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The US wants to livestream a firing squad execution. Is that legal · INSIGHT TODAY

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: The Pentagon says the execution of a 2009 Fort Hood
• 0:03
  Speaker 1: shooter will be publicly live streamed. Gonna get a firing
• 0:06
  Speaker 1: squad of soldiers. as it should be. And we'll make
• 0:09
  Speaker 1: sure that people are able to watch it, that it's public.
• 0:11
  Speaker 2: That method has not been used by the military since
• 0:14
  Speaker 2: the 1940s.
• 0:15
  Speaker 1: Hassan was convicted of killing 13 people. The shooter's attorney
• 0:19
  Speaker 1: tonight saying Hegseth's pledge for a public execution is political theater.
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  Speaker 3: I think firing squad is the least inhumane method.
• 0:27
  Speaker 4: What are the concerns of the legality of live streaming this?
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  Speaker 5: There are a number of concerns.
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  Speaker 1: What's next, pay-per-view?
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  Speaker 6: I mean, this is just ridiculous what's going on.
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  Speaker 1: It shouldn't be anything the public sees.
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  Speaker 2: The United Nations says the plan by the US to
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  Speaker 2: live stream the firing squad execution of a former army
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  Speaker 2: major amounts to torture. Nidal Hassan shot dead 13 unarmed
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  Speaker 2: soldiers at the Fort Hood base in Texas in 2009.
• 0:57
  Speaker 2: Over the next 10 minutes or so, we'll get reaction
• 0:59
  Speaker 2: to the plan, hear from a soldier who survived the
• 1:02
  Speaker 2: shooting and ask, is it legal? It was the U.S.
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  Speaker 2: Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth who made the announcement that the
• 1:09
  Speaker 2: public would be able to watch the execution live. Here's
• 1:12
  Speaker 2: what he said.
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  Speaker 1: No-brainer. Execution by firing squad. Army major betrays his country.
• 1:18
  Speaker 1: Radical Islamist kills a bunch of Americans at Fort Hood.
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  Speaker 1: Of course we're going to do it at Fort Hood.
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  Speaker 1: We're going to do it on a Thursday. We're going
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  Speaker 1: to do it at 1 o'clock, which is when he
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  Speaker 1: did it. And it's going to be soldiers with rifles
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  Speaker 1: executing the firing squad.
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  Speaker 5: We know what it is.
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  Speaker 1: It was a radical Islamist attack in uniform inside the ranks.
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  Speaker 1: And so he's going to get a firing squad of soldiers,
• 1:37
  Speaker 1: as it should be. And we'll make sure that people
• 1:39
  Speaker 1: are able to watch it, that it's public, because people
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  Speaker 1: need to understand that there's serious consequences for these types
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  Speaker 1: of things. Has Major Hassan made any final requests, reached
• 1:50
  Speaker 1: out to the president, anything like that, to your knowledge?
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  Speaker 3: Don't care.
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  Speaker 1: We'll see him on December 3rd.
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  Speaker 2: So who is Nidal Hassan, the man set to be executed,
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  Speaker 2: and what did he do? Here's our White House reporter,
• 2:02
  Speaker 2: Bernd de Busseman.
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  Speaker 6: Well, Nidal Hassan, at the time of the incident in 2009,
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  Speaker 6: he was a major in the U.S.
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  Speaker 5: Army.
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  Speaker 6: He was a mental health professional, a psychologist. And at
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  Speaker 6: Fort Hood in Texas, at something called the Military Readiness Center,
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  Speaker 6: he carried out a mass shooting that killed 13 unarmed soldiers,
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  Speaker 6: including one pregnant soldier who had just returned from Iraq
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  Speaker 6: and wounded several dozen more. It later was determined that
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  Speaker 6: that he had been in contact with Awar al-Awlaki, an
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  Speaker 6: American who at the time had joined al-Qaeda in Yemen.
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  Speaker 6: And this was kind of inspired by al-Qaeda's militant version
• 2:44
  Speaker 6: of jihadism. But at the time, of course, nobody knew
• 2:49
  Speaker 6: that when the incident took place. He was shot during
• 2:52
  Speaker 6: the incident and was left paraplegic and in a wheelchair
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  Speaker 6: when he was taken into custody. And he's been in
• 2:57
  Speaker 6: custody ever since.
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  Speaker 2: So what's been the reaction to the plan to live
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  Speaker 2: stream the execution? One Democratic senator, Chris Murphy, called the
• 3:05
  Speaker 2: idea disgusting. Here's Shabia Mantou, a spokesperson for the UN
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  Speaker 2: High Commissioner for Human Rights.
