In a really big, bureaucratic organization, there are some basics like "turf" and "squeaky wheels". Creepy spy stuff is 3-letter turf. If those guys keep pestering Congress for creepy powers...well, Congress has all the moral principals of a slave trader, and handing out creepy powers is pretty much free for them, so why not?

>Or simply clueless politicians listening to the Swamp?

Why clueless and not complicit? Who ever cared for the voters, and which politican's career ever got hurt for giving in to the Swamp?

lol no, NSA would rather sit and do nothing, like any organization, the reason why they do anything is because they receive orders from the government to do those things.

Increased surveillance powers serve the purpose of doing nothing. Force private entities to do the work of slurping everything thing up. Hire contractors to write the analysis software. Then tie your performance metric to the number of alerts received (not resolved). So, more data in + expanding the scope of "suspicious" activity leads to "more work done". And also lets you go back to Congress and say, "look how dangerous the world is, give us more 'resources' to make it safer." Rinse, repeat.

at this stage your default assumption is that the 3 letters agencies control the government through blackmail or corruption

"I was told Epstein 'belonged to intelligence' and to leave it alone." Alexander Acosta

"The court documents unsealed under a US judge in New York sparked suspicions about the pedophile links to Mossad. According to the website Global Village, this revelation is consistent with claims by former Israeli spy Ari Ben Menashe, who argues in his upcoming book that Epstein was also an Israeli spy.

Menashe’s book also mentioned Ghislaine Maxwell, linking her to Mossad, the website reported, stressing: “Ben-Menashe alleges they ran a “honey-trap” operation, providing young girls to politicians for sex and then using the incidents to blackmail them for Israeli intelligence.”

The author notably reveals that Epstein was introduced to Mossad by Maxwell’s father, Robert Maxwell, who worked as an Israeli espionage agent.

The Daily Mail reported similar details, stressing that the unsealed document has “reignited suspicions” about Epstein’s links to Mossad."

At this point, its not really a conspiracy theory to think an intelligence agency controls the US government through blackmail, its elementary common sense.

That doesn't make sense unless these agencies can convert their influence into personal financial gain.

What part doesn't make sense? Any why this wouldn't make sense unless "personal financial gain" was involved?

Even a true believer three letter agency head, thinking he does something good for his country, could have their team use information to blackmail a politician into giving the agency more power or greenlighting this or that operation. No financial or other personal gain need be involved.

And that's the best case of the "true believer". More cynical types (the type that rise in every organization) would also use it to score points within the agency, expand his teams scope and budget, and so on.

Exactly. There's no point in expanding your team, scope and budget unless you gain something from it, personally. You can't really use that power in the open (it would be conspicuous, and it can't be applied in many practical cases), so it has to be monetary.

“Of all tyrannies, a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It would be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron's cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end for they do so with the approval of their own conscience.” - C.S. Lewis

Some people get off on money, others on influence.

While I find it a tad too dystopian to assume the intelligence services &c control government, surely it isn't too far-fetched to imagine some spook visiting a legislator, putting some dirty laundry on his/her desk and murmuring 'Nice career you've got there, would be a shame if anything happened to it?'

Everybody's got something to hide except for me and

My monkey

I bet that in practice that happens pretty rarely because it's risky (what if the legislator has cameras you don't know about, etc).

But I think politicians understand that capital and the national security state are very influential, and their careers will go much better if they do their bidding (without anyone ever explicitly asking them to). They'll find it easier to get elected, less interference from courts, great consulting and speaking gigs after they retire, and so on.

House speaker Johnson, once becoming speaker, did a complete 180 on many of his policies, and even cited his closed door SCIF briefing with Intel agencies as to why it became such a huge priority to push through the FISA garbage. This is the same briefing that many other politicians have had, and continue to fight against these 4th amendment violations. Hard to believe that these briefings aren't actually threat sessions when it comes to politicians that are pivotal.

Or its a foreign intelligence agency which does this.

you can get personal gains by remaining in power forever no matter the administration

The US' three-letter oppression-industrial complex agencies are staffed, invariably, by religious zealots who are hell-bent on getting on with their own agenda, willfully using those agencies resources ..

See, for example, the case of the CIA: the second largest Mormon community outside of the Church of LDS, itself.

Related fun fact. The owner of the website Civit.ai (the huggingface of diffusion models, and also the place where all the AI porn is being made), is a Mormon.

Take that how you will, but in light of your comments, it’s fascinating.

Its not a popular thing to do, but pointing out the influence of religious organizations on modern society is vital to our future as a free, open, and democratic society - if we are ever to become one, again.

I hardly know anything about the Mormons - I thought they were pretty isolationist, which seems to go completely against what the NSA and especially the CIA does - what would be their agenda ??

Not a joke: The supremacy of the will of the American people over all others.

https://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/why-mormons-make-great...

>at this stage your default assumption is that the 3 letters agencies control the government through blackmail or corruption

Hoover was known to blackmail and he defined the FBI. Do you think it has reformed itself since then, or just gotten better at it?

https://themobmuseum.org/notable_names/j-edgar-hoover/#:~:te....

Or they could take the easier and less conspiratorial route and control government by controlling intelligence? Governments act based on intelligence. Intelligence determines who we go to war with, what surveillance measures we need and what constitutes national security.