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These programs are directed by the Executive Branch with Legislative Branch oversight and potential Judicial Branch review. Not sure what any of these programs

These programs are directed by the Executive Branch with Legislative Branch oversight and potential Judicial Branch review. Not sure what any of these programs have to do with GC violations or laws/norms of war? Literally every major industrialized country has clandestine programs and this business predates the GCs by millennia ("the world's second-oldest profession, distinguished from the oldest one by its relative lack of ethics or morals").

graderjs 5y ago
That's not really true. There's lots of SAPs that have no Leg oversight, and Exec doesn't know about them. DoE has lots of black budget programs that don't have the same scrutiny as DoD ones. And even in DoD there's so many SAPs, it's not possible that Exec and Leg have been briefed in to all of them, nor asked to be. So while theoretically, Exec and Leg should be able to look at any SAP, how are they going to know about them, if someone in the program uses their discretion to decide to not tell them it exists? From the point of view of "democracy" this is definitely a bug. But from the point of view of SAPs and commercial interests involved in them, this is mostly a feature (except when things are so secret and locked down it's hard to bring in talent to work on them). Tho, in the case of this so-called "secret army" they don't seem to be suffering any talent shortage :p;) xx
- leroy_masochist 5y ago
  Respectfully, you seem to be confusing the fact that there are government agencies which report to the EB and are overseen by the LB, and these agencies have highly sensitive SAPs about which very few people know specifics (true) with the notion that the EB has no idea in general about what goes on through these SAPs and there is no accountability within these agencies for methods used by these SAPs and/or the outcomes they achieve (untrue).
  - graderjs 5y ago
    I probably am. I'm not an expert in this. Sorry, if you know more about it than I do I defer to you. But what I understand is, say I had a SAP that was running psychological experimentation on everyday Americans without their knowledge or consent, it sounds as if you're saying that it's guaranteed the EB would know "in general terms" this was going on. I think that's false. I definitely think it's possible that there are blacker than black SAPs that escape any EB/LB oversight whatsoever. But, please, enlighten me differently if that's not true :) ;p xx
    - leroy_masochist 5y ago
      Shady stuff including psychological experiments definitely went on during the Cold War (with a lot of EB support for that general sort of thing if not explicit approval of every program) but one of the main results of the Church Commission and subsequent legislation like Title 50 updates, etc, was the implementation of severe limitations with regard to what intelligence agencies can do involving US civilians. To the extent that there's anything "blacker than black" it's the decisions that intelligence officers and the contract employees who support them do on their own initiative - that, and things that are done under the aegis of foreign governments. It's an ugly world out there and the US does ugly things in its citzens' name, and many of them are openly reported, e.g., killing children with hot shrapnel via drone strikes. Shady clandestine paramilitary operations do certainly happen, most of which never see the light of day. But even the SAPest of SAPs will run into big problems if it messes with US citizens in any capacity without very high-level authorization, which is more or less never given. The Awlaki sanction was a big, big decision for example. I'm pretty darn sure that psychological experiments on everyday Americans without their consent is not a thing that's happening.
      - graderjs 5y ago
        Cool, this is an interested perspective, thanks for the read. It was really good to get all that information. After reading that I'm more inclined to believe you with regard to operations on US citizens, and those done by the domestic LE/intelligence/security agencies. I suppose a few other counterpoints I have are how I heard numerous times that Trump wasn't briefed into certain things because people in intelligence thought he might loud mouth about it. And secondly, I think the scope for discretion, noted by your, "it's the decisions that intelligence officers and the contract employees who support them do on their own initiative - that, and things that are done under the aegis of foreign governments." is actually pretty large. Especially when you consider that large multinational corporations might be contracted. I suppose I'm talking more about defense/security related tech programs, and less about actual intelligence operations, tho I threw in that obvious example to make a point. I'm prepared to accept that's how it used to be but no longer is with regard to the latter at least. But on the technology/science side, I'm less convinced black SAPs have full-spectrum EB oversight. Does the EB really already know everything that goes on at Los Alamos? Nevada Test Site? Or various defense corporation facilities worldwide contracted and funded at least in part by the US government? I definitely think there are some people who have a large picture, but I don't believe it to be EB, unfortunately, as I said at first, for "democracy" :( ;p xx How many layers within layers might those companies and programs have, where they are receiving funding and technology and not filtering the general picture back up to EB? I think there's a definite possibility of that, for sure! :p ;) xx I'm going to go read a bit more about Awlaki, Church, Title 50. Thank you again!! :P ;) xx

