Roundtable Wrap-Up: RT 14-Wednesday

We were joined this morning by students and faculty from South River High School.This morning’s roundtable discussion began with table moderator, Donald Bowers, showing a clip of the Daily Show with Jon Stewart. The discussion then turned toward Admiral Blair and his address to the conference this morning on cyber security. Daniel, an officer in the Royal Navy, offered his insight with regard to how the United States’ stance on cyber freedom differs slightly from that of the United Kingdom. Andrea, a midshipman from the Italian Naval Academy, voiced his opinion on how positions on cyber security are relatively uniform throughout the continent of Europe. The table’s senior advisor, CDR Hodges, examined the notion of sovereignty and how it is concrete when relating to people and nations, but is blurred when dealing with information and data. The discussion naturally leads into the examination of WikiLeaks and Julian Assange’s dissemination the sensitive information. Enid, from Albania, questions how the First Amendment plays into the media’s release of information that could potentially put people’s lives at risk. Shruti, from India and studying at York College, brought up the assistance that the media unintentionally the terrorist in the 2008 Mumbai terror attacks. Lance, a midshipman from the U.S. Naval Academy, proposed that the purpose of the media was to promote free democracy based on free risk.

Donald added to the discussion through airing a Frontline special on the U.S. government run Swift program that was reveled by The New York Times in 2007 as well as the change in information policy .The group then deliberated the role that the media has in its control over the government and foreign policy. The question of whether or not media outlets should withhold sensitive information was examined. Kacie, from Virginia Tech, concluded that a media outlet’s credibility would be greatly at risk if it was ever disclosed that they were withholding information from their audience.