Enlarge SITE Intelligence Group via AP U.S. target: Muslim cleric Anwar al-Awlaki in a video released last week. USA TODAY OPINION USA TODAY OPINION About Editorials/Debate Opinions expressed in USA TODAY's editorials are decided by its Editorial Board, a demographically and ideologically diverse group that is separate from USA TODAY's news staff. Most editorials are accompanied by an opposing view — a unique USA TODAY feature that allows readers to reach conclusions based on both sides of an argument rather than just the Editorial Board's point of view.

Anwar al-Awlaki 's father may love his son, but the U.S. government clearly does not. The younger al-Awlaki, a radical Islamic cleric who was born in the USA and regularly urges Muslims to murder Americans, is on the Obama administration's target list to be captured or, more likely, killed.

ANOTHER VIEW: Fundamentally unconstitutional

Last week, his father went to federal court to try to block the government from targeting his son, who is believed to be living in Yemen, for assassination. The case — which awaits the judge's decision on whether to let it go forward or, as the government prefers, throw it out — raises yet another one of those complex, post-9/11 moral and legal questions: Can the U.S. president order the death of a citizen who has joined forces with a foreign terrorist movement?

We think yes, but only if certain criteria are met, and with judicial review. Here's why.

Al-Awlaki, 39, who was born in New Mexico and attended Colorado State and George Washington University, is unquestionably a very bad guy who has been linked to most of the recent high-profile terror plots against Americans. Just last week, on the same day attorneys were arguing his father's case in federal court, al-Awlaki released a new video that said of killing Americans that it was "either us or them," and that Muslims needed no special permission.

Authorities allege that al-Awlaki has an operational role in the group al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula and was directly involved in helping accused underwear bomber Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab attempt to blow up an airliner in Detroit last Christmas. Al-Awlaki exchanged encouraging e-mails with Army Maj. Nidal Hasan, charged with killing 13 people in last year's Fort Hood shooting spree. Al-Awlaki's sermons are said to have inspired would-be Times Square bomber Faisal Shahzad. And authorities were investigating whether al-Awlaki was connected to the recent plot to blow up planes with toner cartridges packed with explosives.

The Constitution provides robust due-process protections for U.S. citizens, but the nation cannot be powerless in the face of repeated attempts by one of its citizens to cause the murder of Americans. Through his words and deeds, al-Awlaki has in effect renounced his American citizenship and joined the enemy abroad.

The ACLU and the Center for Constitutional Rights argue that the rules of war don't apply here because Yemen is not a recognized battlefield. This ignores the fact that the loosely governed country is functionally a war zone.

The USS Cole was attacked from the Yemeni port of Aden in 2000, killing 17 U.S. sailors, and al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula is launching strikes against this country from Yemen.

Although the public evidence against al-Awlaki seems overwhelming, allowing the White House unchecked power to target a citizen for death should make all Americans deeply uneasy. Just as the Bush administration did, the Obama administration insists its decisions in these matters should not be subject to judicial review.

The federal judge hearing al-Awlaki's case wondered why U.S. authorities must get a warrant to wiretap an American abroad but claim the right to kill one with no judicial review. The judge has a point. Judicial review, of the sort provided by the secret Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court for eavesdropping requests, would provide an important safeguard by requiring the government to show what criteria makes someone a target, how a person meets those criteria and whether assassination is warranted.

For Anwar al-Awlaki, a terrorist who has declared war on the U.S., it shouldn't be a tough call.