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With the President and the Congress consumed with the scope and details of national health care legislation, there has been little interest in summertime Washington for intelligence issues. The Professor Gates/Police Sergeant Crowley "beer summit" even made the vitriolic exchange between Speaker Polesi and CIA Director Panetta seem tired. As CIA Director Panetta was recommending "moving on!" in a Sunday Washington Post Op-Ed, news was breaking that he had cancelled a program for assassinating terrorist leaders that Vice President Cheney had directed not be briefed to the Congressional leadership. Thank goodness for Congressional recesses!

Even before the U.S. Cyber Command stood up there was wide-ranging speculation about what the command would do, the authorities it would be granted, and the powers it would wield. No amount of insight from those with knowledge of the command will be enough to assuage the concerns of those who feel such an organization - and more specifically its intimate links with an intelligence agency - is a threat to liberty online and in general. Two of the early players in the cyber security and intelligence world - Bob Gourley and Mike Tanji - square off over the value - or lack thereof - of the Cyber Command and its impact on national security.