Daniel Pearl video available online

[Nic Name]

A person's rights, dead or alive, to control the use of one's personal image is not greater than the people's First Amendment rights to free speech and freedom of the press, and neither the preferences of the FBI nor an act of Congress can abridge that.

There are limitations on free speech, of course. But hurting the feelings of anyone, or embarassing or making uncomfortable the next of kin or anyone, is not one of them.

And if we think that's not a good system of government, there are many countries in which we could live where it is otherwise.

In a free country, we can choose what we read or view and I wouldn't choose to look at that video. But we can respect the rights of others to publish it and be thankful for those rights, which are protected by the Constitution.

In fact, as a journalist, Daniel Pearl lived and died believing in those rights and probably would be fighting for his rights to publish similar images of others if he had come back from the war zone with such a tape in hand. Surely, he wasn't where he was, doing what he was doing, believing there were some stories and images of the war that are not to be published in America.