Charlie Stross writes:
> In the absence of a credible superpower threat, it's
> interesting to see NSA and CIA attempts to justify their
> existence by offering support for the war on drugs: an
> identical phenomenon is occuring in the UK (with GCHQ
> and SIS turning their attention to drug smuggling).
Maybe this is what happens when there isn't a real challenge for these
organizations: they invent their own challenges, which then help perpetuate
their existence.
Whoever was it who said on this list that organizations tend to persist
longer than they are necessary? We people are quite inflexible when we get
comfortable doing something. Also, in the absence of true reasons for fear,
we tend to invent our own reasons for fear - simply because we're unable to
grasp that there's really nothing much to fear. The mind is a grinder, and
it wants to grind.
Maybe these symptoms apply to NSA/CIA/GCHQ right now.
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b30 : Mon May 28 2001 - 09:56:35 MDT