The FBI is asking for help and you say no?
Yesterday a report that the FBI has released the pictures of two men who it wants to talk to was news here in Seattle. The men were behaving suspiciously on one of the local ferries and there were two pictures of them. The FBI did not give any details to the appearance of the men, it only released the pictures and asked for help identifying the two men.
It was in the blogs and on the news last night. This morning though, neither paper ran the pictures of the men. The PI said that they would not run the pictures because of civil liberties and privacy issues and the Times said nothing about it (from what I have seen). Am I missing something here? The FBI needs help identifying two men who were acting suspicious on what some people have called a very high risk potential target in the Seattle area. The paper won’t show the picture because
But running a photograph of two men who may as easily be tourists from Texas as terrorists from the Mideast with a story that makes them out to be persons of interest in a terrorism investigation seems problematic, to say the least.
Yea, the men could be from anywhere. Yes, they may be up to nothing. Yes, the FBI doesn’t often do this. But, come on are you not reporting this David McCumber because you just want to cover the story when something goes horribly wrong? Sunken ferries probably sells more than two photos of people that the FBI wants to talk to.
Here’s his explanation on why the PI is not running the pictures.
[Update] Thanks for Aaron pointing out that the article (with pictures) is now on the Seattle Times websites front page. I haven’t looked at either papers print copy today. The P-I is still standing by its choice not to show the pictures.
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Comments
otis, shame on you.
i understand the whole “reasonable expectation of privacy” argument, but these men are basically being accused of thinking about committing a crime, right? did the ferry’s sink? was any crime committed? NO. These men did nothing wrong, they don’t deserve the humiliation.
we build our society of fear around the 1% of assholes who will actually do something bad, and in turn punish the 99% who have no ill intent.
I don’t even care if they strapped a freaking box of wires to the side of the ferry, we shouldn’t be afraid of that stuff. the worst thing we can lose is our freedom and liberty, “Give me liberty or give me death” really doesn’t mean much to the sheep society we’ve managed to raise as a nation.
Of course, there’s the classic Ben Franklin line: “He who would trade liberty for some temporary security, deserves neither liberty nor security,” and the lesser known, but equally humbling: “Sell not virtue to purchase wealth, nor Liberty to purchase power.”
Release photos of criminals, not innocent people.
Its on Seattle Times website’s front page.
http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/localnews/2003847538_ferries22m.html