1. United States
2. Mass.
3. Letter

Stop the Pentagon's plan to livestream Nidal Hasan's firing squad execution on December 3. This country hasn't held a public execution since 1936, and we abandoned that practice deliberately — because public executions became spectacles that degraded everyone who watched them. Bringing one back, and streaming it to the entire internet, is not justice. It's theater. Even members of your own party agree. Sen. Thom Tillis called the livestream plan "beyond disgusting." Sen. Jack Reed called it a gift to terrorist recruiters. The U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops condemned it as "a barbaric promotion of a culture of death." The Death Penalty Information Center notes there is no regulation or historical precedent for a U.S. military execution to be made publicly available this way. Public executions are a tool of authoritarian governments — not a democracy that claims to stand for human dignity. Hasan deserves to face consequences for murdering 13 people at Fort Hood. But the method of carrying out that sentence should not be turned into a public spectacle. Demand that Secretary Hegseth reverse this decision immediately.