionable use of interrogation tactics on detainees. Though the Obama administration condemned the release of such high-security documents, it also begs the question of whether or not American citizens have a fundamental right to this information? The debate between security and transparency is one that has been given a lot of attention in the political sphere. How can we gauge the danger of too much transparency?
- Connie
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