catching up with the spy stories

Now that I'm back home from the beach and gearing up for the new academic year, I've tried to catch up with the news, including the avalanche of reports from the Snowden leaks.

There's a good summary of recent revelations at TPM. I also valued the comments of Dana Priest and Walter Pincus of the Post and Marc Ambinder.

I don't accept the "trust us" approach of some in the intelligence community, but neither do I accept the "we weren't told" complaints by those in Congress who were not on the intelligence committees. What I'm waiting to hear is a documented assessment of how well those committees with jurisdiction did their jobs.