Eternity RPC Board
Yeah I want to clarify a number of issues.
My reason for not directly opting for copying US-style oversight is because the entire US system is designed to handle an organization like the FBI. But aside from the letter combination, the FSD is very different from the FBI and actually has no similar in the US. The FBI is first and foremost a federal law enforcement body, hence it falls under the DOJ. The FSD has nothing to do with law-enforcement and is in fact supposed to be kept strictly separate from law-enforcement.
The FSD follows the European model and is Nyland's equivalent of what in Canada is the Canadian Security Intelligence Service, the British Security Service MI5, Dutch AIVD, or the Swedish SAPO (which ironically enough does fall under the Swedish DOJ and is also a law enforcement agency, but trust me, you do not want to copy the SAPO and its near Gestapo-like powers).
Let me highlight some crucial differences between the FBI and the FSD:
The reason why Im pushing back a little against the ''legal oversight'' option is that I'm hoping to clarify that its not gonna work the same way police officers need to get a court warrant to search someone's home. In a criminal investigation, like the FBI does, the police needs to show to the court that it followed all lawful proceedures before it can enter someone's home in search of evidence that will land their ass in jail. The FSD monitors people, groups and networks for the very reason they lack relevant information on them but they have a clue - call it a rumor even - from credible sources that there may be severe danger coming from these people. Because these people, if they are up to very dark plans, would do everything to hide their intentions and plans, the FSD needs to covertly get closer to them and take a look into their lives and activities. If the operation is betrayed, they may quickly abort or adapt their protective measures. This is why secrecy is the FSD's only and most powerful weapon. This is also why the FSD would rather not need nor seek any warrants from a court.
First of all, what's the court going to consider? The FSD already has the lawful right to conduct investigations into people and groups it suspects of being a threat to national security. The FSD already has the lawful right to invade people's privacy for that. The investigations do not concern criminal prosecution, but national security. What constitutes a national security threat is a political decision, hence the FSD answers directly to the executive. If a court were to stand in between that, the Nylander (democratically elected) government is essentially no longer in charge of national security policy but the judiciary is. And suppose the FSD were to supply a court with a specific request asking for permission to use a phone-tap or something, it cannot provide evidence. The very reason the FSD wants to tap someone's phone is because they need to find out whether this hint, clue, or tip they got about him is credible and he poses a threat. This element of threat analysis is a form of expertise that FSD analysts have, but for which a court judge is unfit. A judge has been trained in weighing criminal evidence and legal arguments. Not to make threat and risk analysis based on bits and pieces of information (that seem random to the non-trained viewer) but that may indicate a highly complex espionage operation from a foreign country. The information can be as random as a sequence of telephone numbers and nothing more. But a counter-intelligence analyst may have recognized a relationship between those numbers and wants a phone-tap on one of them.
A court is unprepared to decide in such a case. There are countries that use court warrants, but the court only looks if the security service and government correctly followed their own proceedures. It does not judge the case itself, only the bureaucratic process. Its a formality, and thats why in the US for example, the courts have so far never objected to any NSA request for warrants to spy on virtually the entire US population.
If that's the kind of warranting we want, I'm fine with it, but I'm already warning (to avoid RP misunderstandings) that a court warrant isn't magically gonna hold the FSD back from investigating your RP character or from hacking into his phone.
So to put it very shortly, the FBI and Courts are designed to investigate, prosecute and judge people who have committed a crime and the evidence is pointing to them. The FSD is not interested in any of that. It directs all its resources to predicting where the next crime is going to take place and how it will be done and how it can be prevented. The FSD is lucky to ever find anything as solid that it could pass for ''evidence''. It seldomly finds such concrete information - evidence that someone is plotting a crime like espionage or terror attacks. It acts on premature conclusions and suspicions, based on clues and little shards of information - information that can be interpreted and explained in a 1000 different ways. That interpreting is the job of an intelligence analyst of the FSD, not of a court judge. If the conclusion leads to ''here we have a threat'', the choices are: monitor it further to gain more knowledge of the threat; warn policy-makers to take precautions; or lastly, the threat is so acute that the DOJ and police or military are warned to come into action.
My reason for not directly opting for copying US-style oversight is because the entire US system is designed to handle an organization like the FBI. But aside from the letter combination, the FSD is very different from the FBI and actually has no similar in the US. The FBI is first and foremost a federal law enforcement body, hence it falls under the DOJ. The FSD has nothing to do with law-enforcement and is in fact supposed to be kept strictly separate from law-enforcement.
The FSD follows the European model and is Nyland's equivalent of what in Canada is the Canadian Security Intelligence Service, the British Security Service MI5, Dutch AIVD, or the Swedish SAPO (which ironically enough does fall under the Swedish DOJ and is also a law enforcement agency, but trust me, you do not want to copy the SAPO and its near Gestapo-like powers).
