YMMV.
Does the President know about Section 31
- Thread starter Emperor Norton
- Start date
There is no evidence of this assertion, especially given the extremely large amount of knowledge Sloan had about Section 31 operations in "Extreme Measures."
True. But there is no evidence whatsoever that Section 31 answers to the Federation President, and the possibility is explicitly ruled out in "Inquisition."
The Justice League of America is a publicly-known organization, with a specific, public location (the Hall of Justice), comprised of people who work in cooperation with the legitimate democratic government and subordinate themselves to the rule of law.
So, no.
Tenacity said:
Section 31 more than takes the law into its own hands. It flatly places itself above the law.
Vigilantism is a crime, and it has a long history of functioning in reality to support white supremacy and segregation.
Vigilantism is fine for superhero comic books, but in real life it is usually a form of oppression.
False. The Article 14, Section 31 of the United Earth Starfleet Charter makes allowances for bending rules during times of crisis. It does not establish a permanent organization that has carte blanche to put itself above the law and answer only to itself.
You cannot be a legitimate government organization if you do not answer to the people through their democratically-elected government.
None of those governments were democratically legitimate and any acts of resistance against those governments were by definition legitimate.
False. Article 14, Section 31 of the United Earth Starfleet Charter does not establish a permanent organization with carte blanche to put itself above the law and answer to no one. Further, the United Earth Starfleet Charter would have been ratified by the Parliament of United Earth rather than by the Federation Council, and would have become defunct upon the United Earth Starfleet being absorbed into the Federation Starfleet.
Justifying Section 31 by citing Article 14, Section 31 of the United Earth Starfleet Charter is a bit like trying to justify an unaccountable black ops organization by citing the Act of the Massachusetts General Court which established the Massachusetts Naval Militia before the ratification of the Articles of Confederation. It's pure legal nonsense.
No government in the history of humanity has deliberately attempted to commit genocide against an entire sentient species.
The Central Intelligence Agency answers to the democratically-elected President of the United States, and is overseen by the democratically-elected United States Congress. And its abuses of power were eventually exposed by the Church Committee.
Certainly a problem, but far different from an agency that answers to no one, puts itself above the law, and is unaccountable for its choices.
So why not tell Bashir that Section 31 answers to the Chief of Starfleet Intelligence and to the President? I'm sorry, but that doesn't actually cost him anything and doesn't expose any meaningful secrets.
I don't think that's the case. I think the DS9 writers do believe in progress, but they wanted to argue that it is harder than you might think.
No. Your mileage may not vary. There is objectively a huge difference between a temporary, informal private intelligence network that answers to the democratically-elected President, and a permanent organization that puts itself above the law and answers to nobody.
Since Section 31 was founded as a Terran organization, I don't think they feel they should answer to the Federation or it's President. If Earth's concerns coincide with the UFPs, that well and good for Section 31. I can see them acting against other UFP members to benefit Earth.
Since there only one universally recognized sentient species on this planet (us), how would that work anyway?
While the Federation president is elect (by whom is unknown), that the Federation Council itself is "democratically elected" has never be established in canon.
And do you consider the modern day British government is be illegitimate? Less than half of it's members are elected by the public.
Star Trek (and S31) exist in a fantasy world.
Nope, apparently S31 is outside the law, as such they do not take the law into their own hands. Likely not all that interested in the law.
But unlike Hydra, S31 isn't trying to take over and assume power, and their efforts are to defend the good people in the general population (the Federation).
The Justice League does on occasion employ violence, but it's against bad people.
That makes them "good" vigilantes.
We don't know if this is still entirely true in the 24th century after the founding of the Federation. Only that it was true in 2155 for United Earth. Basically we don't know what the Federation Starfleet Charter says.
It would give Bashir a trail to follow and expose more of Section 31 to someone who actively asking questions in a negative fashion that could expose people in greater positions of power within both Starfleet and the Federation. Bashir is does not have clearance for such information and with it would be a liability (and thus killed). Sloan still wants to use Bashir, so giving him too much information by this point defeats the purpose of attempting to recruit him.
Sure Sloan could provide evidence that he works under the President of the Federation, but that negates plausible deniability. Sloan already called Section 31 another branch of Starfleet Intelligence. Be that the Federation Starfleet or the Earth Starfleet is unclear after Star Trek: Enterprise.
Basically, Section 31 does not make sense in existing without it being an actual part of Starfleet in any kind of realism. Yes it is fictional, but it seems highly unbelievable for it to exist for more than two hundred years as a shadow department with no oversight and no department and yet have so much reach and available intelligence as to be able to not only have its agents everywhere in the Alpha and Beta Quadrants, but be able to engineer long game plans involving the Klingons, Romulans, and a plot to commit genocide against the Founders before the Dominion War officially starts using what is essentially a Bajoran national working with Starfleet who is also of the same species as the Founders.
