The Moral Bankruptcy of Livestreaming An Execution

Since 9/11, U.S. intelligence personnel—from analysts and law enforcement agents to interrogators and case officers—have often endured a grisly task: studying execution videos filmed by al-Qaeda or the Islamic State to positively identify the executioners.

I was one such intelligence official. In 2006, I downloaded a photograph of a man killed with a headshot by a naval Special Mission Unit and showed it to every source of mine in Iraq. I needed to determine if the deceased was al-Qaeda's emir for western al-Anbar, a terrorist who killed a young Marine lieutenant friend of mine.