The Pentagon wants to livestream a firing-squad execution, and the only debate in Washington is over optics — not whether the state should be in the content business at all.
Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth announced last week that the Dec. 3 military execution of Fort Hood shooter Nidal Hasan would be broadcast live. Hasan, a former Army major, was convicted of killing 13 people at the Texas base in 2009. The announcement triggered a wave of Republican opposition — but almost none of it grapples with the real question: since when does the federal government produce snuff content, and who benefits?
House Speaker Mike Johnson told CBS News that some House Republicans worry the video becomes "a recruiting tool for future terrorists." Sen. Lisa Murkowski said she'd "expect this from terrorists and dictators, but not here in America." Sen. Kevin Cramer called it out plainly: "The death penalty is not entertainment." Rep. Rob Bresnahan Jr. said the focus should be on justice, not turning an execution "into entertainment."
Only one Republican in Congress has publicly backed the plan. Rep. Andy Ogles of Tennessee posted on X: "Excellent. Public execution is what this terrorist deserves. We will be watching."
Vice President JD Vance told reporters he wouldn't watch and added, "I don't know that that's actually going to happen." President Trump said the administration is still making a determination. DHS Secretary Markwayne Mullin defended the decision on "Face the Nation."
So the administration is split, the Hill is opposed, and the core issue goes unaddressed: the state is turning justice into a media product. Someone hosts that stream. Someone serves the ads against it. Someone gets the data on every viewer. The Pentagon hasn't explained the logistics, the platform, or the revenue chain — if any. That silence tells you everything.
Meanwhile, Australia is already positioning to censor it. The Guardian reports that Australia's eSafety commissioner, Julie Inman Grant, has powers under the Online Safety Act to order platforms to block content deemed "refused classification" — typically applied to terror-attack footage, but applicable to state-sponsored executions. The Greens have demanded the government ensure Australians can't access the stream.
But there's a catch: X, owned by Elon Musk, has a track record of fighting Australian censorship orders. X successfully challenged eSafety's attempt to block footage of the 2024 Sydney bishop stabbing and won appeals to downgrade classifications of assassination and attack videos last year. If the Hasan execution goes live, X becomes the flashpoint again — a private platform defending free speech against a foreign government trying to wall off what its citizens can see.
That's the real tension. The Pentagon wants to turn a killing into a broadcast. Foreign regulators want to make sure you can't watch it. And the only institution willing to fight for your right to see what your government does is a social media company.
The founders held that public justice was meant to be witnessed so the people could hold the state accountable. They didn't imagine the state would package it as programming. If this execution is livestreamed, Americans should ask: who chose the platform, who controls the feed, and who decided your government should be in the business of producing death as content?
