Section 31 = British MI6?

[PKTrekGirl]

All,

Please do not send notify mods to me asking me to 'stop something before it starts'.

If you are incapable of debating in a civilized manner, then I ask that you know yourself and simply do not participate. Don't send me emails telling me to close threads in order to prevent you from saying something you don't think you should say. I can't close threads to save you from yourself - you need to have the self-control required to do that. If you don't think you should say a certain thing, simply don't say it.

That said, let's make sure this debate stays on-topic and does not get personal.

Thanks for your continued efforts in this regard.

 

[Sci]

I would just like to note for the record that I did not feel that anything said in this thread warranted contacting a moderator, nor did I do so.

 

[Rush Limborg]

^The warning was directed to "all", Sci--you...me...everyone on this thread. No need to take it personally--heck, I certainly don't.

Now...about that martini....

 

[JB2005]

It suddenly occured to me:

Section 31 = Torchwood

Both created to protect their respective bodies (the Empire and the Federation) both accountable to no one, both reclusive organisations, both having shady links to the military...

 

[Sci]

It suddenly occured to me:

Section 31 = Torchwood

Both created to protect their respective bodies (the Empire and the Federation) both accountable to no one, both reclusive organisations, both having shady links to the military...

It's a very close comparison, yeah. Though the Torchwood Institute actually was accountable to the Monarch, which is more than Section 31 can say.

After Torchwood One was destroyed in the Battle of Canary Wharf, though, Captain Jack rebuilt Torchwood and made it accountable to the government (he was on the phone with the Prime Minister at the end of Series One, for instance, and they were in contact with the Prime Minister when they lost contact with his plane during the Dalek invasion).

 

[Rush Limborg]

^I...take it we're talking Doctor Who?

 

[Sci]

^I...take it we're talking Doctor Who?

Yes, the Torchwood Institute is from Doctor Who and its spinoff, Torchwood.

 

[Rush Limborg]

Hmm...

But as I've stated before, I would take note of 24, and Jack Baur's tendency to..."bend the rules" for the sake of protecting the USA.

But then, even Jack is accountable to someone....

 

[rahullak]

It seems to me that the debate on the legality of Section 31 has reached some sort of conclusion. I think everyone agrees that the current nature of the organization (with no accountability) cannot continue and is illegal, no matter how tall the claims are as to the number of lives saved or justifications of the form of "Someone's got to do it."

So if we did make Section 31 an organization accountable to the President of UFP, would there then be a difference in the authority of Section 31 and that of Starfleet Intelligence? They would certainly have the same mandate and therefore, I think, be redundant. The two organizations would probably have to be merged or one of them dismantled. Odds are in favor of Starfleet Intelligence remaining as it is with the information and resources of Section 31 brought into its fold.

Whether this is even possible given the shadowy nature of Section 31 and its non-use of physical information storage (except for the one between the ears), is debatable.

 

[Sci]

It seems to me that the debate on the legality of Section 31 has reached some sort of conclusion. I think everyone agrees that the current nature of the organization (with no accountability) cannot continue and is illegal, no matter how tall the claims are as to the number of lives saved or justifications of the form of "Someone's got to do it."

So if we did make Section 31 an organization accountable to the President of UFP, would there then be a difference in the authority of Section 31 and that of Starfleet Intelligence? They would certainly have the same mandate and therefore, I think, be redundant. The two organizations would probably have to be merged or one of them dismantled.

Well, the first thing I'd point out is that you're talking about such a fundamental change in the structure of Section 31 that I question whether it could actually be seen as the same organization if it were brought into the Federation government. It'd be like trying to turn the Mafia into a division of the Department of Justice -- it's not really the Mafia afterwords, you know?

But to address the core question -- could the Federation have two intelligence agencies instead of one? Certainly it is possible.

Many states feature at least dual intelligence agencies -- one with the legal authority to operate abroad, and one with the legal authority to operate domestically. This is part of a separation of powers designed to help keep too much power from accumulating into the hands of one agency. This thread itself features a discussion of the division of labor between MI5 and MI6 in Britain, for instance, or between the CIA, NSA, and FBI in the United States. More broadly, the United States Intelligence Community consists of 16 separate agencies

