A fantastic read on the so called 'Deep state' is "National Security and Double Government" [1] by Michael J. Glennon in the Harvard Law School National Security Journal.
Abstract:
"National security policy in the United States has remained largely constant from the Bush Administration to the Obama Administration. This continuity can be explained by the “double government” theory of 19th-century scholar of the English Constitution Walter Bagehot. As applied to the United States, Bagehot’s theory suggests that U.S. national security policy is defined by the network of executive officials who manage the departments and agencies responsible for protecting U.S. national security and who, responding to structural incentives embedded in the U.S. political system, operate largely removed from public view and from constitutional constraints. The public believes that the constitutionally-established institutions control national security policy, but that view is mistaken.
Judicial review is negligible; congressional oversight is dysfunctional; and presidential control is nominal. Absent a more informed and engaged electorate, little possibility exists for restoring accountability in the formulation and execution of national security policy."
> This continuity can be explained by the “double government” theory
It could also be explained by Obama and Bush sharing similar philosophies on the security state, and there's a lot of evidence that supports that. That's not to say that the agencies aren't problematic, but rather that elected officials have been mostly happy with what they're doing, and that this is the reason why they keep doing it.
Where there were differences in policy between the administrations, we did see a change - for instance, in the use of waterboarding. It's just that these differences weren't as numerous as many people assumed.
Daniel Patrick Moynihan[0] wrote a book called Secrecy. If I remember it correctly, I took away two main points:
* A highly valuable asset within government is information and thus workers are incentivized to hoard it and protect its value, including by classifying it and not sharing it (i.e., keeping secrets).
* Secrecy can lead to extraordinarily bad results. Instead of being exposed to open debate, the secret information or idea is restricted to a few insiders who lack diverse perspectives, can easily form an echo chamber, or who may be politically pressured or desirous to support the conclusion.
[0] Unusual career, if you don't know of him: Senator, PhD. and published sociologist, Ambassador to India and the UN, White House advisor on urban affairs. With his deep skills and experience in both research and government, few are more qualified to talk about these things.
Isn't this what we mean when we talk about democracies with "well established institutions". In other words, isn't it a feature not a bug? The public institutions wield power just like the press, the judiciary, the legislature etc. And policy that does not meet with a broad acceptance by all sections of society gets blocked one way or another.
Key question is not, is there a "deep state". The question is this... does the deep state have US National interests at heart, or are they another special interest group pursuing their own interests. Several ways to tell:
- Where do/did suspected private sector "deep state" players invest? In the US or abroad.
- Whom do/did they lobby for or represent in the private sector.
- Who do they associate with.
The criticism in some circles is that suspected deep-state members are too close to certain countries (eg. Saudi Arabia).
There are criticisms leveled that suspected deep-state members are either compromised by foreign powers, or they have compromised US officials, and journalists.
I am all for accountability and an infrequent but meaningful shake-up and reset of political influence and power. But the realpolitik bottom-line is that intent and effectiveness matter more than process or accountability. In other words, it doesn't matter if you think John Podesta, Dick Cheney, Kissinger, Soros or Facebook is the "deep state". What matters is the NET result on US national interests at home and abroad.
It doesn't matter who is prime minister, the government is always in power.
I think the quote is something like that, which is a slight at the UK civil service because even if you elect a different party, prime minister and ministers control is ultimately held by those who exercise it... which tends to be the civil service.
Another quote along those lines is this one:
Hacker: If there were a conflict of interests which side would the civil service really be on?
Bernard: The winning side, Prime Minister.
There is also Dana Priest's book, "Top Secret Nation"
That being said, I am not sure how much of this is an organized conspiracy vs. bureaucratic entrenchment of known and familiar practices, defending one's turf, prolonging employment, etc....sometimes these things take on lives of their own.
While I think the stated concern about a 'deep state' is rather exaggerated, I think there is a legitimate concern about friction between the executive and the bureaucracy. There is broad tradition of non-partisan civil service taking orders from the partisan government of the day across the Western world, and it exists for two very good reasons: If the civil service is partisan, worthy public servants will lose their positions upon any change in government; and if the civil service is partisan, governments will not trust them.
