Death Penalty

Livestreaming an Execution

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Liz Wolfe | 10.9.2026 9:30 AM

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Cruel and very unusual: The U.S. government announced yesterday that it will ​livestream the Army's upcoming firing squad execution of Nidal Hasan, who killed 13 people at Fort Hood, Texas, ‌in a 2009 shooting spree, according to Pentagon officials. The execution will take place on December 3. Hasan, who is a former Army psychiatrist, will become the first person to be executed by firing squad by the U.S. military since 1945.

"We'll make sure that people are able to watch it," said Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth. "That it's public. Because people need to understand that there's serious consequences for these types of things." It will be the first execution that the U.S. government livestreams over the internet.

I am against this, and I think other libertarians should be, too. We're not only entrusting the state with enormous power when we give it the ability to enact the death penalty. But in cases like these—public executions on steroids—we allow the state to turn a solemn moment into vulgar public spectacle.

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