• Independent agencies
  
  [*]Central Intelligence Agency (CIA)​
• United States Department of Defense
  
  [*]Air Force Intelligence, Surveillance and Reconnaissance Agency (AF ISR or AIA)
  [*]Army Military Intelligence (MI)
  [*]Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA)
  [*]Marine Corps Intelligence Activity (MCIA)
  [*]National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency (NGA)
  [*]National Reconnaissance Office (NRO)
  [*]National Security Agency (NSA)
  [*]Office of Naval Intelligence (ONI)
  ​
• United States Department of Energy
  
  [*]Office of Intelligence and Counterintelligence (OICI)​
• United States Department of Homeland Security
  
  [*]Office of Intelligence and Analysis (I&A)
  [*]Coast Guard Intelligence (CGI)
  ​
• United States Department of Justice
  
  [*]Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI)
  [*]Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA)
  ​
• United States Department of State
  
  [*]Bureau of Intelligence and Research (INR)​
• United States Department of the Treasury
  
  [*]Office of Terrorism and Financial Intelligence (TFI)​

Given that, I'd say there's nothing particularly remarkable about the idea of the Federation having more than one intelligence agency. In point of fact, I happen to think that all of the concentration of responsibilities and powers into the hands of the Federation Starfleet is rather a bad idea -- it promotes a certain "Starfleet" mentality, a certain uniformity of thought, that a civilian agency might not bring to the table. To say nothing of how one could be an analyst for Starfleet Intelligence without also being an officer.

We know from Star Trek III: The Search for Spock that a law enforcement organization exists called Federation Security. It's possible, for instance, that Federation Security might be a sort of FBI/MI5 agency that functions both as "federal police" and as a Federation domestic intelligence agency. And we know that Vulcan has retained its V'Shar since the Founding of the Federation; presumably Federation Member States are required to coordinate with the Federation government when their intelligence agencies conduct covert operations.

Whether this is even possible given the shadowy nature of Section 31 and its non-use of physical information storage (except for the one between the ears), is debatable.

I don't think you can actually "bring Section 31 in," nor should they. It's a criminal organization, a collection of vigilantes who have usurped the rule of law. It needs to be dismantled and its members brought to justice. Its infrastructure can be seized, but Section 31 itself should be abolished completely. Hand over its infrastructure to Federation Security, I say.

 

[Rush Limborg]

My $0.02:
As I implied before, Section 31, if legalized could in effect be like Jack Baur's orginization--the group that does the dirty work that CIA/SI and Homeland Security/Fed Security dare not perform.

Think of it like The Dark Knight: Batman often "bends the rules" to round up the criminals for Jim Gordon and Harvey Dent. As he makes it clear to Dent in the film, he, as a "vigilante", does the dirty work so that Jim and Harvey don't have to--in order that their reputations will be untarnished, so as to avoid the scandals that would result otherwise....

But, as is also strongly implied, Batman is answerable to Dent and Gordon.

I don't think you can actually "bring Section 31 in,"

This is Star Trek, Sci--nothing's impossible....

 

[Sci]

My $0.02:

Think of it like The Dark Knight: Batman often "bends the rules" to round up the criminals for Jim Gordon and Harvey Dent. As he makes it clear to Dent in the film, he, as a "vigilante", does the dirty work so that Jim and Harvey don't have to--in order that their reputations will be untarnished, so as to avoid the scandals that would result otherwise....

There are some fundamental problems with that comparison.

The first problem is that both Batman Begins and The Dark Knight make it clear that Bruce Wayne only operates as Batman because the Gotham City law enforcement and judicial systems are so fundamentally corrupt as to be effectively inoperative. In other words, Batman operates because the government is not fulfilling its half of the social contract; the authority to enforce the law, incapable of annihilation, therefore return to the people, one of whom is Batman, who has assumed a responsibility that the government had previously agreed to fulfill but now refuses to.

Secondly, Batman doesn't do "the dirty work." He gathers evidence and apprehends criminals, albeit in a more theatrical manner than the police. Batman did commit a number of acts of torture in The Dark Knight, but if you'll notice, 1) he did so out of desperation caused by the way society was melting down around him, not because it was his normal mode of operation; and 2) every time he tried to torture someone, it failed to yield results.

Thirdly, Bruce made it clear on a number of occasions in both movies that had the Gotham City government restored itself to an uncorrupt condition -- had, in other words, more men like Harvey Dent and Jim Gordon come around to restore honesty and integrity to the CGPD and Gotham courts -- he planned on retiring as Batman. Batman exists as a response to government ineffectiveness, not out of a belief that there are things that "need to be done that the government refuses to do." He doesn't do it to let them "keep their hands clean" or avoid scandals; when he allows Gordon to pin the blame on Dent's death on him at the end of The Dark Knight, he does so because he believes that the public needs to be able to maintain its faith in Dent's personal integrity in order to keep all of society from simply ceasing to function.

