The Public's Right to Know

I recently read a story The New York Times entitled, "Rare Double Agent Disrupted Bombing Plot, U.S. Says" that really struck a cord with me. The story is that intelligence agent from Saudi Arabia infiltrated the Yemen branch of Al Qaeda last month posing as a suicide bomber who was going to blow up a United-States bound airliner with Al Qaeda's latest bomb that was supposed to be undetectable.

I would have thought that the U.S. would have celebrated this achievement and used it to gain more popularity for the Obama campaign because it shows that he is tough on terrorism. Instead, U.S. intelligence officials were angry that the story got leaked because "they feared the leak would discourage foreign intelligence services from cooperating with the United States" and because leaking the story is "causing our partners to be leery about working with us." I certainly understand the argument that the intelligence officials don't want the methods that they use to become known and also that the U.S. needs to maintain a trusting relationship with other countries in order to better prevent terrorist attacks.

But isn't it also the public's right to know what is threatening their safety? Ignorance is only bliss until something goes wrong. I feel that while the facts about the double agent should not have been leaked to the public, the public should at least know that a new terrorist plot was foiled that involved a brand new harder to detect underwear bomb. How much harm could 300 million extra sets of eyes do? The news has the possibility to cause paranoia but I'd rather be on the safe side when it comes to issues like this.