Terrorists may or may not deserve due process.

The real reason they get due process is because you and I deserve due process.

If any government is allowed to kill people outside combat, government officials will use it to kill people they find inconvenient. Maybe theyll bother to plant a weapon a bleeding heart with a camera is around. Maybe they will just brazen it out.

William Roper: “So, now you give the Devil the benefit of law!”

Sir Thomas More: “Yes! What would you do? Cut a great road through the law to get after the Devil?”

William Roper: “Yes, I'd cut down every law in England to do that!”

Sir Thomas More: “Oh? And when the last law was down, and the Devil turned 'round on you, where would you hide, Roper, the laws all being flat? This country is planted thick with laws, from coast to coast, Man's laws, not God's! And if you cut them down, and you're just the man to do it, do you really think you could stand upright in the winds that would blow then? Yes, I'd give the Devil benefit of law, for my own safety's sake!

Robert Bolt, A Man for All Seasons: A Play in Two Acts