Congress and the U.S. Intelligence Community: A Primer
Well, this is a timely topic, given the furious dispute between Dems and Republicans on Capitol Hill over whether Congress should have been informed about CIA plans for a "hit squad" to take out al Qaida leaders, not to mention a Senate Intelligence committee examination of the CIA's detention and interrogation programs, disputes over Iraq war intelligence, etc.

So we at Nukes & Spooks were glad to hear from the folks at Harvard University's Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs about their new memo, Confrontation or Collaboration? Congress and the Intelligence Community.

No bombshells here, but the document, presented as a briefing book for members of Congress, should be of interest to intel junkies, journalists, Hill staffers and academics alike. We at N&S did a quick review, and found that it neatly sums up the history of major issues like intel reform, congressional oversight, as well as specific programss like electronic surveillance, interrogations and cyber-security.

Co-authors Eric Rosenbach, a former Senate Intelligence Committee staffer, and Aki Peritz, do a good job of packing a lot of information in an easy-to-digest format, useful even for those of us who have followed this stuff for a while. Check it out.