President Obama has authorized the CIA to assassinate an American citizen, Anwar al-Awlaki. A more complete analysis of what this means can be found here. But in short, the President has decreed that this particular American has no right to due process under the Constitution regardless of the fact that the Supreme Court has ruled that it is unconstitutional for the U.S. Government to even imprison an American as an “enemy combatant”. Pushing further the bad policy that allowed the Bush administration to imprison Jose Padilla without one, this administration is now claiming the right to impose a death sentence on an American without a trial — a step never taken by the previous administration.

This is just the most recent in a long line of reversals made by President Obama as it is in direct opposition to a response given by him when he was seeking the Democratic nomination, “I reject the Bush Administration’s claim that the President has plenary authority under the Constitution to detain U.S. citizens without charges as unlawful enemy combatants.”

A lot of people will look at this and think something to the effect of, “I’m not a terrorist and I don’t like terrorists so why should I care?” But the fact remains that he is an American citizen and if we let the government deny this man his rights under the Constitution, by logical extension none of us have these rights.