Reuters: "Secret Panel Can Put Americans on 'Kill List'"

Normally I'd suggest stories such as this one from Reuters are largely hyperbole, but the headline really does get to the core of the dilemma.  Some thoughts:

1. The problem here really is that there is no apparent oversight or clear criteria for when an American citizen rises to the level of threat that they can be killed extra-judicially by either military or covert assets.
2. I don't think the Anwar al-Awlaki killing, although extra-judicial, constitutes "murder." As Walter Russell Mead notes in my previous posting, al-Awlaki knew what he was getting into and certainly wouldn't have considered being targeted by drones an excessive response to his treasonous activity.  I think the "conservative" position Reuters cites is generally fair: the Justice Department should release to the appropriate Congressional oversight committees the legal memos that went into the decision, not so they can conduct backseat driving/sniping, but rather so that a record is established and can be debated as to what the criteria should be.
3. The article suggests al-Awlaki was targeted because his role in AQAP had gone "from inspirational to operational."  I'll go one further, and suggest that serving as a propaganda agent for a foreign organization in a declared state of war with the United States (and committed to targeting American civilians as al-Qa'ida is) should be justification for lethal targeting, as the ideological/inspirational component of terrorist networks is often just as important as the tactical/operational role.  (Hence I would have no problem with Adam Gadahn being targeted). However, this has to be codified in policy at some level so that there is a clear threshold for permissible targeting. 

Failing such a clear threshold, reliance on "secret panels" dealing with each case on an ad hoc basis in the future carries too great a risk for potential abuse.