Ah, there we can agree.
The congressional authorization for the use of military force has sufficed so far- it certainly allows the detaining of military combatants.
A DOW could have negated the need for the Patriot Act ( if combined with a susension of Habeus Corpus)- but then the administration would have even more extraordinary powers than we are worried about now. My view is much like I suspect Pickering's was- a DOW (a general war) gives the president more leeway to conduct a successful campaign.
Questioning the wisdom ( not the Constitutinality) of conducting limited- or declared for that matter general- war is always a commendable act of course.
BTW: the ruling in this case, which I linked to above, is very informative and is impressive whatever one's view.
The chief conclusion of the ruling seems to be that the judiciary traditionally defers to the Executive and Legislature on military matters. Thus the judge sidesteps the issue of whether the actions are in fact constitutional.
I think it is an appropriate ruling, but it leaves the legality of government actions the unsettled.