We saw this in Canada under the Harper government in the early part of this decade, with civil servants actively undermining the government and the government retaliating with gag orders; it didn't take long before the government, knowing that any research they asked for would be leaked in the most damaging way possible, abandoned evidence-based governing in favour of seat-of-the-pants policy-making.
Now, what took a decade in Canada seems to have happened in a matter of weeks in Washington; but the fact remains that when the civil service is overtly opposed to their political masters, good government becomes impossible. It's one thing to have a bungling fool in charge of the ship of state; it's quite another to have a bungling fool who knows his crew are in the process of staging a mutiny.
With respect, I'd have to disagree with your portrayal of Harper as an honest toiler, betrayed by revanchist public servants at every turn, and forced by circumstances to take harsh but fair measures.
Harperites didn't like the facts, and did their absolute best to hide them. The woolly headed policy making was conducted in defiance of the facts. When the objective facts were highlighted by public servant, in full concordance with the espoused values of their organisations, the conservatives got nasty.
Harper didn't like ridicule, and he proved what a small man he is when he had his satirist sacked. A remote wildlife ecologist public servant writing funny rhymes! What a coward to manufacture a dismissal.
As to Trump: he might think it a mutiny, others would characterise it as obeying the law and understanding the Constitution.
"While I think the stated concern about a 'deep state' is rather exaggerated,"
We've been involved in a lot of scheming stuff esp in Middle East for decades. The same names keep turning up in the higher ranks regardless of who is President in U.S.. Especially Cheney's. We also find a lot of it comes from the CIA's meddlings despite the public not wanting any of those particular operations. At one point, they were straight-up funding themselves with drug money to do whatever they wanted with their own private military. Recently, esp with Iraq, it's close-knit groups of civilians in think tanks, civilians in defense contractors, executive-branch officials who sometimes pull six digits on side from defense contractors, and Congress committee reps with stock in same companies. There's definitely a deep state going on.
It got cemented, though, when continuity of government legislation was enacted after passing of State of Emergency and Patriot Act. The power it gives the executive branch, esp ignoring Constitution and accountability, is likely why they reinstate it every year. I imagine Congress is just too afraid to fight with them. GAO said Congress hasn't even read any of their reports on the NSA and such. They're totally uninterested in reigning in deep state whether it's not giving a shit, making money off it, blackmail via surveillance system, or death threats.
The reasoning in your first two paragraphs are sound in that a balance is necessary in government adapting to research, and that research being honest to begin with. It takes two.
But your last part:
> the fact remains that when the civil service is overtly opposed to their political masters, good government becomes impossible. It's one thing to have a bungling fool in charge of the ship of state; it's quite another to have a bungling fool who knows his crew are in the process of staging a mutiny.
I'm not sure what you mean to say by this. I mean, your statement could technically be true, but what are you suggesting? The phrasing indicates that the civil service has made good government impossible, while I think most would agree with the reverse. If honest facts from civil service has become "partisan", then the problem is entirely elsewhere.
US already had this debate a long time ago. When Andrew Jackson got elected, he proceeded to stuff the civil service with his supporters, freeing positions by kicking people out, and handing out the now vacant positions essentially as a reward for loyalty during the campaign. It was, quite appropriately, called the "spoils system" - as in, "to the victor go the spoils" (a phrase uttered by one of the people involved in that process).
And that system is the one that we had in place basically until Trump. But it should be made clear that it wasn't the civil service that made it partisan again - it was the incoming administration, by doing things like these:
And then, of course, there was the process of building the cabinet based largely on loyalty. The Trump administration (coincidentally, Trump is a great admirer of Jackson: http://www.salon.com/2017/02/19/trump-embraces-legacy-of-and...) had effectively revived the spoils system. The civil service responded accordingly.
