So long as the nation is intent on a debate over intelligence programs, let's have the right one. Let's discuss the future role of the body that has spent 40 years failing spectacularly in its self-ascribed "oversight" duties: Congress.

Congress muscled its way into the intelligence game in the late 1970s, following the Senate's Church Committee witch hunt. Congress assured Americans that its oversight would secure their privacy, while promising the spies that its involvement would legitimize their intelligence operations...