Three of the G8 nations are monarchies, a fourth a thinly vieled dictatorship, a fifth has had two elections in 16 years where the loser of the popular vote became president and just had a chunk of its government rated as less democratic than Iran. The sixth is in a perpetual state of martial law, set to expire in January but it's already been set to expire three other times so....
52 countries on Earth have the same royal family as head of state.
Another 29 nations are also monarchies.
The upper houses of many "democratic" countries are unelected, including Britian and Canada.
The bastion of democracy, the United States, bans people from voting based on age and criminal history.
A good chunk of then worlds population lives under authoritarian governments.
No current state on earth meets your definition of a legitimate government.
The Federation government has been mostly ignored in Trek - there's no reason to suspect it reaches your conditions of legitimacy either. We already know they don't much take stock in privacy laws for individual people and participate in secret, mass surveillance of other planets as a regular action. Most of Trek is built on that.
None of your comments about section 31 of the charter have been established on screen. Section 31 being originally established in Earth's Starfleet, not the Federations Starfleet, does not mean it wasn't carried over into the Federation Starfleet along with ranks, ship design, Starfleet Academy, etc. Show us on screen that section 31 doesn't establish Section 31 the organization. Even if it's established originally as a supposedly emergency, temporary measure - well, so was income tax in many nations. France's temporary martial law has been going on for over a year, having been renewed three times already.
Section 31 was revealed by Bashir. What happened then - huge ass investigations and public hearings? A purge in Starfleet? Or nothing beyond Sisko being told to keep his eye out for them?
How about when Archer revealed it? A huge ass investigations? Public hearings? Or nothing beyond Archer being told to keep his eye out for them?
How about when Marcus revealed it to Kirk and Spock? A huge ass investigations? Public hearings? Or nothing?
Nobody wanted it revealed. Nobody wanted it purged. The brass has been letting it go for so long because most of them are know about it and secretly support it, if not actively participate in it when required. Otherwise there is no way it could have the resources it has and have infiltrated Starfleet to the point it has.
No county has attempted Genocide against an entire sentient species? Well, ignoring that there are no more Neanderthals, MAD doctrine since the 50's has multiple democratic and authoritarian governments perpetually threatening it - in the last week both the President of Russia and the President Elect of the USA have called for a return of the nuclear arms race.
Plus, you don't have to look far into history ( https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_genocides_by_death_toll ) to find goverments participating in genocide against other races.
So some of the CIA's reprehensible acts were revealed. So we're Section 31's. The CIA'S spawned hearings and investigations. None of Section 31's did. Why? Because the Federation loooooves having their secret attack dog so they can go on pretending to be all evolved and morally superior to everyone else while still needing a black ops program like everyone else in the Galaxy.
"Us? Do that? Noooooo, never. We're more evolved morally than you Romulans/klingons/Cardassians. We could never participate in an action like that. What are you saying? It was done by Federation member species who are Starfleet officers answering to Starfleet Admirals utilizing Starfleet resources for hundreds of years under provisions in the Starfleet charter, all, for the benefit of the Federation, furthering it's interstellar goals, with no resulting public investigations or hearings by the Federation? That doesn't mean anything. Just a bunch of loose canon vigilantes. Trust us, we are the best ethically."
The majority of modern day governments in the world are non democratic. Your assertion that "undemocratic = illegitimate" is incorrect.
By my understanding, FDR's secret intelligence did not answer to the Office of the President of the United States - they answered to him personally, which is quite different.
I very much doubt it. Section 31 most likely felt they had the authority to do what was needed to preserve the federation. Keeping the President out of the loop was most likely an important step since he would probably dissolve it. They most likely recruited people at strategic posts to ensure secret funding.
Section 31 isn't like the CIA or the NSA.
Even the NSA has a public presence (i.e their website..et al). S31 are the equivalent of the "Men in Black". Guys whom are completely out of sight and off the books.
Even the NSA has a public presence (i.e their website..et al). S31 are the equivalent of the "Men in Black". Guys whom are completely out of sight and off the books.
There's really no explanation about how it is plausible for that to work, other than just assuming it does.
Just a nickel's worth of free advice: Don't question @Sci on matters of government. Because more often than not, he's right.
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A strong argument for why Section 31 cannot be trusted.
The Federation is established to be a democracy in "Errand of Mercy." It cannot be a democracy if its legislature is not democratically elected.
