Has being a Bond fan made you a supporter of extra-judicial killing/state-sponsored assassination?

Sark

timmer wrote: »

The show Dexter is a hoot. How did he sneak in here.

Sark wrote: »

No timmer, I actually don't have to "just trust them". Moreover, when people say to trust them they often explicitly mean don't hold them accountable. Like in the scene in CR where M is bit**ing about being questioned by parliament, saying that "even he(the PM) knows not to ask what they do."

Who are you quoting here? "just trust them"
The scene with M; are you taking Mommy M to ask? :-O

This

We do actually have to trust our intelligence services because that's all we've got.

The amount of 'trust' that someone places in intelligence services usually seems inversely proportional to the amount of oversight they think is necessary. That is, when someone says they trust the CIA/NSA/DIA et al, they usually have an attitude close to Dench's in CR of being annoyed with bureaucrats and politicians want to know what the hell they're doing. the problem is, when we do give them a long leash they run wild. Besides Clapper lying to congress about spying on Americans, just last year the CIA hacked senate computers http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2014/jul/31/cia-admits-improperly-hacking-senate-computers-sea/?page=all Of course, earlier that year the CIA had lied again and acted outraged that anyone could accuse them of that. When your intelligence services are spying on the politicians they're supposed to report to they need reining in.

bondjames

Although I dislike his presidency immensely, I'm going to quote Reagan on this: "trust but verify".

The trouble is, with the intelligence services, there is no verify, because they hide behind national security as a convenient excuse.

That's why I said earlier that there has to be a much shorter limitation on the amount of time they can keep things secret before revealing it all to the public (and what is revealed should be more detailed than now).

In today's 24/7 day and age, it's going to be more and more difficult for intelligence services to just tell us to 'trust' them. That's why, although I may be in the minority, I'm all for Julian Assanges, Bradley Mannings, and Edward Snowdens of this world. They have done us all a public service. The reactions of the US govt in particular to their activities shows me that I should not 'trust' govt.

As an example, there was a lot of information edited out of the 911 report. Most of it had to do with Bush's relationship with the Saudis, and potential complicity of certain Saudi individuals in the 911 attacks. That is unacceptable. The public should have seen it all.

It's a complex world no doubt, and some members of the public are indeed too stupid to understand the nuances involved in foreign policy, but that's no excuse for not being accountable to the public.