Hostages and the Right to Pay Ransom

[Draggingtree]

Mises: Hostages and the Right to Pay Ransom

AUGUST 26, 2015 Mark Tovey

In late June of this year, President Obama signed an executive order and presidential directive clarifying the administration’s hostage policy. Afterward he gave a statement to the press, in which he condemned threats of prosecution against families trying to pay ransom: “the last thing we should ever do is add to a family’s pain with threats like that.”

 

This follows a review into the government’s treatment of overseas hostages, which found that the family of James Foley, the freelance journalist beheaded by ISIS in August 2014, had been told that they would be taken to court if they tried to negotiate with the terrorist group.

 

Following the review’s publication, the president was faced with three choices:

 

(1) A policy of no-concession, whereby the government not only refuses to pay ransom, but continues to threaten the prosecution of private citizens who negotiate;

 

(2) A policy of laissez-faire, whereby the government does nothing — it neither pays ransom, nor interferes with the negotiations of private citizens; and

 

(3) A policy of concession, whereby the government foots the ransom bill.