Whether it's good or bad is a difficult question to answer. Like you say, there's a bungling fool in charge. If the crew is in mutiny, the obvious disadvantage is that the ship cannot be easily steered away from dangers... but the advantage is that it cannot be steered towards them, either. Sometimes, dysfunction is really better than energetic action towards the wrong goals.
if you think the civil service people are non-partisan you have completely missed the boat. There are very politically bent people in the system willing to cross whatever lines necessary to support their party. This has been made evident more than once in recent history.
The reason they are not losing jobs is for the most part in many countries they are immune to job loss unless they get arrested and convicted.
Consider all the officials who have effectively been attacked by American intelligence agencies: Gen. Petraeus, Gen. Haight, Gen. Flynn, Hillary Clinton, and Trump!
All this is quite recent, and in each case there have been explanations about how discoveries about the person were made coincidentally as part of other investigations, etc.
Establishing a false causal trail is one of the most basic strategies of using deep surveillance.
The recent leaks about Flynn and the Trump dossier seemed more nakedly political than the others, but leaks like this have always occurred, it's just unusual for them to be aimed at the current president and his cabinet.
The funny thing is that if you wanted to sabotage the US system of global mass surveillance, this is probably how you'd do it. Every story about monitored email accounts or phone calls illustrates how deep it goes, and the intrigue created by the allegations about Russia make the stories incredibly viral.
I'm having trouble parsing the narrative of the article. It's frankly bizarre. It seems to be implying very heavily that this leaking of the administrations actions is bad for democracy. And that the administration is right in attempting to consolidate more power away from agencies as a response. If the administration doesn't like its laundry being aired in public perhaps it should behave better. The worst part is it's attempt to somehow make a comparison to Turkey here. Erdogan is a dictator that has seized control of Turkey. His purging of the "deep state" was not a good thing. And it is an offensive stretch to suggest the 110,000 teachers, police, judges and other civil servants caught in that purge constitute some kind of evil "deep state".
There isn't a narrative it's an attempt to derail a narrative the people in charge of NYT don't like. Trump supporters are pushing the narrative of "Trump VS the Deep State!". So people will google "Deep State" and NYT is using it's cred with liberals to try and shape their opinion.
The same thing happened in WaPo and NYT with HRCs e-mail server. At some point the story is out there, your supporters are going to google it. You need to get a source they trust to report on it otherwise they'll end up somewher you don't control. So you report it and sail just as close as you can to "nothing to see here nothing to worry about!".
What does this article actually do:
Right away appeal to authority and answer the question "Does the US have a Deep State?":
"Not quite, experts say..." Phew! For a minute there I was worried but some random expert on Egypt got interviewed by the NYT and can say with clarity there is no shadowy cabal of three letter agency people pulling the strings! Lucky he could tell so easily really.
The rest of the article is trying to drift away from the idea of a secret cabal and instead push the idea that a "Deep State" is nothing more than the standard civil service in tension with their elected leaders. Yea sure.
Don't assume that just because an article criticizes one side it supports the other. It's very possible for the deep-state leaks to be bad AND for the consolidation of power by Trump's administration to be bad. The two feed into each other, and both sides are wrong. That was actually my read on the article - I got the impression that it didn't support either the deep state nor the Trump administration, but rather was labeling a dynamic that is toxic and could potentially lead to the destruction of American democracy.
I thought the comparisons to Erdogan were of a similar vein; I didn't see the article as supporting Erdogan, but rather saying that Erdogan consolidates power -> opposition forces stage a coup -> Erdogan purges opposition -> the real loser is Turkey.
The notion of the 'deep state' is that of a controlling body within the government which controls the actions of the nominally 'representative' part of the government. So a collection of people who "actually" set policy vs the the President. And their means of control is generally to create a narrative that supports their chosen course of action, whether or not the elected official agrees with it.
And in general I think it is unlikely, although prior to this election many people, especially young people, asserted that "voting was worthless since they had already decided who was going to win." That would be in keeping with a "Deep State" sort of situation.
The comparison to Turkey is indeed quite odd. What's even stranger is that American media persist in referring to a "failed coup attempt"; to the contrary, Erdoğan has completed a very successful coup d'état.
It is hard to know if the leaks are honest attempts to reveal bad governance practices, or if they are politically selected to achieve partisan motives.
