NYT: Administration Says a `Zone of Autonomy' Justifies Its Secrecy on Ene

[kskiska]

WASHINGTON, April 24 — The Bush administration's effort before the Supreme Court to shield the names of private citizens who helped devise its energy policy might appear on the surface unrelated to its defense, in cases also before the court, of the detention of those the administration has classified as enemy combatants.

But the legal arguments are strikingly similar, projecting a vision of presidential power in both war and peace as far-reaching as any the court has seen and posing important questions of the constitutional separation of powers.

Just as the administration is arguing in the detainee cases for the exercise of presidential authority without judicial interference in policies related to the war on terrorism, it is making sweeping claims in the energy case for the existence of a constitutionally protected "zone of autonomy" for presidential advice received in the ordinary course of proposing legislation.

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As its primary argument, the administration asserts that the order permitting pretrial discovery is based on a mistaken interpretation of the Federal Advisory Committee Act, a 1972 law at the center of the dispute over how the task force conducted its business.

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http://nytimes.com/2004/04/25/politics/25SCOT.html