Current Legal Topics: Congressional Access to National Security InformationThe Law Library of Congress is proud to present a new article focusing on executive privilege. It is available in its entirety in PDF on our new U.S. Constitution website.
Louis Fisher, "Congressional Access to National Security Information," 45 Harv. J. on Legis. 219 (2008). When invoking executive privilege, administrations often claim that their justification for withholding documents or testimony from Congress is particularly strong when the subject is national security.
This article argues that such a claim mischaracterizes the President's constitutional role and fails to acknowledge the independent institutional needs of Congress to have access to national security information to fulfill the constitutional duties of enacting legislation, conducting oversight, and protecting the system of checks and balances. Also, judicial access to national security information has increased dramatically in the last half century to enforce the separation of powers and vindicate individual rights.
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