Morals have nothing to do with it. It's about process and efficiency - and how the established de facto protocol of daily governing affects these. This is about what becomes the established conduct. The functioning of large organizations are based on two parts - the official rules, and the actual culture of operarion. The latter dictates how the establishment actually functions.
Do you believe that the administration is doing so much worse of a job than the previous ones? I suspect it has more to do with 20 years of backdoor deals suddenly meaning diddly because they couldn't predict the outcome this time.
20 years of predictable status-quo presidency will set up some deep ties, which should be obviously unhealthy for a nation that believes they elected a leader and not a rent-a-puppy. Having agencies which are actively sabotaging the majority elected party is obviously antidemocratic. The agencies ultimately carry out the work of the government, so if elected representatives don't hold authority over the agencies, you get an autocracy.
Am I the only one who thinks NYTimes should be a little more explicit in marking editorials? I'm sure among those of us familiar with newspapers it should be clear within a sentence that this is an opinion piece, however nowhere does the word "editorial" show up on this page and I suspect a fair number of younger or less educated individuals may not even understand what editorials are in general.
It helps me understand why individuals might be skeptical of newspapers when an agenda'd opinion piece (basically a hosted blog) shows up in the nytimes domain.
I looked for the word "editorial" or "opinion" and didn't see it anywhere, so I just assumed it was written by a staff writer for the regular news section. It's honestly got about the same ratio of fact/opinion as anything else they put out today. The only discernible difference is that it isn't 100% anti-Trump.
When Lincoln was elected, there were days he had difficulty getting from his room to his office -- the halls of the White House were full of people who came looking for a job from the president.
That was the old patronage system, where you elect a president and he can appoint thousands, maybe tens of thousands of jobs. All of these jobs had one major qualification: you had to be loyal to the president.
As much as we hate it now, for a long time the system worked well. When the government was small, there simply wasn't that much real power to pass around, and the U.S. Constitution was fairly clear that the president should be directly responsible for the executive branch. Nobody else. The founders discussed at length the idea of a complex bureaucratic system of state, like the Europeans had. They wanted no part of it.
But as we know, once the system grew during the Civil War and afterwards, it led to a terrible amount of corruption. Something had to be done. So the U.S. enacted Civil Service reform, where the president is allowed and expected to bring a bunch of partisan loyalists with him into office, but the lower levels of the bureaucracy were to be left alone to the professionals. In this way public opinion could have major impacts on national policy with each presidential election -- but elections wouldn't become such a feeding frenzy for people looking to make quick buck off the government.
Now it looks like we're seeing the endgame of the pendulum swinging too far in the other direction: the deep state. As just some random internet dude, my suggestion to fix it would be to assert more executive control another level or two down, perhaps allow the managers at the next level, who are not appointees, more power over moving people around and letting them go.
If we do it right we'll probably correct too far in the other direction, and hopefully it'll take another dozen or so decades for yet another course correction to be made. Sadly, however, I expect much political wailing and gnashing of teeth during the entire process. Whether it's patronage or the deep state, there's a ton of money and political power being fought over.
Never thought I'd say this but maybe Trump is right about the media. Part of me wants to think this is real reporting but to another part of me this screams like speculative albeit sophisticated conspiracy babble. It seems like the times by publishing this piece are really the ones culpable in sowing seeds of dissent and opposition in the mind of officials working for us gov. There's a lot of things wrong with this administration but in many cases the media is certainly not helping by amplifying the speakers on the circus.
It is only because America has elected a +radical president has this become somewhat apparent. But the inertia is democratic as it represents the democratic process and accumulation.
It is especially important when you have edge-case of a president wining, but with 46% of popular vote and 26.5% of the potential vote.
The "Deep State" being the actual institutions of law and governance is actually what makes democracy sustainable.
I don't find the article's "deep state" narrative very convincing. The message I got from the article was, "there's a shadow government and it's using dirty tactics to subvert the normal operations of our elected representatives (including the POTUS)."