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  Speaker 3: Public executions constitute a form of cruel, inhuman or degrading
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  Speaker 3: treatment or punishment. The live streaming of an execution is
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  Speaker 3: tantamount to a public execution and would breach the absolute
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  Speaker 3: prohibition of torture. Failure to respect this prohibition would inevitably
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  Speaker 3: render the execution arbitrary in nature and result in a
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  Speaker 3: violation of the right to life. And the absolute prohibition
• 3:34
  Speaker 3: of torture prohibits public executions.
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  Speaker 2: A former US Army sergeant who survived the mass shooting
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  Speaker 2: at the Fort Hood base has been speaking to us.
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  Speaker 2: Alonzo Lunsford, seen here in 2013, was shot seven times
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  Speaker 2: by Hassan. Speaking to BBC Radio 4, he gave his
• 3:51
  Speaker 2: reaction to the news that the execution would be live-streamed.
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  Speaker 5: It's not something that you should view for entertainment purposes.
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  Speaker 5: To show the whole thing without it being censored for
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  Speaker 5: the general public, I really don't, me personally, I don't
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  Speaker 5: agree with that. And as far as the families of
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  Speaker 5: the fallen and the families of the survivors and the
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  Speaker 5: survivors themselves, yes, I think we should be able to
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  Speaker 5: look at it uncensored because I'm going to be there.
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  Speaker 5: And before they pull the trigger, I want him to
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  Speaker 5: look at me in my eyes and I look at
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  Speaker 5: him in his eyes and I want him to know, dude,
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  Speaker 5: you failed. I'm still here.
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  Speaker 2: So do we know how the live stream will work?
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  Speaker 2: Back to Berndt in Washington.
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  Speaker 6: We don't. And I think that's one of the main
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  Speaker 6: questions that many people here in the United States have,
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  Speaker 6: even those who are supportive of the death penalty and
• 4:46
  Speaker 6: supportive of of the death penalty being applied in this
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  Speaker 6: instance by firing squad. There's a lot of questions about,
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  Speaker 6: for example, what guardrails would be put in place. For example,
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  Speaker 6: many parents I've spoken to in the last 24 hours
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  Speaker 6: or so, they wonder what would prevent a young child
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  Speaker 6: from logging on to the Internet and watching this firing
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  Speaker 6: squad actually be carried out.
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  Speaker 2: It could be that the U.S. Defense Department decides to
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  Speaker 2: stream it themselves. Certainly the main social media companies have
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  Speaker 2: strict policies, as our senior technology reporter Shona McCallum explains.
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  Speaker 4: Most major social media platforms have rules that prohibit or
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  Speaker 4: restrict live streaming explicit content. Meta, YouTube, TikTok and X,
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  Speaker 4: the most widely used online platforms capable of streaming live video...
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  Speaker 4: have prohibitions in place, not only on violent images and videos,
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  Speaker 4: but also on those that show death. Meta, the owner
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  Speaker 4: of Instagram and Facebook, explicitly bans any live stream of
• 5:49
  Speaker 4: capital punishment. TikTok has a similar blanket ban. Its policy
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  Speaker 4: says we don't allow extremely graphic, violent or disturbing content,
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  Speaker 4: especially when it could cause viewers emotional distress. The policy
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  Speaker 4: at X, which has loosened content moderation since Elon Musk
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  Speaker 4: took over the platform, says any content depicting when a
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  Speaker 4: person dies will be removed if we receive a request
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  Speaker 4: from their family or authorised representative. Truth Social, the social
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  Speaker 4: media platform owned by Trump, does not have a live
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  Speaker 4: stream video feature for users.
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  Speaker 2: One of the big questions a lot of people are
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  Speaker 2: asking about live streaming and execution is, is it legal?
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  Speaker 2: So what legal hurdles could there be? Dr Casey McCall-Smith
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  Speaker 2: is a lecturer in public international law at the University
• 6:38
  Speaker 2: of Edinburgh and chair of the Association of Human Rights Institutes.
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  Speaker 7: It's more spectacle and show because there are many legal
• 6:49
  Speaker 7: hurdles to get to that actual execution and questions about
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  Speaker 7: whether it should be live streamed. There are a variety
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  Speaker 7: of appeals still available to Mr.
• 7:00
  Speaker 2: Hassan.
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  Speaker 7: And one that springs to mind in my capacity as
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  Speaker 7: professor of human rights law is that based on human
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  Speaker 7: dignity and the US Constitution requirement to protect that, it
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  Speaker 7: seems that live streaming a public execution hasn't been done
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  Speaker 7: in a long time, and that's.
