Congress can simply cut their budget. The President can fire who he wants in the executive branch. Talk about it in the court of public opinion. Discourage "voting X no matter who" and focus on issues rather than sides.
>"Congress can simply cut their budget. The President can fire who he wants in the executive branch. Talk about it in the court of public opinion. Discourage "voting X no matter who" and focus on issues rather than sides."
Were it so easy. I feel like the same sentiment could apply to the military industrial complex, wherein congress could cut the budget at any time, the President could dismiss the most bellicose and wasteful officers, and the citizenry could focus on the issue rather than partisanship. Indeed, left and right seem to believe we spend way to much on certain military projects, yet nothing ever seems to be done about the ballooning budgets.
I believe one of the most sinister things about our intelligence apparatus is the fact that hoovering up all this data means it is easier than ever to blackmail our politicians who happen to be digital natives. I can only imagine how badly Millennial and Gen Z politicians can be made to look if their browser history were to leak.
The CIA has significant 'public/private' partnerships with thousands of companies and NGO's and non-profits. It might hurt the face of the CIA, but the people who make up the CIA, AKA it's employee's, will just distribute themselves within these external orgs and continue there operations covertly.
It's exactly what they did when they were caught using military propaganda techniques on U.S. citizens; AKA Operation Mockingbird. During the Church and Pike commissions, which were constantly attacked by CIA blackmailers, they didn't even fire anyone let alone press charges. The result was that the CIA was told not to do propaganda. To avoid this restriction, many CIA agents quit, and then privately entered the media industry, while continuing the same objectives they had while working for the CIA.
Now today, nearly 50 years later, private media is still allowed to use propaganda against us, because it isn't the government. This loop hole needs to be eliminated.
Congress/executive branch: "We're cutting your budget and firing the people in charge of this mess"
The NSA etc: "No you're not, we have all your calls and emails and every shitty thing you ever did on record and will leak it if you dare so much as look at our budget. And that's just for starters, wait until the FBI raid your house and find your computer filled with CP and you try the 'the CIA did it' defence in court. Or maybe we'll correct the results of the next election?"
Congress/executive branch: "We urgently need to increase their budget, and we will not be disclosing why"
The truth is, you cannot control or oversee these programs anymore than you can the military. And it's worse, for the military to stage a coup, they have to actually march into Washington and use guns. People know it has happened. These guys do it all in secret.
