Louis Fisher lfisher@loc.gov Louis Fisher is a special assistant to the Law Librarian at the Library of Congress and is a specialist in constitutional law. Fisher began working at the Congressional Research Service in 1970 and served as senior specialist in separation of powers from 1988 until he joined the Law Library in March 2006. He is the author of more than a dozen books, including "Military Tribunals and Presidential Power: American Revolution and the War on Terrorism" (2005), which in 2006 won the Neustadt Book Award for the best reference book on the American presidency. His newest book is "In the Name of National Security: Unchecked Presidential Power and the Reynolds Case," which explores the state secrets privilege. Fisher, with Leonard W. Levy, edited the four-volume Encyclopedia of the American Presidency (1994). He received his doctorate in political science from the New School for Social Research in 1967.

 

Contributions

The state secrets privilege is too easy to abuse
COMMENTARY | November 321, 2006
Justice is not served when a federal court simply defers to the government’s assertion of a “state secrets privilege.” Renowned constitutional scholar Louis Fisher reviews a controversial Supreme Court decision and writes that judges should insist on seeing the evidence the government is so intent on keeping secret from the public.