Fourthly, Batman does not answer to Gordon or to Dent. He worked with them, but he never worked for them. He is a vigilante; what makes him ambiguous or possibly heroic, rather than unethical, is the fact that his vigilanteism, again, is undertaken as a reaction to a nonfunctional, corrupt government, rather than being undertaken in the midst of a functional, honest one. Batman is a response to the failures of the state, not to its normal functioning.

Fifthly, Jack Bauer is a chronic human rights abuser and should be taken as ambiguous at best. The situations employed on 24 are ridiculously unrealistic -- how many Presidents have they gone through at this point? seriously? -- and to take that show as a serious reflection on the morality or effectiveness of torture and other human rights abuses is quite silly. The writers themselves say they only use it as a response to the artificial demands of the "real-time" conceit -- there is a constant need to maintain a sensation of imminent mass danger and therefore the writers resort to torture as an interrogation technique in order to serve the plot's need for a speedy yet tense interrogation. It's to the point where Slate magazine has noted the U.S. torture policies under Bush had deeper roots in 24 than the U.S. Constitution, and, as reported by the New Yorker, U.S. Army Brigadier General Patrick Finnegan (dean of the United States Military Academy at West Point), accompanied three experienced military and FBI interrogators to meet with the producers of 24 to criticize the show for misrepresenting the effectiveness of torture as an interrogation technique, saying it encouraged soldiers to see torture as a useful and justified tactic and damaged the international image of the United States.

 

[Sci]

And, frankly, the entire conceit that there is some "dirty work" that normal authorities "dare not perform" that "need to be done" is fairly well absurd. In extreme situations, it may, on very, very rare occasions, be the case that sometimes the law needs to be broken in the service of the greater good -- but if that's the case, no one has yet cited an example of that actually needing to happen in real life. And meanwhile, there is absolutely no reason that such actions should ever have to be undertaken outside of the context of legal accountability and democracy -- which, by the way, is what characters like Jack Bauer do, since he has a habit of running away from the U.S. to avoid being arrested for his various crimes.

 

[rahullak]

It seems to me that the debate on the legality of Section 31 has reached some sort of conclusion. I think everyone agrees that the current nature of the organization (with no accountability) cannot continue and is illegal, no matter how tall the claims are as to the number of lives saved or justifications of the form of "Someone's got to do it."

So if we did make Section 31 an organization accountable to the President of UFP, would there then be a difference in the authority of Section 31 and that of Starfleet Intelligence? They would certainly have the same mandate and therefore, I think, be redundant. The two organizations would probably have to be merged or one of them dismantled.

Well, the first thing I'd point out is that you're talking about such a fundamental change in the structure of Section 31 that I question whether it could actually be seen as the same organization if it were brought into the Federation government. It'd be like trying to turn the Mafia into a division of the Department of Justice -- it's not really the Mafia afterwords, you know?

But to address the core question -- could the Federation have two intelligence agencies instead of one? Certainly it is possible.

Well, firstly my core question was not whether it is possible to have two intelligence agencies, but whether it is necessary to have two intelligence agencies with the same mandate. You've certainly addressed that with factual comparison with real-life agencies.

The problem I have with Section 31 is its atrocious use of force and disregard for the values of the UFP. But that behavior is due to a lack of self-regulation and more importantly external regulation. Making Section 31 accountable to the government would go a long way toward reducing such extreme behavior and bring it in toe with the government line.

I don't think you can actually "bring Section 31 in," nor should they. It's a criminal organization, a collection of vigilantes who have usurped the rule of law. It needs to be dismantled and its members brought to justice. Its infrastructure can be seized, but Section 31 itself should be abolished completely. Hand over its infrastructure to Federation Security, I say.

It's all well and good to say "let's go on a witchhunt of section 31". But isn't it far more plausible to bring accountability to Section 31 by advertising the notion (and hoping they take notice and accept it), rather than trying to root them out? How would the government try to root them out anyway? They would have to use extreme tactics (like Bashir and O'Brien in DS9:Extreme Measures) such as using a Romulan memory scanner (which is illegal), even if they did manage to catch an operative.

