Jimmy Carter Actually Downsized and Reformed the CIA

No wonder he is so reviled on the right and by the PTB.

From a good overall piece on the history of American policy on extrajudicial assassination and targeted killings by Mark Ames.

.... and note the 33: 

"Which brings us to early 1981, and Reagan’s executive order 12333 which has been falsely described as "banning assassinations" by critics of Bush and now Obama. Scott Horton, writing in Harpers last year, has a good description:

But as with so much U.S. national-security legislation, this order turns out to be far less than meets the eye. Simplified, [Reagan’s EO] could be summarized this way: "No one shall be assassinated—unless the president authorizes it, in which case we will refrain from calling it an assassination."