Earlier quoted context omitted.
> You can just read the wikipedia on it Smith-Mundt was a restriction on State. It did nothing to restrict the CIA, or USAID for that matter. It was also motivated by concerns that State harboured communist sympathies. Saying the Act was motivated by concerns around "what would happen if [American propaganda] was turned inward" is factually false, unsupported by contemporaneous accounts of the bill's backers. > I am,…
It's not in my interest to discuss the actions of the intelligence system in the US/UK, so I wont. I'm inclined never to address the subject again, to be honest. Tulsi Gabbard's hearing may be a tiny bit illuminating. The DOGE wrecking ball might lead to a new Church-committe-style hearing, there's already hearings in the house on the "censorship-industrial complex" but they're too naive at the moment. DOGE still thi…
Yes, against our allies. Literally how soft power works. (As well as funding insurgencies against our adversaries’ proxies.)
Zero evidence it’s been used domestically. Which makes sense, because that would be dumb. Use those resources to attack directly.
> "How should the intelligence services conduct themselves?" has never been a question open to democratic debate
This is just excusing laziness. I’ve worked on privacy and intelligence bills, including giving comment and adding revisions at the federal level. The problem is it’s boring work and like two constituents call about it. The IC has been weak since the Iraq War and never put up a fight directly; they relied on their neocon warhawks to be their surrogates. Which mostly worked because the overlap between people who care about this and people who are nihilistic about civics to the point of being electorally irrelevant is huge.