We're going to be hearing a lot about the Boston Globe's decision to publish the names of the FBI agent and State Police troopers who were involved in the Florida shooting death of Ibragim Todashev, the Tamerlan Tsarnaev associate suspected of being involved in a triple murder in Waltham.

The story , by Globe reporter Maria Sacchetti, reveals that FBI agent Aaron McFarlane is a former Oakland police officer with a troubling past. The article raises serious questions about how law enforcement handled the investigation of perhaps the single most important figure connected to the Boston Marathon bombing suspects. Here is some background to keep in mind as the discussion unfolds.

This past January, David Boeri of WBUR Radio (90.9 FM)  reported on the FBI-State Police interrogation that ended in Todashev's death. Here's what Boeri had to say about the names of the agent and the two troopers:

In today's Globe article, we learn that the FBI agent's name is Aaron McFarlane, and that he "has previously been publicly identified in a blog about the Boston Marathon case."

That prompted Boston magazine editor-in-chief Carly Carioli to tweet:

. @BostonGlobe names Todashev's FBI shooter, digs up shady record: http://t.co/2Z47RNwt5O This blog had it first: http://t.co/BivCPGKcp3

(And by the way, in March Boston published its own long investigation into the shooting. The article, by Susan Zalkind, was also the subject of a one-hour segment on public radio's This American Life.)

Carioli's tweet leads to a site called "The Boston Marathon Bombings: What Happened?", which on May 3 revealed the names of McFarlane and the two Massachusetts troopers, Joel Gagne and Curtis Cinelli. (As best as I can tell, that's the first time any of the three officers was named.) According to the site, the names and uncensored crime-scene photos were obtained from PDFs of public records using techniques that sound similar to what the Globe did. The Globe offers this description:

On May 5, the same "What Happened?" website revealed some of the problems McFarlane had as a member of the Oakland Police Department that are at the heart of today's Globe story.

I should note that though the "What Happened?" site appears to have broken some important stories, it also traffics in rather, uh, unusual rhetoric. For instance, here is a photo of Dzhokhar Tsarnaev , bloody and injured as he surrendered in Watertown, beneath the headline "2013: THE YEAR AMERICA BEGAN HUNTING DOWN AND SHOOTINGS [sic] IT'S [sic] OWN TEENAGERS. WHY?"

By all indications the Globe has been careful to do its own reporting — which it would in any case, but which is especially important when dealing with material like this.

Which brings us to the question I imagine we'll be debating in the days to come: Should the Globe have released the names of McFarlane, Gagne and Cinelli? I'd like to hear arguments on both sides. But keep these three things in mind:

I realize I'm putting my thumb on the disclosure side of the scale. But I think withholding the names would have been a respectable decision as well. As Sacchetti writes today, "Even Florida, which often identifies such officers, declined to do so in this case, citing concerns for the investigators’ safety."

At this early stage, I can be persuaded either way, and I'm curious to see and hear what others have to say.