Most of the members of the House of Lords these days are at least appointed by the democratically-elected Prime Minister (acting through the reigning Monarch). Further, the Parliament Acts 1911 and 1949 establish the supremacy of the democratically-elected House of Commons over the House of Lords, allowing the Lords only to delay a bill but not to prevent its passage if the Commons wants it passed.
I don't particularly like the existence of the House of Lords, but I do not consider it powerful enough to negate the United Kingdom's status as a liberal democracy.
Nothing is outside of the law, and no law has been cited establishing Section 31's claim to have legal carte blanche to be democratically legitimate.
Yes, we have established that like all criminal conspiracies, Section 31 doesn't care about the law.
Says who? Them? Why should I trust them to be telling the truth since, after all, they won't subject themselves to democratic accountability?
And they were trying to take over and assume power in Star Trek Into Darkness.
The problem with this assertion is that it must be taken on faith; an objective review of most of Section 31's canonical operations shows that its efforts have mostly harmed the Federation and endangered millions of civilians.
Article 14, Section 31 of the United Earth Starfleet Charter is the only legal document that has ever been cited by anyone in an attempt to justify Section 31's existence as an organization. There is no canonical evidence that there is any other document justifying them.
But Bashir wouldn't even want to expose Section 31 if he were to believe it answered to the Federation government. His entire objection is based on its unaccountable nature. If it were part of a system of democratic accountability, his motivations towards Section 31 would be entirely different.
I'm sorry, but this is just absurd. The "information" you are saying he doesn't have clearance to know is, "Section 31 answers to the Federation President, just like Starfleet Intelligence." You might as well argue that someone doesn't have "clearance" to know that the National Security Agency answers to the United States President, or that someone doesn't have "clearance" to know that the Canadian Security Intelligence Service answers to the Prime Minister of Canada.
And yet that is the canonical fact.
I would point out that there's no canonical reason to think Section 31 is as all-powerful as fandom likes to imagine. What do we really know about Section 31's abilities? Well, we know they have a transporter capable of beaming Bashir off of and back onto Deep Space 9 without setting of the station's sensors. We know they had control of what looked like an Intrepid-class starship's holodeck when they were torturing Bashir. We know they basically had the run of the USS Bellerophon (incidentally, itself an Intrepid-class starship) during the conference on Romulus. We know they were able to design the morphogenic virus by 2372, within about a year and a half of the discovery that Odo's people were the Founders of the Dominion. We know they were able to infect Odo with the disease during his exams at Starfleet Medical Headquarters. We know they had a spy in Jaresh-Inyo's cabinet, and we know they had operations on Qo'noS in 2375.
Outside of the 2370s, we know they were able to arrange for Phlox's abduction on Earth in 2154, and they had some key info about how to approach the surface of Mars undetected later that year. In the Kelvin Timeline's 2259, we know they had control of a covert shipyard in the Sol system and were able to build an advanced starship with a crew loyal to them rather than Starfleet.
Altogether... Impressive, but not evidence of logistical omnipotence.
The G8 no longer exists for practical purposes. The Russian Federation was suspended from the organization after its invasion and annexation of Crimea. It's more useful to talk about the G7 again.
The United Kingdom, Canada, and Japan are all constitutional monarchies -- that is, they are actually liberal democracies whose monarchs are wholly ceremonial and not allowed to exercise real political power. If the Emperor of Japan or the Queen of the U.K. and Canada were to attempt to exercise real political power, it would cause a constitutional crisis. The British/Canadian Monarch is by constitutional convention required to only exercise power on the "advice" (and by "advice," they mean, orders) of the Prime Minister, who is in turn appointed by virtue of his/her party holding the majority or plurality of seats in the democratically-elected Parliament. In legal theory, the Monarch does retain "reserve" powers that may be used in times of extraordinary crisis, but this has never happened. As I understand it, the Emperor of Japan doesn't even have that.
Here's the way to think about the supposed powers of the British and Commonwealth monarchy: The last time a British Monarch attempted to defy his Prime Minister's "advice," he was forced to abdicate. He wanted to marry a woman the Prime Minister didn't want him marrying. That's how little power the British Monarch actually has.
No reasonable person would argue the Russian Federation has a democratically legitimate government.
And I do not accept the democratic legitimacy of that election.
Indeed, the survival of French democracy is questionable.
Once again, the Commonwealth Monarchy is toothless.
Indeed, not every nation is democratically legitimate.
The British House of Lords and the Canadian Senate are mostly toothless.
And North Carolina has recently been reclassified as not a real democracy.