That view would be a lot more legitimate, IMO, if we had a functional government trying to carry on normal business for the benefit of the people. What's actually happening looks to me to be very different, and exceptionally so! An analogy that should ring a bell with many HN regulars would be the new technical manager with zero technical background who was hired because he's the CEO's nephew, who happens to be borderline mentally challenged but makes up for it with defiant corruption, extreme nepotism and flamboyant temper tantrums.
If you're (e.g.) a developer and your new manager is objectively incompetent and deeply disturbed, if he jeopardized important projects and the company's bottom line (that you depend on for a living), no one would be surprised if you voiced your concerns to the manager's superior. In this analogy, the manager's only superior is the public.
It's unfortunate to see 'deep state' talk coming up in the US. I associate it mostly with Erdogan in Turkey and his attempts to change from elected leader to dictator for life. The deep state and Gulenist labels are used to attack and arrest or fire anyone who opposes that. I hope it doesn't go that way in the US.
Trump won with around 60 million votes in a country that has a population of around 340m people. Legally he may have the authority to do what he wants but he still has to work within a system of people who did not vote for him and who does not share his strong policies. I see this as a feature, not a bug. There's a saying that if you people don't earn a fair wage they'll find a way to pay themselves. I think a principal is at work here.
The leaks serve several good purposes:
- They help remove questionable public officials.
- They show government officials what it's like to have no private conversation (strong encryption).
- They show both the public and government officials that government cannot be trusted to keep secrets. (Even the President is unable to prevent his own government from revealing detrimental secrets.)
I'm trying to follow the events in the U.S.A, I'm not american, it feels like that the "deep state" or "establishment" or whatever you want to call it, is laying the groundwork to kick Donald Trump out of the white house. Good luck to you guys anyway.
It seems to me that the best way to encourage the development of a 'Deep State' is to exclude important stakeholders from things like the National Security Council.
When denied access to the formal structures, what are these people meant to do, seriously?
This is why you appoint a special prosecutor to conduct an investigation. To grossly simplify: either the leakers are dangerous to democracy, or they're patriots blowing the whistle on serious misconduct. If we find that Flynn lied to the FBI and that he acted inappropriately with regard to sanctions, then the leaks certainly feel like an act of a whistleblower.
If there's nothing to the allegations, an investigation would vindicate the administration.
The fact that everyone is stalling on an investigation just raises questions.
[+] [-] randomname2|9 years ago|reply
Abstract:
"National security policy in the United States has remained largely constant from the Bush Administration to the Obama Administration. This continuity can be explained by the “double government” theory of 19th-century scholar of the English Constitution Walter Bagehot. As applied to the United States, Bagehot’s theory suggests that U.S. national security policy is defined by the network of executive officials who manage the departments and agencies responsible for protecting U.S. national security and who, responding to structural incentives embedded in the U.S. political system, operate largely removed from public view and from constitutional constraints. The public believes that the constitutionally-established institutions control national security policy, but that view is mistaken.
Judicial review is negligible; congressional oversight is dysfunctional; and presidential control is nominal. Absent a more informed and engaged electorate, little possibility exists for restoring accountability in the formulation and execution of national security policy."
[1] http://harvardnsj.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/01/Glennon-Fin...
[+] [-] Chathamization|9 years ago|reply
It could also be explained by Obama and Bush sharing similar philosophies on the security state, and there's a lot of evidence that supports that. That's not to say that the agencies aren't problematic, but rather that elected officials have been mostly happy with what they're doing, and that this is the reason why they keep doing it.
Where there were differences in policy between the administrations, we did see a change - for instance, in the use of waterboarding. It's just that these differences weren't as numerous as many people assumed.
[+] [-] hackuser|9 years ago|reply
* A highly valuable asset within government is information and thus workers are incentivized to hoard it and protect its value, including by classifying it and not sharing it (i.e., keeping secrets).
* Secrecy can lead to extraordinarily bad results. Instead of being exposed to open debate, the secret information or idea is restricted to a few insiders who lack diverse perspectives, can easily form an echo chamber, or who may be politically pressured or desirous to support the conclusion.
