Assassination by government

Jerry Pournelle wrote the post that I would like to have written, if I had had the time (or hadn't been feeling lousy):

In the old Roman Republic before the wars of Marius and Sulla it was considered sacrilege to put to death a Roman Citizen without trial. The Civil Wars changed that, and when one faction won it would publish lists of enemies who could be killed without trial or mercy if found within Roman jurisdiction. Most lists of proscription also carried rewards to those who found and executed the proscribed enemy of the people. Proscriptions also carried confiscation of property, and were used by Sulla to replenish the treasury.

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Constitutionally the Congress is explicitly prohibited from Acts of Attainder, which is a form of Proscription adopted as an actual Act of Parliament still in theory allowable under English law, but not employed for a century or so. Under an attainder, a law is passed pronouncing a named individual or members of a particular organization or group, or possibly a named family, guilty of a capital crime and authorizing their execution without trial. No such act has been passed for more than two centuries.

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The obvious question for discussion is whether this activity – summary execution of citizens without trial – is permissible or desirable under Constitutional Government as part of the discretionary war powers of the President, and if so, do they apply within the United States as well as in foreign nations? It is not a simple question. What acts must a citizen perform to earn a place on the proscription list?

Cicero's last words are simply outstanding, as you would expect.

He followed this up with a long and very thoughtful amplification:

Another question: if either of these American citizens had returned to the United States and come to Kennedy International where they presented their US passports at the entry booth, could they have been arrested? On what charge? Were there outstanding warrants? In the case of Samir Khan it is not clear what he could be charged with. He ran a blog, an Internet magazine – I do not know of any other involvement other than that he associated with Al Awaki who associated on line with Major Hassan. Perhaps either or both could be charged with conspiracy and with levying war against the US, but I don’t think that has been done. So: we establish that they could be killed out of hand while travelling from one place to another, neither carrying arms or engaged in any act of war, while in a foreign country: but could they have been shot down by a US Marshall while still in the part of the airport that is not yet in the United States? On international territory? Or after they stepped into the United States?

They can be killed but not arrested: it would take convening a grand jury or a warrant from a magistrate before they could be arrested at Kennedy?

I do not here seek to make life difficult for our military; but I do seek to ask questions. If American citizens can be put on a proscription list and those on that list can be killed on sight by launching high explosives as them, is it proper to ask the procedures required to get on that list?

The USA Patriot Act, enacted in haste following 9/11, is proving to be an increasing threat to old established ways of Liberty.  The Department of Homeland Security, formed in haste following 9/11, daily humiliates American citizens in ways that would have had their grandparents reaching for the tar and feathers.

It seems that the scumbag getting his dirt nap was, well, a scum bag.  But I also have questions, about how this precedent will be used in 15 or 20 years.  The history of the past decade is not encouraging.