4 ms·

Pretty bad for the rest of us, but not bad for the people in government who want plausible deniability for actions taken by the espionage services. I would assu

Pretty bad for the rest of us, but not bad for the people in government who want plausible deniability for actions taken by the espionage services. I would assume that every government has this, at least to some extent, don't you think?

cm2187 3y ago
Yes but this "independence" regularly leads to abuses. In France the secret services are strongly suspected to be behind several major political hoaxes against their president (Markovic affair against Pompidou, Japanese bank account against Chirac). I won't even get into what the CIA is suspected of...
- bananapub 3y ago
  Don’t forget French security services also terrorist attacked a notional ally, even: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sinking_of_the_Rainbow_Warrior https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sinking_of_the_Rainbow_Warri...
  - cm2187 3y ago
    Yeah but that wasn’t the DGSE going rogue, that was ordered by the gvt.
turquoisevar 3y ago
It would be great for governments, if that’s how it worked in European countries. The Netherlands specifically had cabinets (i.e., governments) fall due to the responsible ministers not knowing what their agencies were doing, with snap elections as result. In fact, in the last decade or so this happened quite often. Accountability in The Netherlands isn’t just based on knowing something and still doing the wrong things, its often also based on “should’ve known something as the person responsible for the agency in question” and not being in the know. In terms of accountability, in both cases the person in question is considered to have fucked up. So the plausible deniability angle, is not really a benefit. Provided it comes out during that person’s tenure, although in rare instances even current office holders have been held responsible for the lack of knowledge of their prior office holders, based on the idea that the current office holder should’ve been aware such a thing happened and should’ve informed parliament post haste upon learning about it.

cm2187 3y ago

Yes but this "independence" regularly leads to abuses. In France the secret services are strongly suspected to be behind several major political hoaxes against their president (Markovic affair against Pompidou, Japanese bank account against Chirac). I won't even get into what the CIA is suspected of...

bananapub 3y ago
Don’t forget French security services also terrorist attacked a notional ally, even: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sinking_of_the_Rainbow_Warrior https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sinking_of_the_Rainbow_Warri...
- cm2187 3y ago
  Yeah but that wasn’t the DGSE going rogue, that was ordered by the gvt.

turquoisevar 3y ago

It would be great for governments, if that’s how it worked in European countries. The Netherlands specifically had cabinets (i.e., governments) fall due to the responsible ministers not knowing what their agencies were doing, with snap elections as result. In fact, in the last decade or so this happened quite often. Accountability in The Netherlands isn’t just based on knowing something and still doing the wrong things, its often also based on “should’ve known something as the person responsible for the agency in question” and not being in the know. In terms of accountability, in both cases the person in question is considered to have fucked up. So the plausible deniability angle, is not really a benefit. Provided it comes out during that person’s tenure, although in rare instances even current office holders have been held responsible for the lack of knowledge of their prior office holders, based on the idea that the current office holder should’ve been aware such a thing happened and should’ve informed parliament post haste upon learning about it.