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  Speaker 1: For good reason.
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  Speaker 7: It aligns more with U.S. enemies that have publicly executed
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  Speaker 7: individuals in more recent years.
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  Speaker 2: So can Nidal Hassan appeal the decision and would he
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  Speaker 2: want to? Here's Berndt again.
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  Speaker 6: There's been some suggestions since the live streaming concept was
• 7:40
  Speaker 6: announced that in theory, Hassan could appeal the decision and
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  Speaker 6: make the argument that this is in some way cruel
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  Speaker 6: and unusual punishment beyond the execution itself. It's not clear, however,
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  Speaker 6: that Hassan would want to appeal this decision. He very
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  Speaker 6: much had made it clear when he was first brought
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  Speaker 6: before a court-martial following the incident that he didn't necessarily
• 8:01
  Speaker 6: expect to live in the first place. He didn't really
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  Speaker 6: put up much of a defense, and he's put up
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  Speaker 6: very kind of little defense kind of to try stave
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  Speaker 6: off the death penalty. He very much saw this as
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  Speaker 6: kind of a suicide operation of sorts, and it's really
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  Speaker 6: not clear whether he would really want to appeal in
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  Speaker 6: the first place. Ultimately, he is getting what he wanted
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  Speaker 6: to achieve in 2009 when he carried out this mass
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  Speaker 6: shooting in Fort Hood.
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  Speaker 2: So this public execution could face legal hurdles in the US,
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  Speaker 2: but other countries do carry them out, although not live streamed.
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  Speaker 2: Our global population correspondent, Stephanie Hegarty, has more details.
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  Speaker 8: So according to data that's been compiled by Amnesty International
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  Speaker 8: last year, we know that there were at least 17
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  Speaker 8: public executions carried out, but only in two countries, and
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  Speaker 8: those are Afghanistan and Iran. 11 public executions happened in
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  Speaker 8: Iran last year and six in Afghanistan.
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  Speaker 2: And a few more countries do use a firing squad
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  Speaker 2: to execute people. Here's Stephanie again.
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  Speaker 8: There are quite a few countries, 28 altogether, that authorise
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  Speaker 8: shooting by firing squad, according to the Cornell Centre and
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  Speaker 8: the death penalty worldwide. That's where a group of people
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  Speaker 8: are shooting, usually at the heart. One may have blanks
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  Speaker 8: but there is also another method shooting which is one
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  Speaker 8: bullet to the back of the head and there are
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  Speaker 8: another 22 countries that carry that out um that those
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  Speaker 8: are usually countries in africa and the middle east in
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  Speaker 8: asia there are a few china taiwan indonesia south korea
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  Speaker 8: also and vietnam and then there's the united states the
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  Speaker 8: united states is the only country in the americas that
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  Speaker 8: allows executions to happen in this way and only in
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  Speaker 8: four states and at the federal level.
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  Speaker 2: So finally, let's put this into a little bit of
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  Speaker 2: historical context. When were the last public and firing squad
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  Speaker 2: executions in the U.S.? Back to Bernd de Busseman in Washington.
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  Speaker 6: Well, the last public execution in the United States took
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  Speaker 6: place in 1936 in Kentucky.
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  Speaker 1: It was.
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  Speaker 6: A young man who at the time confessed to raping
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  Speaker 6: and killing a 70-year-old woman. Thousands of people actually turned
• 10:07
  Speaker 6: out in person to watch that execution in Kentucky. But
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  Speaker 6: Of course, the difference was that it wasn't broadcast to
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  Speaker 6: the rest of the country. And the last military execution
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  Speaker 6: by firing squad took place in January 1945. It was
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  Speaker 6: a young U.S. Army soldier named Eddie Slovik who had
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  Speaker 6: deserted from his unit at the tail end of the
• 10:26
  Speaker 6: Second World War. It was controversial at the time. He
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  Speaker 6: made very clear he was quite simply terrified of the
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  Speaker 6: prospect of dying in combat against the Germans. And after
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  Speaker 6: the war, there was quite a lot of attention and
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  Speaker 6: even films and books written about his case because, of course,
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  Speaker 6: there was many thousands of deserters at that time, but
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  Speaker 6: he was the only one to be executed by a
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  Speaker 6: firing squad. But both those instances are very, very long ago,
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  Speaker 6: and it's not something that many Americans are familiar with.
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  Speaker 6: So I think this is really uncharted territory for many
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  Speaker 6: Americans in contemporary United States today.
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  Speaker 2: And that's the U.S. plan to live stream an execution explained.