On June 30, 2006, following the Supreme Court ruling in Hamdan v. Rumsfeld, which said the Bush Administration did not have the authority to try detainees via military commissions, an article in The Washington Post said: ” ‘For five years, President Bush waged war as he saw fit. If intelligence officers needed to eavesdrop on overseas telephone calls without warrants, he authorized it. If the military wanted to hold terrorism suspects without trial, he let it. Now the Supreme Court has struck at the core of his presidency and dismissed the notion that the president alone can determine how to defend the country.’ ”
– James Risen, State of War, Page 228