Sure, they could probably run operations without authorization, or with larger scope than the given authorization. But it would need to be quite a large conspir

Sure, they could probably run operations without authorization, or with larger scope than the given authorization. But it would need to be quite a large conspiracy requiring quite a bit of lying and hiding. I think generally speaking these kinds of conspiracies fail to (disgruntled) whistleblowers. There is a committee in parliament that gets to see secret information, perhaps they could demand to see authorization and activities of a given operation.