That the United States government is not democratically legitimate is not a revelation.
There are plenty of sovereign states whose governments are answerable to their people through a system of genuine democracy. The fact that some of the governments people think of as being such may not be does not say anything about, for instance, the health or legitimacy of New Zealand democracy, or Icelandic democracy, or Irish democracy, or Canadian democracy, or Chilean democracy, or German democracy.
"Answerable to the people" is pretty much the definition of democracy. It's not that hard a standard to meet.
Do we know that? Privacy on a starship is a very different question from privacy for civilians going about their normal lives.
Espionage against foreign states doesn't tell us anything meaningful about domestic democracy.
Article 14, Section 31 of the United Earth Starfleet Charter was cited and described in "Divergence/Affliction."
But nothing in the canon has shown that it was.
From "Divergence:"
ENT: "Divergence" said:
This is the only line establishing what Article 14, Section 31 of the United Earth Starfleet Charter says. "A few lines that make allowances for bending the rules during times of extraordinary threat."
Nothing in that establishes a permanent organization or gives it carte blanche.
No other legal document or section of a legal document has ever been cited to justify Section 31's existence. This is the only citation we have, and nothing in it actually says, "There will be a permanent organization called Section 31 with carte blanche to put itself above the law and answer to nobody."
And that state of emergency has to be renewed by the democratically-elected legislature.
That is very, very different from a line in the charter of a defunct space service that makes allowances for bending rules in times of crisis being used to justify a permanent organization with carte blanche to put itself above the law, with no legislation actually creating such a thing being cited.
"Inquisition" and "Inter Arma Enim Silent Leges" establish that Bashir reported Section 31 to Sisko, who reported it to Starfleet Command; Command said they would investigate the allegations, but the investigation was quietly stonewalled. There is no indication that Bashir went public with the information.
I don't think Archer ever even reported it.
We have no information about the fallout from Section 31's actions in Star Trek Into Darkness.
But being as how their dumbasses got most of downtown San Francisco destroyed, I would find it hard to believe that Section 31 wasn't publicly exposed and purged from Starfleet. But that's just speculation on my part.
And never actually doing it.
Because the CIA answered to the democratically-elected government of the United States back when the U.S. was a real democracy, but Section 31 answers to nobody but itself and is a criminal conspiracy within the government rather than a legitimate government agency.
Legitimacy is an inherently subjective thing. It is not subject to ideas like "incorrect."
Let me put it this way: If FDR had retired from the presidency but continued to control a private intelligence network, I would be more concerned. But the sitting president employing an unofficial intelligence network, is a very different question.
You are too kind, sir.
The Men in Black protect and defend the population of Earth so that that population can live their lives.
Doesn't follow, the Federation Council could easily employ democratic procedures, without a single one of it's members themselves being democratically elected.
Nothing has even been establish as to who elects the Federation President, only that they are somehow elected.
Today, how many heads of government are directly elected by their country's population? And just because they're not, doesn't mean they are illegitimate.
Seem like he's most just expressing his personal opinion on whether he approves of certain things.
Not at all, the assertion is backed up by on-screen evidence.
Why just those two elections? While it common for the candidate who receives the most electoral votes to also get the popular vote too, American Presidents are not elected by popular vote.
Star Trek canon,
Merely one of the various alternate universes.
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Exactly. He swings from "only true democracies are legitimate and anything you do against a non fully democratic nations illegitimate government is legal" (a government form which has never actually existed) to "any government with democratic institutions is legitimate even if half it's government is unelected" while still trying to maintain the integrity of his initial point, which is that section 31 can't exist as part of the Federation because the Federation has to be a fully democratic government, which is never established on screen - and, in fact, is pretty blatantly contradicted by the fact that member species have Ambassadors to the Federation, not elected individuals participating in them, suggesting a more UN type institution, but with centralized power similar to a state. Basically a conspiracy theorists worst nightmare.
I'm not referring to the light hearted film with Will Smith, lol. I suppose if we want to grab something from culture, it'd be The Syndicate cartel in the X-Files.
clearly not
And (per TAS) Federation members exchange Ambassadors between each other, and (per the comics) the Federation sends Ambassadors to the individual Members.
The Federation Council could be entirely composed of Ambassadors.
I can't recall any dialog about a democratic election for Council positions, or the position of President. TNG and DS9 were collectively over a decade, maybe the reason we never heard conversation concerning elections is because there weren't any.
We know that T'Pol turned down a seat of the Council, which would be strange if she had just finished running to be elect to the position.
Powerful and sage leaders took care of such matters without concerning themselves with the input of "the little people."
My misunderstanding.
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