Talk:Licence to kill (concept)

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Is this the actual name for this? It seems to me to be merely a species of a Letter of marque and reprisal. Anyone have info on this?--Samuel J. Howard 15:15, Jul 14, 2004 (UTC)

I don't think that those were granted to civilian law enforcement agencies and police forces. I doubt that the US President or Israeli government would consider their authorised assasinations to be a letter of marque or reprisal, in spite of the basis for that view. The letter of marque concept seems to be largely historical these days, even though the activities continue. Given the largely historical focus of a letter of marque, I suppose there may be merit in using this article for more current events. Jamesday 07:50, 4 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Note For the archived deletion debate for this article see Talk:Licence to kill/delete. -- Graham ☺ | Talk 18:21, 23 Jul 2004 (UTC)

[edit] Factual dispute

I don't see any specific active factual dispute, so I'm going to remove the {dispute} tags. Thanks, -Willmcw 07:02, Jun 3, 2005 (UTC)

It's right there at the top of the page. There's no evidence this is anything other than a literary reference employed in some instances by headline writers.--Samuel J. Howard 23:56, Jun 4, 2005 (UTC)

Then please fix the article or nominate it for deletion. Cheers, -Willmcw 12:12, Jun 5, 2005 (UTC)

How can anyone assert that "there's no such thing"?! We have no way of knowing. Fleming's classic "licence to kill" is almost certainly a literary invention, but there may possibly be a counterpart within the intelligence / counter-insurgency community of some country somewhere. jamesgibbon 01:10, 24 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Anyway, I've rewritten this piece so that it doesn't explicitly make the above sweeping assertion, yet maintains the original author's essential intention and meaning. jamesgibbon 01:22, 24 Jun 2005 (UTC)

I'm removing the factual dispute tag. It may be only a fictional literary concept, but I don't see that there is any dispute over the nature of the term or its origins. If we assume that this term could possibly exist in reality, I would also submit that a "license to kill" could very well be considered different that a "letter of marque" as suggested above. Historically, a letter of marque implies that the privateer (holder of the letter) would not only be authorized, but expected, to conduct operations authorized by the letter. That is to say, the privateer would be expected to look for trouble, rather than wait for it to find him. In contrast, a secret agent type would not go around shooting bad guys just because he was allowed to do so. Also, the privateer would be authorized to conduct acts of piracy, and probably to keep the proceeds of such acts. The "license to kill" concept almost certainly would not extend to plunder. Simishag 03:29, 3 October 2005 (UTC)

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