No, I think we are dealing with a new animal here. Right now it is not such a new thing that US citizens in Al Queda get targeted, since every one of the high profile cases I have seen was pretty plain and clear. The question is the secrecy, how secret criteria would be used to determine if and when someone gets executed.

In the 1800s, the US government frequently issued "death warrants" on individuals for various reasons, and they were all made public, usually for very public reasons.

In the 1930s, Hitler made no compunctions about who he decided were the "enemies of the people", so it was not exactly a secret or surprise when someone was arrested and sent to concentration camps in Germany, the secret/surprise was over so many being immediately murdered, but even according to German law at the time, it was murder, just state sponsored murder. In the 1940s, Nazi collaborative sham governments in several of the East European countries did sham trials with rapid execution, but again, they were taking names and had "judges" just to make it seem almost legal, not particularly secret AND legal.

The governments who have practiced "administrative homicide" in the past tended to make it secret OR legal, not secret AND legal, which is the new animal here. That is also apart from some of the vigilantism that has been known to have been practiced in the past by the FBI and other elements of the Justice Department (in particular, the killings of several famous 1930s era bank robbers, but even then, they had been declared "public enemies" first.

There were also several killings associated with the late 1960s and early 1970s COINTELPRO operations and their offshoots in several Eastern cities like Detroit, Cleveland, Chicago and to a lesser degree, Toledo, Indianapolis, Columbus and Kansas City where numerous far left activists met their ends at the hands of "special action squads" within various police departments.

It is believed that a lot of those methods were in actuality learned from but not necessarily taught by the KKK during the 1920s, when the FBI first began taking action against the KKK by studying their various relationships with authorities in the Deep South during the heyday of the Klan in the 1920s. Law enforcement in general learned from that, also learning from the various experts who gained worldwide experience in covert operations during WW2 and returned to the states for service in various agencies.

At that time however, they were also faced with highly capable opponents in Organized crime and the various Italian mafias who would happily play tit for tat if they found their people just being outright murdered, and thus various levels of truce were declared between the government and the Mafias during the 1950s and 1960s, that being facilitated by the Mafia also being staunchly patriotic and anti-Communist. It should be noted that the only known actual terroristic destruction of wartime production facilities in the US during WW2 were not done by Axis powers, but two cargo ships blown up and scuttled in NY harbor just prior to completion as a warning against authorities in NY not to have mass roundups of Italians or Germans the way it was being done with Japanese in the West Coast. The Mafia at the time had the backing of both the Unions, and the Italian community since some non-Italian politicians had openly been calling for mass roundup of Italian immigrants over the issue of the US being at war with Italy.

That's where we get to these issues of the Muslim training camps in the US and what I see as a delicate issue there. If they are defensive in nature, then there is a somewhat legal precedent on that, if they are for hostile intent, then yeah, I have to say that the government might be legitimate in going after them, but that gets us into the whole Waco and Ruby Ridge thing, or something like this issue with Norman Jeffs and his old school faction among the Mormons.

I think what we have to also openly recognize is that while assassination appears to be on the table with what is now a Black run Justice Department, we have to really question who gets hit and why when there is a pretty ambiguous thing on who gets declared a public enemy.

This thing, as it is written and stated is that some secret sniper can just take potshots at people based on whatever criteria he decides and it's legal. Now unfortunately, I am hearing there are legal precedents on that too, within certain "high security" US Prisons.

I think at this stage, rather than just going off and shooting meter maids as symbols of abusive government power, all of the known and suspected hits on anyone we even remotely care about need to be exhaustively investigated and then determinations made on who is responsible and why, and retaliation carried out if and when appropriate.

That requires very sober decisions on the part of those who do it, and even on the part of those who say they support it. I wish there could be another way, but I just don't see much else being taken seriously by the opposition in recent history.

The only other thing is appealing to whatever honor the various government operatives might have, considering that honor is more of a disqualifying factor in the psych evals these days, over directives to kill people who are not even made fully aware that their lives are in danger or their actions have been determined to be so objectionable by the government that a death warrant has been put on them.

The other thing is, what happens when some individual is confirmed to have a death warrant on them, has escaped or defended themselves against a bonafide attempt, then is out loose in society? I see no moral, legal or ethical obligation on their part to play by much of any rules at that point if it is literally "one man against the world".

That's the big ethical issue you get into when there is no transparency in government.