Go ahead, call me paranoid

Pop quiz: Does an American citizen enjoy a Constitutional protection against being summarily executed by his own government without trial or due process, based on suspicion of terrorist affiliations? If you answered yes, of course he does, that's ridiculous, then you haven't read today's Washington Post:

After the Sept. 11 attacks, Bush gave the CIA, and later the military, authority to kill U.S. citizens abroad if strong evidence existed that an American was involved in organizing or carrying out terrorist actions against the United States or U.S. interests, military and intelligence officials said. The evidence has to meet a certain, defined threshold. The person, for instance, has to pose "a continuing and imminent threat to U.S. persons and interests," said one former intelligence official.

The Obama administration has adopted the same stance. If a U.S. citizen joins al-Qaeda, "it doesn't really change anything from the standpoint of whether we can target them," a senior administration official said. "They are then part of the enemy."

Just to be clear, we aren't talking about people who pick up a weapon and begin firing on American forces, or are intercepted in the midst of an attack. The President is asserting the right to put your name on a list, and if they can find you anywhere in the world, to send in the military to kill you. This authority is governed by no specific statute, and comes with no judicial oversight. One assumes that in practical terms and for the time being, the practice is limited to overseas operations and people with strange sounding names. Nevertheless, there is evidently no real right to provide evidence in your own defense or confront witnesses, much less a trial of any kind. Just the good graces and judgment of the President of the United States.

Look - even if I virulently disagree, I can sort of understand at least the philosophy behind suspension of privacy rights in a time of war, and maybe even the transient allure of indefinite detention powers. I'm not giving an inch on torture - but now Obama can just decide to kill someone? An American? You know it's not like they don't get bad intelligence, people - seriously, are we all just supposed to take our chances here?

In other not-unrelated news, the most loudly repeated tale from the last eight years that torturing a high-value member of al Qaeda was effective has been walked back by the guy shopping it around the Beltway. No harm done there, I suppose.