The McCain approach would require a nation at war to allocate massive resources to processing the enemy through the court system.

Interrogating the enemy
McCain seized on endless reports in the New York Times about Abu Ghraib and the mistreatment of detainees at Guantanamo to push an amendment he attached to the Defense-appropriations bill conferring Fifth, Eighth, and Fourteenth Amendment rights on al Qaeda terrorists detained in Cuba. Ultimately, judges will be called upon to make what should be presidential war-making decisions.

Having already challenged the detention and interrogation of the enemy, McCain said that he doesn't believe the president has the constitutional authority to intercept al Qaeda communications with possible saboteurs in the U.S. unless that authority is granted by Congress. Abraham Lincoln, Woodrow Wilson, and Franklin Roosevelt didn't seek congressional authority to secure intelligence because they had the power under the Constitution.