I notice in a previous post that President Bacco is blissfully unaware of its existence because of Admiral Ross' "sacrifice".
Presumably, there are high-ranking admirals in Starfleet who are not sympathetic to Section 31 but are aware of its existence. I think it would be far easier to convince Section 31 (indirectly) to come out of the shadows by giving them the option of becoming accountable to the government but at the same time having their organization either fold into another agency or remain as an independent intelligence organization working in the "open". At the very least its worth a shot.

Of course, there's no guarantee that Section 31 would be willing to "negotiate". If they just decide to , then we're back to Square A.

 

[Sci]

The problem I have with Section 31 is its atrocious use of force and disregard for the values of the UFP. But that behavior is due to a lack of self-regulation and more importantly external regulation. Making Section 31 accountable to the government would go a long way toward reducing such extreme behavior and bring it in toe with the government line.

I disagree. It seems to me that its use of force and disregard for Federation values are not the result of its lack of government accountability. Rather, I would argue that both stem from the same fundamental cause:

Section 31 is not an organization that really believe in the rule of law, or in liberal democracy. It doesn't believe in rights, it doesn't believe in law, it doesn't believe in anything except power: Power for itself, power for its chosen idol (the Federation). It is, fundamentally, an organization comprised of imperialists in the purest sense of the term. Even if you nominally bring them in line, you will, at best, have a self-interested organization that routinely defies the law and undermines its superiors. You'll have the Nixon-era or Bush-era CIA, in other words: Little more than a group of organized, government-"authorized" thugs.

And that's assuming they'd ever even consent to the government having even that much power over them, which I don't think they do. Fundamentally, they don't think anyone has the right to tell them they can't do something.

I don't think you can actually "bring Section 31 in," nor should they. It's a criminal organization, a collection of vigilantes who have usurped the rule of law. It needs to be dismantled and its members brought to justice. Its infrastructure can be seized, but Section 31 itself should be abolished completely. Hand over its infrastructure to Federation Security, I say.

It's all well and good to say "let's go on a witchhunt of section 31". But isn't it far more plausible to bring accountability to Section 31 by advertising the notion (and hoping they take notice and accept it), rather than trying to root them out?

No.

First off, I'm not sure why you'd call an investigation into a criminal organization a "witch hunt." I'm not saying that the Federation should go all The Crucible on everyone. False allegations should not be leveled, people should all be presumed innocent until proven guilty, everyone should have access to legal counsel, due process of the law should be followed, everyone's rights should be respected, etc. An investigation, not a witch hunt.

Secondly, as I said above, I don't think Section 31 would ever accept that notion. Why would they? What do they gain from it? All it would do is compromise their own status, their own power. Right now, they're a criminal organization with virtually unlimited power and no accountability, and it's clear that they don't even believe in democratic accountability or else they would have gone legit centuries ago.

Thirdly: If the government just "brings them in," then that makes the President and his/her advisors accessories to Section 31's various crimes. No one would argue that the Federation should just "bring them in" if "they" were the Orion Syndicate (or, in real life, that the U.S. should just "bring the Mafia in"). Why would we argue to do so with Section 31?

The only difference between the Orion Syndicate and Section 31 is that Section 31 cloaks its self-serving behavior in the rhetoric of nationalism; the Orion Syndicate is just more honest about its motivations.

How would the government try to root them out anyway? They would have to use extreme tactics (like Bashir and O'Brien in DS9:Extreme Measures) such as using a Romulan memory scanner (which is illegal), even if they did manage to catch an operative.

Not necessarily. Let's say that it's 2380 and by some miracle, President Bacco has been made aware of the existence of Section 31. President Bacco goes on a live feed of the Federation News Service, declaring its existence, announcing that if she were to mysteriously die any time soon Section 31 should be considered the prime suspects in her assassination, and announce that she's appointing a Federation Attorney (presumably the equivalent of a United States Attorney) to work with Federation Security and Starfleet Security to find as many Section 31 agents as possible, root them all out, and confiscate Section 31's resources and infrastructure.

Let's call the Federation Attorney "Patrick Fitzgerald" for the sake of the argument.

To start with, Fitzgerald would already have three key leads: The body of Luther Sloan, and the testimonies of Julian Bashir and William Ross.

We never saw what happened to Sloan's body in DS9, but if Bashir had any brains on him, he would have put the body into cryogenic storage somewhere in the DS9 Infirmary without telling anyone other than Sisko and Odo; O'Brien should then have altered station records to delete records to the existence of whichever cryogenic unit the body is stored in. Worst comes to worst, one of them should have found somewhere on Bajor to hide the body to make sure Section 31 didn't find it.

