What is important to add, now that the American government is assassinating citizens without trial or due process of any kind, is how frequently it wrongly asserts that someone is an enemy of the United States. Ponder the track record of the entity that is now judge, jury and executioner. As far back as the 1996 bombing at the Atlanta Olympics, a bungled FBI investigation and a news media indulging its worst impulses turned heroic security guard Richard Jewell into a prime suspect.

During the espionage case against Wen Ho Lee, the nuclear scientist found himself held in extremely harsh conditions, including a long stint in solitary confinement. As the judge overseeing his case would later say in a formal apology to the defendant, “During December 1999, the then-United States Attorney, who has since resigned, and his Assistants presented me, during the three-day hearing between Christmas and New Year’s Day, with information that was so extreme it convinced me that releasing you, even under the most stringent of conditions, would be a danger to the safety of this nation.”

This is one reason we had laws in place to deter these kinds of mistakes and abuses. But then, they didn’t help Troy Davis, either.