Analysis: Wartime Powers Face Scrutiny

In this photo, reviewed by a US Department of Defense official, an Islamic detainee prays atop his prayer rug, within Camp Delta detention facility, at the Guantanamo Bay U.S. Naval Base, Cuba on Tuesday, June 27, 2006. The Supreme Court ruled Thursday that President George W. Bush overstepped his authority in creating military war crimes trials for Guantanamo Bay detainees, a rebuke to the administration and its aggressive anti-terror policies. (AP Photo/Brennan Linsley) (Brennan Linsley - AP)

The president and Vice President Dick Cheney have aggressively defended anti-war programs that have been criticized by Democrats, human rights groups and many legal scholars.

They have argued that increased surveillance of Americans and the holding of detainees without charges were part of inherent expanded powers that all presidents receive during times of war.

In recent days, they also have criticized the news media, particularly The New York Times, for disclosing once-secret programs including the use of an international database to track financial transactions.

"They advanced the notion that things they were doing to fight terror _ things that others would view as extreme _ were not only appropriate, but that to challenge them was unpatriotic," said Norman Ornstein, a political analyst with the American Enterprise Institute. "Now, this ruling should make it harder to do that _ and it certainly puts Republicans more on the defensive over the tactics being used."

Thursday's ruling emboldened administration critics. Sen. Patrick Leahy of Vermont, the top Democrat on the Senate Judiciary Committee, called it "a triumph for our constitutional system of checks and balances."

It was a rare rebuke to the president by the court that, after all, put him in office in the contested 2000 presidential race _ and which many Democrats claim is moving too far to the political right.

Legal scholars saw little evidence in Thursday's ruling that suggested any political drift by the court one way or the other.

"What it does suggest is that the court is not passive and is vigilant in affirming its own role," said Harold J. Krent, dean at the Chicago-Kent College of Law. "It suggests that the court will not roll over to assertions of presidential power, at least when its own interests are being threatened."

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EDITOR'S NOTE _ Tom Raum has covered Washington for The Associated Press since 1973, including five presidencies.