Today in the Senate Judiciary Committee the Bush administration will unveil proposed new legislation to respond to the Supreme Court's June ruling in Hamdan v. Rumsfeld. A final version of this legislation remained concealed right up to the day before the Senate hearing. Such secrecy disarms the public-and more importantly for today's hearing, congressional staffers who need to brief their bosses-from analyzing and understanding the draft. This secrecy, aside from some leaked drafts of the bill, should sound alarm bells about what the administration is about to propose.

Eighteen years ago , Justice Antonin Scalia assumed the prophet's cloak and forecast threats to the Constitution's core balance of powers. A threat, Justice Scalia explained, sometimes comes "in sheep's clothing: the potential of the asserted principle to effect important change in the equilibrium of power is not immediately evident, and must be discerned by a careful and perceptive analysis. But this wolf comes as a wolf." Today, another wolf scratches at the door: And it is a beast that has already inflicted heavy damage on the Constitution.