The Herald and Stuff websites have published a photo of two New Zealand SAS soldiers in Kabul.
There is apparently a media convention (though this was denied by the Herald's John Roughan on Checkpoint tonight) of not identifying SAS men or operational matters relating to them.
This is tricky stuff. The Herald claims the picture was newsworthy. On the other hand, does it put the lives of our men at risk?
I must say I feel uncomfortable about the publication of this photo. Our men are in Afghanistan to do an important job, and publishing details of where they are and who they are has the potential to endanger their security. Well, that's one argument anyway. The other is that we ave a right to know what our troops are doing in our name.
Do you have a view?
Thursday, January 21, 2010
4 comments:
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It is tricky, but I do think the 'shut up' case is over-egged.
ReplyDeleteFirstly, we announced that the SAS were going so that's not a secret this time. The SAS has also come out from the shadows of late, with that TV series about their training, and the whole VC tour photo op thingy.
Neither of those are necessarily bad, but I think that if the Defence force wish to use the SAS in the media for some things, then they can't demand hushy hushy.
The enemy photographer can see them just as easily as the media photographer can. I do wonder if part of the 'secrecy' is aimed at us as much as at the enemy, who I'm pretty sure will be using their ears, eyeballs and informants as much as they are using teh herald.
But that's not to say I've got a firm, or even informed view.
I tend to err on the side of publication.
ReplyDeleteFor all its many, many faults, the NZ Herald is the closest thing New Zealand has to a national paper of record. As such, it does have a role to play in exposing the role New Zealand troops are playing overseas.
I acknowledge the concern that publication may heighten the risk that the troops face, but I don't see this as a significant risk in this case.
My intuitive response is that any risk the SAS are facing while fighting in Afghanistan is not because their photo is in the NZ Herald; it's because they're fighting in Afghanistan. General details of their presence were already known. If someone was going to target NZ soldiers, they would do so regardless of whether that soldier's photo is in the Herald or not.
That said, even the free speech lovin' United States has recognised that there may be limits to publication: see Near v Minnesota (1931) 283 US 697 "No one would question but that a government might prevent ... the publication of the sailing dates of transports or the number and location of troops."
Now I've read a bit more I think I'd also have to err on the side of publication.
ReplyDeleteOne mitigating factor is that the presence of the SAS in Kabul was already known and had been written about in the New York Times. And Apiata was already well known. It is hard to see how publication of this photo endangers anyone. The men were in uniform, not undercover.
I suspect the Taliban don't read the Herald to get their intelligence on what's going on in Kabul.
I can easily see that in some cases publication could raise issues for the security of our men, but I don't think that's the case here.
Photos of UK special forces are (or were) generally published with the faces concealed by that black bar thingy. Given that UK special forces used to work undercover in, for example, Northern Ireland, I don't think this was unreasonable. The IRA was a very switched on opponent and was more than capable of using any information they could get hold of as effective counter-intelligence. Publishing full-face photos would have put servicemen's lives at risk.
ReplyDeleteSlightly different in New Zealand, though. Domestic/semi-domestic counter-insurgency (i.e. plainclothes work) isn't an NZ SAS task.
That said, the media here could (and probably should) have published the photo with the faces obscured.
As you say, their presence is already known. Our 'right to know' has been satisfied, and their identity is concealed.
Everyone wins! Unlike the participants in a certain 'w*r on t*rr*r*sm'.