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devil-fire
iv been reading this book called Fair Play: The Moral Dilemmas of Spying by the former chief of CIA counterintelligence. in this book the author says the CIA (or any foreign intelligence agency in a free democracy) needs to adopt a firm set of moral guidelines for its conduct because quite often the agency is told "do whatever it takes to get the job done, but don't go too far or we'll have your heads" and what classifies as 'too far' is often decided after the agency has done something objectionable. this leads to an agency that doesn't want to take any more risk then is absolutely necessary and becomes ineffective (the agency might not want to run an agent from al'queda for fear of being accused of helping terrorists, despite the potential for a tremendous intel source on that organization).
so what sorts of basic principles should an intelligence agency abide by? what things should be considered unacceptable in pursuing national interests? how far is too far and how far is not far enough? under what conditions should these principles be bent?
for the purpose of this thread, i would like to assume that all foreign intelligence agencies or services (meaning all such organizations that are involved with foreign affairs, not organizations that are foreign) are morally equal
so what sorts of basic principles should an intelligence agency abide by? what things should be considered unacceptable in pursuing national interests? how far is too far and how far is not far enough? under what conditions should these principles be bent?
for the purpose of this thread, i would like to assume that all foreign intelligence agencies or services (meaning all such organizations that are involved with foreign affairs, not organizations that are foreign) are morally equal