The National Security Council says yes, based on a classified review of the evidence against U.S. born cleric Anwar al-Awlaki, who is suspected to be residing somewhere in Yemen and working with Al-Qaeda. But as Spencer Ackerman points out, this decision seems to set up a rather daunting legal precedent.
The administration may very well be making the correct evaluation of the threat al-Awlaki poses. But if citizenship means anything, it means that a citizen can’t be killed because the government uses secret evidence to say he or she is an intolerable threat.
Or does it?