Let me highlight some crucial differences between the FBI and the FSD:
- The FBI is a law-enforcement agency and may conduct criminal investigations. The FSD is not and may not conduct criminal investigation.
- The FBI may make arrests, interrogate suspects or search homes. The FSD may not make arrests, does not interrogate suspects, but is allowed to covertly (sneakily) enter someone's home to acquire information or to plant recording equipment.
- Everything, or almost everything the FBI does is with the aim of bringing the case to a court and present it with the collected evidence of a crime committed to get suspects convicted. The FSD will seldomly be in a courtroom. It does not investigate crimes, it does not collect evidence like fingerprints or a murder weapon.
- The FBI works on a case-by-case basis, going from criminal case to criminal case. Or unmasking one terrorist after another, or spy after spy. Then catch them and bring them to justice. The FSD runs on an operational basis. It is constantly running covert operations to monitor ongoing developments, against targets that remain more or less the same over many years: foreign spies, terrorists, politically motivated or state-sponsored cyber war, extremists and saboteurs.
- The FBI is a relatively open organization: as a law enforcement body it is sooner or later forced to provide the courts and the public insight into why or how it got to arresting some bad guys. The FBI frequently dominates the headlines and news. The FSD is a secret service. Its agents do not wear a badge and do not even tell their families where they work. Their research into the biggest threats facing Nyland is produced only for those who need to know - mostly policymakers - to make the right decisions to protect the country. The FSD's reports and the details of its operations are never shared with the public or people who have no need to know.
The reason why Im pushing back a little against the ''legal oversight'' option is that I'm hoping to clarify that its not gonna work the same way police officers need to get a court warrant to search someone's home. In a criminal investigation, like the FBI does, the police needs to show to the court that it followed all lawful proceedures before it can enter someone's home in search of evidence that will land their ass in jail. The FSD monitors people, groups and networks for the very reason they lack relevant information on them but they have a clue - call it a rumor even - from credible sources that there may be severe danger coming from these people. Because these people, if they are up to very dark plans, would do everything to hide their intentions and plans, the FSD needs to covertly get closer to them and take a look into their lives and activities. If the operation is betrayed, they may quickly abort or adapt their protective measures. This is why secrecy is the FSD's only and most powerful weapon. This is also why the FSD would rather not need nor seek any warrants from a court.
First of all, what's the court going to consider? The FSD already has the lawful right to conduct investigations into people and groups it suspects of being a threat to national security. The FSD already has the lawful right to invade people's privacy for that. The investigations do not concern criminal prosecution, but national security. What constitutes a national security threat is a political decision, hence the FSD answers directly to the executive. If a court were to stand in between that, the Nylander (democratically elected) government is essentially no longer in charge of national security policy but the judiciary is. And suppose the FSD were to supply a court with a specific request asking for permission to use a phone-tap or something, it cannot provide evidence. The very reason the FSD wants to tap someone's phone is because they need to find out whether this hint, clue, or tip they got about him is credible and he poses a threat. This element of threat analysis is a form of expertise that FSD analysts have, but for which a court judge is unfit. A judge has been trained in weighing criminal evidence and legal arguments. Not to make threat and risk analysis based on bits and pieces of information (that seem random to the non-trained viewer) but that may indicate a highly complex espionage operation from a foreign country. The information can be as random as a sequence of telephone numbers and nothing more. But a counter-intelligence analyst may have recognized a relationship between those numbers and wants a phone-tap on one of them.
A court is unprepared to decide in such a case. There are countries that use court warrants, but the court only looks if the security service and government correctly followed their own proceedures. It does not judge the case itself, only the bureaucratic process. Its a formality, and thats why in the US for example, the courts have so far never objected to any NSA request for warrants to spy on virtually the entire US population.
If that's the kind of warranting we want, I'm fine with it, but I'm already warning (to avoid RP misunderstandings) that a court warrant isn't magically gonna hold the FSD back from investigating your RP character or from hacking into his phone.
So to put it very shortly, the FBI and Courts are designed to investigate, prosecute and judge people who have committed a crime and the evidence is pointing to them. The FSD is not interested in any of that. It directs all its resources to predicting where the next crime is going to take place and how it will be done and how it can be prevented. The FSD is lucky to ever find anything as solid that it could pass for ''evidence''. It seldomly finds such concrete information - evidence that someone is plotting a crime like espionage or terror attacks. It acts on premature conclusions and suspicions, based on clues and little shards of information - information that can be interpreted and explained in a 1000 different ways. That interpreting is the job of an intelligence analyst of the FSD, not of a court judge. If the conclusion leads to ''here we have a threat'', the choices are: monitor it further to gain more knowledge of the threat; warn policy-makers to take precautions; or lastly, the threat is so acute that the DOJ and police or military are warned to come into action.