WASHINGTON — Starting last August, University of Chicago Law School Professor Geoffrey Stone plunged into the secret world of U.S. intelligence gathering.

Stone’s entree to spymasters who preside over U.S. government covert electronic eavesdropping programs came courtesy of Edward Snowden.

“What an amazing experience,” Stone told me.

President Barack Obama tapped Stone and four others for a new panel, the “Review Group on Intelligence and Communications Technology” after documents leaked by Snowden, a former National Security Agency contractor, revealed massive NSA surveillance in the U.S, triggering an uproar.

Stone, a constitutional scholar, the author of books about free speech and civil liberties went through the looking glass, from academia to deep cryptanalytic tradecraft, armed with a top-secret security clearance, the first of his career.

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