However:

1) I maintain that the only reason to fund an intelligence agency is to expect them to perform intelligence activities, and today that requires being the best in the world at black hat infosec.

2) I mistrust my government less than I mistrust yours or Russsia's, because at least my government depends on me for votes and taxes and general compliance with laws.

But this also means that they have way more reason to lie to you and to mislead you.

I mean, if they successfully lie to me, they get my taxes.

If they successfully lie to you, maybe you don't invade our country.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poisoning_of_Alexander_Litvi... https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sergei_Skripal

It's ranging from secret services trying to use people to bomb planes and public places, to dissidents active abroad being threatened, beaten up or assassinated by suspected secret services of their origin countries. On source of such activity is Assad's regime in Syria.

https://www.middleeastmonitor.com/20190119-is-assad-trying-t...

It's uncommon, unlikely, but not that unique.

> COINTELPRO (1956–1971) was a series of covert, and at times illegal,[1][2] projects conducted by the United States Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) aimed at surveilling, infiltrating, discrediting, and disrupting domestic political organizations.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FBI%E2%80%93King_suicide_lette...

> The letter does not specify precisely what action it is urging King to undertake; King understood the letter as advocating that he commit suicide, ...

1. https://monthlyreview.org/2014/09/01/how-we-found-out-about-...

Our precedent is J Edgar Hoover. This nobody running an organization with limited power used surveillance to get dirt on lots of politicians and other powerful people. Their surveillance capabilities were extremely limited. He still managed to get enough which, combined with his media skills, got control of enough of Congress to massively increase his power. He kept at that for a long time. The FBI remains one of the most powerful, well-funded agencies in America.

So, here was my speculation around the time of 9/11. I was going by capabilities Bamford wrote about. I said they probably just ask NSA to use its existing capabilities to watch more people. It will be a black program (SAP or USAP). That means most of Congress won't legally know about it. The USAP's might just take a handful of them (committee heads). Then, with all that data collection, they could literally just have one team of people doing nothing but collecting data on Congress and maybe some Justices. Maybe just the committee members that hold them accountable plus their political opponents. It's not a lot of people or conversations to watch. They'd probably find evidence of bribery by lobbyists, prostitution, etc really fast. They see way more than Hoover did. Hell, they can even bootstrap by spying on those that set their budget first, getting a big increase, and then using a slice of that to target more of Congress.

The people running those organizations are already amoral, rule breakers who see everything as a means to an end. What are the odds that a power monger at top of spy agency would try what Hoover did? And what are those odds if they have widespread surveillance, total secrecy and mostly legal immunity? I'd peg it somewhere close to 100% that it will happen unless we block such surveillance projects. America, in fear, voted for more or didn't resist it. So, it will happen. The expanded access with, per Snowden leaks, sharing with over a dozen agencies will increase the number of abuses. Hell, folks were even looking at their girlfriends with Snowden himself stealing about everything. Think folks hunting for blackmail data couldn't or wouldn't collecting their own dirt with nobody noticing?