Upon getting testimony from Bashir and O'Brien, the body can be located and brought to Earth in a secure facility. From there, the body can be identified and cross-referenced until they find some record of who Sloan was and where he came from. Family, friends, and co-workers can then be tracked down and interviewed.

Further, it's an established fact that Admiral Ross has had dealings with Thirty-One. He can be interviewed and leads gotten from him; how did he find out about them, who did he know from them, what operations did he undertake for them? Etc.

If we widen our net to include more of the novels, we know that Section 31 had an agent aboard the USS Voyager who tried to assassinate Seven of Nine before being killed. That agent's history can be thoroughly investigated, friends, coworkers, fellow officers, family, etc., all interviewed and investigated.

Then, on top of that, there's Starfleet paperwork. Who ordered the results of Odo's physical when he was on Earth in 2372 classified? Who administered the physical? Who would have had access to the records? What organizations on Earth or in the Federation would have had the resources to synthesize the Founder virus? Who would have been able to design it? Who was assigned to investigate the allegations of Section 31's existence after Sisko filed the complaint about them? Who ran that investigation? Who cooperated with it? Who refused to cooperate with it? What records did that investigation keep? What other records of organizations within Starfleet that sound similar to Section 31 -- Riker's "secret division of Starfleet Security" that was behind the Pegasus experiment, for instance -- might exist?

Officers previously convicted of crimes can also be re-investigated to look for links with Section 31. Who built Admiral Dougherty's holo-ship from INS, for instance? Who paid for it? Where'd the materials for it come from? The designs? Might Admiral Leyton have had Section 31 connections? Admiral Cartwright? Admiral Pressman? Who designed the Pegasus cloak anyway?

The investigation into the assassinations of former President Zife, his Chief of Staff Koll Azernal, and his Secretary of Military Intelligence Nelino Quafina, can also be investigated. Who would have had access to the Palais de la Concorde? Who's listed on the Palais's entry and exit records? Do the transporter records show any sign of being altered? Is there any evidence they were activated without a corroborating record? Who ordered the Presidential bodyguards away from the President? Who ordered the building emptied after Zife's speech? Where did the departing bodyguards and staffers go?

Meanwhile, participation from the public can be solicited. Tips can be received. Etc.

Now, sure, it would be hard and challenging. But the simple fact of the matter is that there's no such thing as a perfect conspiracy, and nobody moves through the world without leaving footprints. Section 31 has already left a number of potential leads that could be followed. To say that it would not be possible to investigate them and bring them to justice without resorting to their methods is a hasty conclusion not backed up by any evidence.

 

[rahullak]

^
I still think that Section 31 believes itself to be a necessary evil and not an imperialistic power-hungry organization. I haven't seen evidence of them attempting to engineer coups in other states for the sake of power. (Wasn't the head of the Tal Shiar a Section 31 operative?)
I think they believe in the rule of law, liberal democracy, in rights etc. for the Federation and its citizens. Where they're wrong is in not applying those same rules to themselves and their misguided belief that only extreme tactics can give the desired results. They operate outside the law but they believe they're doing it for a just cause.

Of course, this doesn't justify their illegal actions (such as attempted genocide, wanton assassinations etc.) in any way and for those crimes they should be brought to justice.

I didn't mean witchhunt in the truest sense of the word of course.

It looks like they could make a whole book series out of the investigations into Section 31.

 

[Sci]

^

I didn't mean witchhunt in the truest sense of the word of course.

It looks like they could make a whole book series out of the investigations into Section 31.

They probably could at this point. The leads that I listed above were just the result of thoughts about ten to fifteen minutes of thought into various places to investigate Section 31 given the limited information that they might reasonably be expected to know if Bashir, Ross, and, say, Seven of Nine had come to the President with their evidence.

There are other avenues of investigation. Captain Picard knows that a Federation Ambassador from Ullia tried to recruit Lt. Liam Hawk into the organization in 2372, for instance; that ambassador would constitute another suspect, as would another Thirty-One member that Picard uncovered. (All this is from the book Section 31: Rogue by Michael A. Martin & Andy Mangels.)

And then there are other things that the audience knows that most characters wouldn't, such as Samuel Cogley having a former Thirty-One agent in his law firm from The Case of the Colonist's Corpse, or the role of Section 31 in the destruction of an Orion Syndicate merchantman, or the role Section 31 played in the Omega Particle disaster...

 

[rahullak]

^

Ooops...i was editing...