[0] Unusual career, if you don't know of him: Senator, PhD. and published sociologist, Ambassador to India and the UN, White House advisor on urban affairs. With his deep skills and experience in both research and government, few are more qualified to talk about these things.
[+] [-] d4nt|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] rrggrr|9 years ago|reply
- Where do/did suspected private sector "deep state" players invest? In the US or abroad.
- Whom do/did they lobby for or represent in the private sector.
- Who do they associate with.
The criticism in some circles is that suspected deep-state members are too close to certain countries (eg. Saudi Arabia).
There are criticisms leveled that suspected deep-state members are either compromised by foreign powers, or they have compromised US officials, and journalists.
I am all for accountability and an infrequent but meaningful shake-up and reset of political influence and power. But the realpolitik bottom-line is that intent and effectiveness matter more than process or accountability. In other words, it doesn't matter if you think John Podesta, Dick Cheney, Kissinger, Soros or Facebook is the "deep state". What matters is the NET result on US national interests at home and abroad.
[+] [-] buro9|9 years ago|reply
Another quote along those lines is this one:
[+] [-] caycep|9 years ago|reply
That being said, I am not sure how much of this is an organized conspiracy vs. bureaucratic entrenchment of known and familiar practices, defending one's turf, prolonging employment, etc....sometimes these things take on lives of their own.
[+] [-] Dowwie|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] mcguire|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] selimthegrim|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] unknown|9 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] youdontknowtho|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] cperciva|9 years ago|reply
We saw this in Canada under the Harper government in the early part of this decade, with civil servants actively undermining the government and the government retaliating with gag orders; it didn't take long before the government, knowing that any research they asked for would be leaked in the most damaging way possible, abandoned evidence-based governing in favour of seat-of-the-pants policy-making.
Now, what took a decade in Canada seems to have happened in a matter of weeks in Washington; but the fact remains that when the civil service is overtly opposed to their political masters, good government becomes impossible. It's one thing to have a bungling fool in charge of the ship of state; it's quite another to have a bungling fool who knows his crew are in the process of staging a mutiny.
[+] [-] angry_octet|9 years ago|reply
Harperites didn't like the facts, and did their absolute best to hide them. The woolly headed policy making was conducted in defiance of the facts. When the objective facts were highlighted by public servant, in full concordance with the espoused values of their organisations, the conservatives got nasty.
Harper didn't like ridicule, and he proved what a small man he is when he had his satirist sacked. A remote wildlife ecologist public servant writing funny rhymes! What a coward to manufacture a dismissal.
As to Trump: he might think it a mutiny, others would characterise it as obeying the law and understanding the Constitution.
[+] [-] nickpsecurity|9 years ago|reply
We've been involved in a lot of scheming stuff esp in Middle East for decades. The same names keep turning up in the higher ranks regardless of who is President in U.S.. Especially Cheney's. We also find a lot of it comes from the CIA's meddlings despite the public not wanting any of those particular operations. At one point, they were straight-up funding themselves with drug money to do whatever they wanted with their own private military. Recently, esp with Iraq, it's close-knit groups of civilians in think tanks, civilians in defense contractors, executive-branch officials who sometimes pull six digits on side from defense contractors, and Congress committee reps with stock in same companies. There's definitely a deep state going on.
It got cemented, though, when continuity of government legislation was enacted after passing of State of Emergency and Patriot Act. The power it gives the executive branch, esp ignoring Constitution and accountability, is likely why they reinstate it every year. I imagine Congress is just too afraid to fight with them. GAO said Congress hasn't even read any of their reports on the NSA and such. They're totally uninterested in reigning in deep state whether it's not giving a shit, making money off it, blackmail via surveillance system, or death threats.
[+] [-] croon|9 years ago|reply
But your last part:
> the fact remains that when the civil service is overtly opposed to their political masters, good government becomes impossible. It's one thing to have a bungling fool in charge of the ship of state; it's quite another to have a bungling fool who knows his crew are in the process of staging a mutiny.
