CHARLES SENNOTT:

Well, you know, the information of the families is very closely guarded.

Our CEO, Phil Balboni at GlobalPost, my co-founder, was very, very much involved in the details, and I wasn't. And so what I know is really just through — through understanding what's been reported, what's been shared publicly. We have a lot of information we have to be very careful with.

But I can definitely share with you that all these families have worked so hard, and their representatives have worked so hard to try to secure their release. It's really one of the greatest and most difficult and troubling moral questions of our time. What do you do to save a life? Do you pay the ransom which they are demanding, or do you live up to the U.S. government's policy, which is to say, we never pay ransom?

Look, it's one of the most complex moral questions we could face. I don't know the answer is, but I know the system as it is now, where European governments do pay and where the U.S. government insists that no families will pay, you can't help but understand the emotion of a family, as was expressed in the video by Steven's mother.

They just want to save their son. They just want him home. It's a very human emotion. We need to get together and rethink this policy in a way that's collective. I don't know what the answer is, but it needs to be sorted out.