General Discussion
In reply to the discussion: "Just as ruthless and indifferent to the rule of law as his predecessor." Ouch. [View all]Authorized Use of Military Force...and the results of:
The AUMF was unsuccessfully cited by the George W. Bush administration in Hamdan v. Rumsfeld, in which the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that the administration's military commissions at Guantanamo Bay were not competent tribunals as constituted and thus illegal.
The AUMF has also been cited as authority for engaging in electronic surveillance in ACLU v. NSA without obtaining a warrant of the special Court as required by the constitution.
The AUMF was also the basis of one of the principal arguments advanced by the Department of Justice in the NSA warrantless surveillance controversy, namely that the AUMF implicitly overrode the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act of 1978
And it would appear that President Obama is still using the original AUMF that Congress gave to President Bush.
The US is technically not officially at war, this is about the same as Vietnam.