The Security Threat of Unchecked Presidential Power
"...The result is that the president's wartime powers, with its armies, battles, victories, and congressional declarations, now extend to the rhetorical 'War on Terror': a war with no fronts, no boundaries, no opposing army, and -- most ominously -- no knowable 'victory.' Investigations, arrests and trials are not tools of war. But according to the Yoo memo, the president can define war however he chooses, and remain 'at war' for as long as he chooses. This is indefinite dictatorial power. And I don't use that term lightly; the very definition of a dictatorship is a system that puts a ruler above the law. In the weeks after 9/11, while America and the world were grieving, Bush built a legal rationale for a dictatorship. Then he immediately started using it to avoid the law..." (emphasis mine)