 

[Rush Limborg]

*sigh* Looks lile we'll have to return to the ol' debate....

Sci, all this talk about "values" is well and good, but:

A society's values are an expression of the moral philosophy of said society. If the values contradict the moral philosophy of the society--i.e., the defined and proper duties of government--than those values must be altered to fit the philosophy.

If a society's "values" put in danger the lives of the innocent people which the government is supposed to protect--if those "values" result in the government failing to perform its duty of protecting the life, liberty, and property of its citizens--because said government doesn't have the -s to do what is necesary to protect these people, due to "holding on to our values"...than in all honesty and sincerity, those values are wrong!

But the "Jack Bauer Scenario" is unrealistic, you say? Okay. Let us proceed to do what I despise doing on the BBS, and refer to politics.

Consider the recent situation regarding the Enhanced Interrogation memos--the memos detailing the information gained from using these techniques--in effect, the success rate of these methods. The only ones calling for the release of these memos were the supporters of said methods, like me.

The opponents of the techniques, meanwhile, were content to only interview alleged witnesses to the proceedings, without checking the actual records, and seemed content to allow the memos to remain sealed. If they were truly concerned with proving that these techniques did not work--and if they were truly concerned about the truth...than why did they not also call for the release of the memos?

Batman is a response to the failures of the state, not to its normal functioning.

And Jack Bauer is not? And while we're at it...how does one know that Section 31 is not?

Remember, Enterprise showed that, in the beginning, Section 31 was a lot less "iffy". One might, therefore, conjecture that as the decades went by, and as the UFP government became more and more weak and naive, The Bureau realized that they had to do the work that the government was not willing to do, in order to defend the UFP.

Yes...Section 31 made a lot of horrible mistakes, such as the poisoning of Odo, as well as (apparently), the Khitomer assassination attempt, the New Beijing incident, etc. But as I have stated before, this is the result of a philosophical flaw--which can be corrected, should President Bacco (or a successor) decide to nationalize the organization, and purge it of the corruption.

But why not just use SI, or Federation Security? Simple: These organizations have rules--rules which they cannot bend. These rules thus tie the hands of the Federation, inviting it to attacks by those who know its limits, and seek to exploit them.

So long as a government follows an intrinsic standard of law, this kind of injustice will continue to harm the Federation. (Note: Picard brought this up in "Justice": "There can be no justice, so long as laws are absolute!", to which Riker agreed, "Since when has justice been as simple as a book?")

With the nationalization of Section 31, this organization can thus become what it was supposed to be--a group which is allowed to bend certain rules during a crisis (when SI and FS could not act, due to rules), for the purpose of doing what is necessary to deal with this crisis effectively. These instances would be the sole discretion of the president, and the decisions would be his/her sole responsibility.

And...in order to ensure that Section 31 would not go in over the President's head, he/she could assign members of the Kirk Cabal (imagine that! ) to report on The Bureau's actions, without interfering unless so directed by the President.

This would be a far better alternative to simply abolishing The Bureau, because of the instances in which the rules would excessively tie the hands of SI and FS.




BTW...there is precedent in Star Trek for "compromising values" for the sake of saving lives, and doing what is right.

Consider: In "Extreme Measures" Bashir was willing to do whatever was necessary to save Odo. He was willing to falsify information about a cure in order to lure Section 31 to DS9. He was willing to capture and shoot an unarmed man--Sloan. He was willing to retain Sloan without a warrant--unless you want to count Sisko's sanction an "unofficial" warrant.

He was willing to use Romulan Mind Probes to glean the info from Sloan's mind--and note this exchange:

BASHIR: Remember these? Romulan Mind Probes...they're not the most pleasant of devices, but...they're very efficient.

SLOAN: They're also illegal in the Federation....

BASHIR: Oh, I hope you're going to appreciate the irony of that statement.

SLOAN: I'm telling you, I don't know anything about the cure!

BASHIR: Well, then I won't find anything...will I?


Thus, for all intents and purposes...Bashir was willing to use (in effect) enhanced interrogations on Sloan.
(And according to Bashir, they would have worked!)

Bashir...was...willing...to...torture him!

So...do you think that Bashir was doing what was right, or was he going too far? And if he was going too far, than what should he have done?

 

[rahullak]

I have to wonder though.... what was Section 31 doing during the events of Destiny? I would have thought an invasion threatening to cause the imminent annihilation of the Federation would have caused them to resort to some pretty extreme measures (including using Thelaron weapons and other WMDs) against the Borg.