“On October 17, 2006, President Bush signed the Military Commissions Act of 2006, providing for the continued controversial practices in its detention and treatment of ‘unlawful combatants.’ ‘The president can now,’ wrote American Civil Liberties Union executive director Anthony D. Romero, ‘with the approval of Congress–indefinitely hold people without charge, take away protections against horrific abuse, put people on trial based on hearsay evidence, authorize trials that can sentence people to death based on testimony literally beaten out of witnesses, and slam shut the courthouse door for habeas petitions.’ …The Military Commissions Act provides a retroactive, nine-year immunity for U.S. officials who authorized, ordered, or committed possible acts of abuse of detainees prior to its enactment.”
– Eugene Jarecki, The American Way of War, Pages 233-234