What we know is the Earth Starfleet charter. What we are not told is if Section 31 was placed into the Federation Starfleet charter specifically creating this organization so the old Earth unit could maintain its name.
There is no evidence it has.
Up until Star Trek: Enterprise there was every reason to suggest Section 31 was in the Federation Starfleet charter,
Yes. And if
Star Trek: Destiny establishes that there is a clause in the Federation Starfleet charter which authorizes the creation of a permanent special operations organization with eternal carte blanche to put itself above all law and outside of the reach of elected officials, then at that point there will be textual evidence for the idea that Section 31's existence is authorized by the Federation Starfleet charter.
But there is at present no such evidence in the text, nor does the text support any such supposition.
Sci said:
Because that's uncommon? Can't say I'm really all that sure. Can't find a link atm but it became public a few years back the security services actually contingency planned an assassination of Tony Blair.
You seem to be confusing consensually monitoring the head of government as part of the job of
protecting them, with
spying on the head of government without their consent (which is inherently something only done to
manipulate them).
The United States Secret Service monitors the U.S. President at all times. Even, allegedly, when he is alone in the restroom or when he is with his spouse in the bedroom. The President knows this and consents to it, because the Secret Service does this to protect him, not to manipulate him. I'm sure the same thing is true of the
Protection Command with regards to the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom.
But that is absolutely not the same thing as spying on the head of government without their consent or knowledge in order to manipulate them.
Seems S31 and the federation are better at keeping secrets, that's all.
If Section 31 is as active and as consistently vital the Federation's survival as it claims itself to be, it would be impossible to keep itself secret. Period. There's a reason everyone knew about MI-6 long before Her Majesty's Government acknowledged it.
(Though, in fairness, this is the same country that
tried to classify the Post Office Tower as an official secret....)
You got me there, yes they do, but again S31 do carry the name of the article which gives them the exemptions.
Any damn collection of assholes can name their secret law-breakers club after an article or clause in a statute or document. Doesn't mean they're exempt from anything. If I form a club called "Article II" dedicated to beating up members of the Electoral College, that doesn't mean it's not a criminal conspiracy just 'cos it's got a fancy name.
Which for all we know became the template of the modern SF charter, we have absolutely no idea.
You make a poor argument when you rely upon the possibility of new information that has not yet been revealed in order to justify your propositions.
For all we know the original may have been largely cut and paste, such things are in fact very common in the real world when whole chunks of treaties are often literally taken from earlier versions then added to or edited to suit.
Even
if Article 14, Section 31 of the United Earth Starfleet Charter was just copied verbatim into the Federation Starfleet Charter, that doesn't mean the organization that calls itself "Section 31" is actually authorized by that segment of the charter. That segment only deals with bending rules in times of crisis -- that is a
far, far cry from establishing a permanent special operations unit that is exempt from democratic ability and has carte blanche to violate the law.
Granted field operations may be fairly infrequent, or more likely consist primarily of more passive intelligence gathering instead of direct action. Bear in mind such operations would not typically be planned in a vacuum, more likely extensive scenarios would be being played out for years.
Absolutely nothing about what you describe here could not be handled just as easily and just as well by Starfleet Intelligence rather than Section 31.
But still most would agree with the morality, regardless of the legality.
"Most?" I would not be so confident that "most" people agree with the morality of killing hundreds of thousands of innocent civilians and destroying two entire cities.
Odo's comparison of Section 31 to the Tal Shiar or the Obsidian Order doesn't quite hold up. While all three are intelligence agencies who don't allow morals to get in the way, unlike Section 31 the Tal Shiar and Obsidian Order are (or were, in the Order's case) legitimate government agencies known to the public and answerable to the civilian government (though again, for the Order that's murky given the civilian government on Cardassia at the time was mostly a figurehead).
Well, in fairness, the Cardassian Union before the 2371 coup was a
de facto military dictatorship under the Central Command, and the Romulan Star Empire appears to be some sort of autocratic or authoritarian oligarchy. There's no evidence that pre-2371 Cardassia or pre-Shinzon Romulus ever had a system of constitutionally-ordered liberal democracy.
However Section 31 dose have some oversight.
Once again, this has been explicitly contradicted by the canon. You are literally contradicting the canon in order to justify Section 31's existence within what is supposed to be a constitutional liberal democracy.
However, they are still necessary to the survival of the Federation.
Says who?
Although they do perform some shady things they also get critical intelligence that has helped Starfleet win wars.
When?
The level of people needed to cover that stuff up would suggest they do someplace.
Hydra must have had a lot of people at a lot of levels within SHIELD to keep themselves secret. Does that mean Hydra was actually answerable to SHIELD and the World Security Council?
