4 ms·
God I hate security agencies of all kinds. Lots of power and zero accountability. They should be regulated by some UN-level treaty or banned entirely.
by untech 4y ago
God I hate security agencies of all kinds. Lots of power and zero accountability. They should be regulated by some UN-level treaty or banned entirely.
- Cthulhu_ 4y agoI mean they are to a degree, it's just that the US holds the most influence in it (veto powers and such). They don't have zero accountability, they exist under the auspice of the government, Supreme Court and the President. It's just that they have approved of the things they do.
- untech 4y agoWell, true, but it doesn’t seem to be enough. Too little transparency to public for this amount of power. Maybe you can say instead that executive branch is too powerful by inference, and special services are just their instrument projecting this power, but I think that’s not the whole picture. By design, such services become a semi-independent branch themselves, and iirc they are not really rotated, at least on low-to-middle levels.
- phpisthebest 4y agoI was in agreement with you until you stated giving UN power. The only organization I trust less than the intel/security agencies is the UN
- untech 4y agoUN should be reformed, of course. What I meant was more like a world-wide WMD ban, some multilateral agreement, and I used UN more as a proxy of “international level”.
- science4sail 4y agoHow would a world-wide WMD ban even happen? The last remaining country with WMDs could just ramp up their WMD production to Cold War levels and then hold the rest of the world hostage. North Korea is proof that sanctions can't stop nuclear problems. The only plausible route I imagine is if the non-WMD states put massive resources into countermeasures (e.g. missile interceptors or thwarting nuclear terrorism).
- untech 4y agoWell, non-nuclear WMDs are banned almost universally, aren’t they? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_weapons_of_mass_destruction_treaties https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_weapons_of_mass_destru...
- bombcar 4y agoMainly because they’re kinda useless in modern warfare. And the big boys with the nukes will sit on you hard.
- MichaelCollins 4y agoYeah, in the same sense that murder is banned. The ban gives you an excuse to punish people who violate the ban, but the ban doesn't stop people from doing it. And if one country keeps their nuclear program, who's going to do the punishing? Sanctions don't work. Saying you're going to ban nukes is pointless dreaming. Why stop there? Why not endeavor to ban wars as well? Just wave your magic wand and ban all the bad things out of existence.
- AshleyGrant 4y agoYeah, you're right. We should just give up, because bad people exist who won't follow the rules, so everything is pointless. This is the same argument that gun nuts use, despite massive evidence to the contrary.
- jaywalk 4y agoLuckily the UN has no effective power over the US.
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- selfmodruntime 4y agoYea, let's give power to multinational agencies whose leadership can't even be voted for. No thanks.