I'm not sure what you mean to say by this. I mean, your statement could technically be true, but what are you suggesting? The phrasing indicates that the civil service has made good government impossible, while I think most would agree with the reverse. If honest facts from civil service has become "partisan", then the problem is entirely elsewhere.
[+] [-] int_19h|9 years ago|reply
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spoils_system
This then became the norm for several decades, gradually declining until it was formally sunset by a federal law prohibiting the associated practices:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pendleton_Civil_Service_Reform...
And that system is the one that we had in place basically until Trump. But it should be made clear that it wasn't the civil service that made it partisan again - it was the incoming administration, by doing things like these:
http://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2016/12/09/505041927/...
http://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2016/12/22/506629695/...
And then, of course, there was the process of building the cabinet based largely on loyalty. The Trump administration (coincidentally, Trump is a great admirer of Jackson: http://www.salon.com/2017/02/19/trump-embraces-legacy-of-and...) had effectively revived the spoils system. The civil service responded accordingly.
Whether it's good or bad is a difficult question to answer. Like you say, there's a bungling fool in charge. If the crew is in mutiny, the obvious disadvantage is that the ship cannot be easily steered away from dangers... but the advantage is that it cannot be steered towards them, either. Sometimes, dysfunction is really better than energetic action towards the wrong goals.
But, yes, it does set a bad precedent.
[+] [-] Shivetya|9 years ago|reply
The reason they are not losing jobs is for the most part in many countries they are immune to job loss unless they get arrested and convicted.
[+] [-] empath75|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] grandalf|9 years ago|reply
All this is quite recent, and in each case there have been explanations about how discoveries about the person were made coincidentally as part of other investigations, etc.
Establishing a false causal trail is one of the most basic strategies of using deep surveillance.
The recent leaks about Flynn and the Trump dossier seemed more nakedly political than the others, but leaks like this have always occurred, it's just unusual for them to be aimed at the current president and his cabinet.
The funny thing is that if you wanted to sabotage the US system of global mass surveillance, this is probably how you'd do it. Every story about monitored email accounts or phone calls illustrates how deep it goes, and the intrigue created by the allegations about Russia make the stories incredibly viral.
[+] [-] erentz|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Super_Jambo|9 years ago|reply
See: https://trends.google.co.uk/trends/explore?q=Deep%20State
The same thing happened in WaPo and NYT with HRCs e-mail server. At some point the story is out there, your supporters are going to google it. You need to get a source they trust to report on it otherwise they'll end up somewher you don't control. So you report it and sail just as close as you can to "nothing to see here nothing to worry about!".
What does this article actually do:
Right away appeal to authority and answer the question "Does the US have a Deep State?": "Not quite, experts say..." Phew! For a minute there I was worried but some random expert on Egypt got interviewed by the NYT and can say with clarity there is no shadowy cabal of three letter agency people pulling the strings! Lucky he could tell so easily really.
The rest of the article is trying to drift away from the idea of a secret cabal and instead push the idea that a "Deep State" is nothing more than the standard civil service in tension with their elected leaders. Yea sure.
[+] [-] nostrademons|9 years ago|reply
I thought the comparisons to Erdogan were of a similar vein; I didn't see the article as supporting Erdogan, but rather saying that Erdogan consolidates power -> opposition forces stage a coup -> Erdogan purges opposition -> the real loser is Turkey.
[+] [-] ChuckMcM|9 years ago|reply
And in general I think it is unlikely, although prior to this election many people, especially young people, asserted that "voting was worthless since they had already decided who was going to win." That would be in keeping with a "Deep State" sort of situation.
[+] [-] cperciva|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] paulsutter|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Ygg2|9 years ago|reply
Or it might strengthen deep state too much, making them true unelectable power.
Or it might be used as excuse to purge and reorganize deep state, as Trump sees fit.
[+] [-] fvdessen|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] fsloth|9 years ago|reply
Morals have nothing to do with it. It's about process and efficiency - and how the established de facto protocol of daily governing affects these. This is about what becomes the established conduct. The functioning of large organizations are based on two parts - the official rules, and the actual culture of operarion. The latter dictates how the establishment actually functions.