graderjs 5y ago

That's not really true. There's lots of SAPs that have no Leg oversight, and Exec doesn't know about them. DoE has lots of black budget programs that don't have the same scrutiny as DoD ones. And even in DoD there's so many SAPs, it's not possible that Exec and Leg have been briefed in to all of them, nor asked to be. So while theoretically, Exec and Leg should be able to look at any SAP, how are they going to know about them, if someone in the program uses their discretion to decide to not tell them it exists? From the point of view of "democracy" this is definitely a bug. But from the point of view of SAPs and commercial interests involved in them, this is mostly a feature (except when things are so secret and locked down it's hard to bring in talent to work on them). Tho, in the case of this so-called "secret army" they don't seem to be suffering any talent shortage :p;) xx

leroy_masochist 5y ago
Respectfully, you seem to be confusing the fact that there are government agencies which report to the EB and are overseen by the LB, and these agencies have highly sensitive SAPs about which very few people know specifics (true) with the notion that the EB has no idea in general about what goes on through these SAPs and there is no accountability within these agencies for methods used by these SAPs and/or the outcomes they achieve (untrue).
- graderjs 5y ago
  I probably am. I'm not an expert in this. Sorry, if you know more about it than I do I defer to you. But what I understand is, say I had a SAP that was running psychological experimentation on everyday Americans without their knowledge or consent, it sounds as if you're saying that it's guaranteed the EB would know "in general terms" this was going on. I think that's false. I definitely think it's possible that there are blacker than black SAPs that escape any EB/LB oversight whatsoever. But, please, enlighten me differently if that's not true :) ;p xx
  - leroy_masochist 5y ago
    Shady stuff including psychological experiments definitely went on during the Cold War (with a lot of EB support for that general sort of thing if not explicit approval of every program) but one of the main results of the Church Commission and subsequent legislation like Title 50 updates, etc, was the implementation of severe limitations with regard to what intelligence agencies can do involving US civilians. To the extent that there's anything "blacker than black" it's the decisions that intelligence officers and the contract employees who support them do on their own initiative - that, and things that are done under the aegis of foreign governments. It's an ugly world out there and the US does ugly things in its citzens' name, and many of them are openly reported, e.g., killing children with hot shrapnel via drone strikes. Shady clandestine paramilitary operations do certainly happen, most of which never see the light of day. But even the SAPest of SAPs will run into big problems if it messes with US citizens in any capacity without very high-level authorization, which is more or less never given. The Awlaki sanction was a big, big decision for example. I'm pretty darn sure that psychological experiments on everyday Americans without their consent is not a thing that's happening.
    - graderjs 5y ago
      Cool, this is an interested perspective, thanks for the read. It was really good to get all that information. After reading that I'm more inclined to believe you with regard to operations on US citizens, and those done by the domestic LE/intelligence/security agencies. I suppose a few other counterpoints I have are how I heard numerous times that Trump wasn't briefed into certain things because people in intelligence thought he might loud mouth about it. And secondly, I think the scope for discretion, noted by your, "it's the decisions that intelligence officers and the contract employees who support them do on their own initiative - that, and things that are done under the aegis of foreign governments." is actually pretty large. Especially when you consider that large multinational corporations might be contracted. I suppose I'm talking more about defense/security related tech programs, and less about actual intelligence operations, tho I threw in that obvious example to make a point. I'm prepared to accept that's how it used to be but no longer is with regard to the latter at least. But on the technology/science side, I'm less convinced black SAPs have full-spectrum EB oversight. Does the EB really already know everything that goes on at Los Alamos? Nevada Test Site? Or various defense corporation facilities worldwide contracted and funded at least in part by the US government? I definitely think there are some people who have a large picture, but I don't believe it to be EB, unfortunately, as I said at first, for "democracy" :( ;p xx How many layers within layers might those companies and programs have, where they are receiving funding and technology and not filtering the general picture back up to EB? I think there's a definite possibility of that, for sure! :p ;) xx I'm going to go read a bit more about Awlaki, Church, Title 50. Thank you again!! :P ;) xx