(July 3, 2013 at 3:26 pm)Faith No More Wrote: Well, I don't know how it works in the EU, but here in the U.S. there is very little transparency in the intelligence community, and the population has no say whatsoever as to how agencies like the C.I.A. operate. They basically operate under an "it's only a crime if you get caught" philosophy, and the public is only aware of what is going on when there is a public snafu or details leak out many years later.
Considering how much the MI5 seems to operate as underhandedly as the C.I.A., it doesn't seem that far fetched that they have a spying operation that is much bigger in scope than you might imagine.
That is a myth, european secret services are stricktly bound to the law. Especialy the MI5. If you read through the wiki articles and other articles concerning them, you will notice that there is hardly an action by the MI5 which was not approved by a judge and which was not reveiled to the public. There were actualy cases which were dropped, especialy against IRA members because the MI5 worked outside the boundries of the law. I dont even think that the French have a that active intelligence section and that they leave most work to the police. And in Germany the BND has a really bad reputation for having used former nazis as informants in South America during the 50s and for being unefficiant towards certain threats - so it is under big public pressure to behave well and within the boundries of the constitution and the german press has the reputation of being a rational and vicious machine which jumps reveals almoust every single failure in every single institution.
From what I read in papers, almoust all intelligence resources by european intelligence services are invested into fighting islamism and corporate espionage by China and Russia.