[+] [-] foxhedgehog|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] microcolonel|9 years ago|reply
20 years of predictable status-quo presidency will set up some deep ties, which should be obviously unhealthy for a nation that believes they elected a leader and not a rent-a-puppy. Having agencies which are actively sabotaging the majority elected party is obviously antidemocratic. The agencies ultimately carry out the work of the government, so if elected representatives don't hold authority over the agencies, you get an autocracy.
[+] [-] alexandercrohde|9 years ago|reply
It helps me understand why individuals might be skeptical of newspapers when an agenda'd opinion piece (basically a hosted blog) shows up in the nytimes domain.
[+] [-] mi100hael|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] unknown|9 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] xanderjanz|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] DanielBMarkham|9 years ago|reply
That was the old patronage system, where you elect a president and he can appoint thousands, maybe tens of thousands of jobs. All of these jobs had one major qualification: you had to be loyal to the president.
As much as we hate it now, for a long time the system worked well. When the government was small, there simply wasn't that much real power to pass around, and the U.S. Constitution was fairly clear that the president should be directly responsible for the executive branch. Nobody else. The founders discussed at length the idea of a complex bureaucratic system of state, like the Europeans had. They wanted no part of it.
But as we know, once the system grew during the Civil War and afterwards, it led to a terrible amount of corruption. Something had to be done. So the U.S. enacted Civil Service reform, where the president is allowed and expected to bring a bunch of partisan loyalists with him into office, but the lower levels of the bureaucracy were to be left alone to the professionals. In this way public opinion could have major impacts on national policy with each presidential election -- but elections wouldn't become such a feeding frenzy for people looking to make quick buck off the government.
Now it looks like we're seeing the endgame of the pendulum swinging too far in the other direction: the deep state. As just some random internet dude, my suggestion to fix it would be to assert more executive control another level or two down, perhaps allow the managers at the next level, who are not appointees, more power over moving people around and letting them go.
If we do it right we'll probably correct too far in the other direction, and hopefully it'll take another dozen or so decades for yet another course correction to be made. Sadly, however, I expect much political wailing and gnashing of teeth during the entire process. Whether it's patronage or the deep state, there's a ton of money and political power being fought over.
[+] [-] uptownfunk|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] deviate_X|9 years ago|reply
It is only because America has elected a +radical president has this become somewhat apparent. But the inertia is democratic as it represents the democratic process and accumulation.
It is especially important when you have edge-case of a president wining, but with 46% of popular vote and 26.5% of the potential vote.
The "Deep State" being the actual institutions of law and governance is actually what makes democracy sustainable.
[+] [-] Elrac|9 years ago|reply
That view would be a lot more legitimate, IMO, if we had a functional government trying to carry on normal business for the benefit of the people. What's actually happening looks to me to be very different, and exceptionally so! An analogy that should ring a bell with many HN regulars would be the new technical manager with zero technical background who was hired because he's the CEO's nephew, who happens to be borderline mentally challenged but makes up for it with defiant corruption, extreme nepotism and flamboyant temper tantrums.
If you're (e.g.) a developer and your new manager is objectively incompetent and deeply disturbed, if he jeopardized important projects and the company's bottom line (that you depend on for a living), no one would be surprised if you voiced your concerns to the manager's superior. In this analogy, the manager's only superior is the public.
[+] [-] tim333|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] booleandilemma|9 years ago|reply
I feel like it's the newest political buzzword after "fake news".
[+] [-] rdlecler1|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] bencollier49|9 years ago|reply
That remains to be seen.
[+] [-] grzm|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] dpatru|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] mustaflex|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Angostura|9 years ago|reply
When denied access to the formal structures, what are these people meant to do, seriously?
[+] [-] gdubs|9 years ago|reply
If there's nothing to the allegations, an investigation would vindicate the administration.
The fact that everyone is stalling on an investigation just raises questions.
[+] [-] bwb|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] cpr|9 years ago|reply
http://www.paulcraigroberts.org/2017/02/18/stakes-trump-us-p...