Same goes for the old form that asks if you were part of the nazi party in 1939-1945 even thought you were born much later.
These forms are such bullshit and are only here to give authorities leverage against you at a later date incase you did purger yourself. Then they have it in writing that you lied.
They're not bullshit. The forms' design is what gives the government unambiguous grounds to revoke the citizenship of foreign war criminals, once their crimes are discovered. The fact that they lied during their naturalization means it was never actually valid.
No, they are what makes the person (even if they never apply for citizenship; the form has nothing to do with citizenship applications) unquestionably a criminal under US law if they've ever done the thing asked about in the question and denied it on the form, because US law doesn't unconditionally exert universal jurisdiction over all instances of the international crimes identified, but it does over lying to the US government.
For example, could the same not be achieved by passing a law allowing the government to revoke the citizenship of anyone who meets these criteria?
edit: Or perhaps a better UI? For example, this is just a checkbox you could accidentally tick. Perhaps it would be made a little harder - raise a warning perhaps? The real problem i think is that visa authorities can design the worst UIs and get away with it since they are an effective monopoly.
I was told that this was a technicality: you plan on assassinating the president (or whatever the form asks these days) but you answered no. Now you can be charged for lying on your immigration document which gives the government a lot more leverage and opens more avenues to convict you (because lying is bad mmmkay). I don't know how much truth there is to it but it makes more sense than having the question hoping someone with bad intentions will have a lapse of judgement and decide to be truthful on the form.