Quick reads the latest NSA revelations, summarized.

The Guardian has been silent for a while, but into the breach stepped the Washington Post with two new stories based on items selected from the Edward Snowden collection, which, I understand, still does not feature ties or outerware.

Headlines: Documents Reveal NSA's Extensive Involvement in Targeted Killing Program and NSA Collects Millions of E-mail Address Books Globebally

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Key point: From what we know of the NSA's aperture issues, it's hard to believe that a lot of US persons contact lists haven't passed through NSA filters and servers at some point. It is really difficult to segregate different types of digital information as it passes through filters, cables, nodes and servers around the world.

Explanation: The intelligence committees in Congress know all about the NSA's collection of SIGINT on specific terrorist targets. They are less familiar with "overcollects" of US persons Internet metadata arising from the NSA's global intelligence programs. This ought to be rectified.

What we still don't know: Can the NSA figure out in any efficient way without having a human examine each bit of data what belongs to a US person and what does not, especially if it is collected from a point originating overseas?

Harm to national security from publication: None. In my opinion, which is of limited relevance, these articles do not appreciably harm national security.

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Marc Ambinder is TheWeek.com's editor-at-large. He is the author, with D.B. Grady, of The Command and Deep State: Inside the Government Secrecy Industry. Marc is also a contributing editor for The Atlantic and GQ. Formerly, he served as White House correspondent for National Journal, chief political consultant for CBS News, and politics editor at The Atlantic. Marc is a 2001 graduate of Harvard. He is married to Michael Park, a corporate strategy consultant, and lives in Los Angeles.