State Secrets Expert Disdains Spy Case Proposal

Louis Fisher, a longtime expert on national security law and the author of In The Name of National Security – which investigates the origins of the state secrets privilege in the U.S.–, is no fan of the pending Senate proposal to move challenges to the NSA's warrantless eavesdropping program out of the district courts to a secret court in D.C.

I can't imagine there is any credibility to a secret proceeding.

We always do this in the public, and the courts have to come up with a decision that shows reasoning, facts and understanding, and to give that to a secret court where, I imagine, there will be secret briefs and secret oral arguments and a secret decision, maybe a declassified decision.

I can't see there's credibility or trust in that kind of process.

I frankly would prefer it to be decentralized and have a lot of district judges take a crack at it. There is a move to consolidate cases and Judge Walker in San Francisco (overseeing the EFF vs, AT&T lawsuit) got 17 or 18 cases.

I think it is a healthy process to have judges look at it in a different ways and have it come up the line to the circuit courts and eventually to the Supreme Court.