On that note, shouldn't the Federation have a separate intelligence agency that isn't just an extension of Starfleet. Yes, Starfleet would have an intelligence branch, but shouldn't there also be something else, like a CIA analogue perhaps? Yeah, I know, off topic, but it has always got to me that the only official intelligence agency in the Federation is the military intelligence service.
Well, we know from Star Trek III: The Search for Spock that there's an agency known as Federation Security. Maybe they're civilian intelligence. (Indeed, the novels establish its full formal name as the Federation Security Agency, and establish that FSA has at least three divisions: one that serves as the civilian counterpart to Starfleet Intelligence; one that functions as a sort of Federation-wide law enforcement/security agency; and one that handles protection for the Federation President.) And in fairness, MI-6 started out as military intelligence, so it's not like the idea of the Federation's intelligence agency being part of Starfleet has no historical precedent.
Up until Star Trek: Enterprise there was every reason to suggest Section 31 was in the Federation Starfleet charter, and their is still only circumstantial evidence that it was only in the Earth Starfleet charter.
Up until Enterprise we had no reason to believe there was a separate Earth Starfleet prior to the Federation Starfleet. And besides, Sloan's line is that they are part of the "original Starfleet charter." Kind of suggests he's talking about the one which came first.
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. Seems S31 and the federation are better at keeping secrets, that's all. You got me there, yes they do, but again S31 do carry the name of the article which gives them the exemptions. See below. Which for all we know became the template of the modern SF charter, we have absolutely no idea. 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. 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. But still most would agree with the morality, regardless of the legality.
For me, Section 31 feels like a half-assed way for the writers to have their cake and eat it too. They acknowledge that black ops and shady dealings may be necessary, but they don't want the oh-so-noble Federation to soil its hands by legally sanctioning such nefarious activity! Because of that bit of moral cowardice, S31 is now a completely rogue organization accountable to none but itself. That's the only problem I have with it though, I'd be fine if Section 31 was an actual official Federation organization.
I love the idea. Odo points out in DS9 that of course The Federation has section 31 every super power needs one. It does change my perception but I love it. Star Trek is all about levels of grey. In every series we see that corruption does exist everywhere and people still have greed and want power. What maters is that we try to get better and fight against corruption. That is partially what section 31 does. Plus as the AC/DC song says, dirty deeds done dirt cheap. So Yes the Federation needs a Section 31 in order to survive.
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).
However Section 31 dose have some oversight. We know they have a "Unique" relationship with The Federation and Starfleet Admirals have covered up for them in the past. I think it would be best for Section 31 to come out in the open and have more oversight. However, they are still necessary to the survival of the Federation. Although they do perform some shady things they also get critical intelligence that has helped Starfleet win wars.
The level of people needed to cover that stuff up would suggest they do someplace. It could simply be that they aren't needed all that often so that general knowledge of their existence vanished at some point in the two centuries since the founding of the Federation. With general knowledge lost, and the government likely wanting to keep it that way, the books are hidden to make them not as noticeable as say the CIA, but as noticeable as MI-6.
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. 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. 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....) 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. 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. 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. 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. "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. 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. 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. Says who? When? 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?
Yeah, I know. I was basing my comment on Dukat's line in the episode Defiant where he tells Sisko that in theory Central Command and the Obsidian Order are supposed to report to the Detapa Council, even though in practice the two pretty much do their own thing independently.
Spoiler: Captain America 1 and 2 In the Marvel Cinematic Universe films, Hydra was a division of the Nazi S.S. during World War II, founded by a German named Johann Schmitt, who became the Red Skull. Hydra eventually attempted to usurp the Nazis in a coup while simultaneously launching their own doomsday attack upon the Allies, which would have left the Red Skull as dictator of most of Europe and North America, before they were stopped by Captain America and the U.S. Army. Hydra's bases were occupied, its assets seized, and its personnel imprisoned. After World War II, a multi-national security organization called SHIELD was founded by the Allies. SHIELD primarily concerned itself with fantastical threats, and maintained a monopoly on advanced technologies. It was a huge multinational organization run under an international treaty, answering to the World Security Council, comprised of representatives of parties to the SHIELD Treaty. Unknown to the rest of the world, SHIELD was infiltrated by the remnants of Hydra very early on, and kept on recruiting for almost 70 years. Hydra kept its existence within SHIELD a closely-guarded secret, as they pursued a long-term plan for worldwide political destabilization so that the world public would come to accept more and more authoritarian measures from their governments -- governments Hydra was simultaneously infiltrating. By 2014, something in the area of almost 1/4th of SHIELD agents were Hydra, and Hydra agents included United States Senators, the United States Secretary of Defense, members of the World Security Council, the Belgian Foreign Minister, the CEOs and boards of directors of major corporations, and important leaders in Persian Gulf oil states. That year, Hydra attempted to co-opt a SHIELD program that would have given SHIELD the ability to monitor and pre-emptively assassinate terrorist and extra-normal threats. They seized control of three hellicarriers with advanced long-range weaponry, and used worldwide digital spying systems and behavior prediction algorithms to draw up lists of over 20 million individuals predicted to have the capacity to rebel against Hydra's new world world, while simultaneously seizing control of every major SHIELD base around the planet. They came within moments of launching the largest mass murder in human history (almost decapitating the world's major governments in the process) before being thwarted by Captain America and his allies. The world's governments then began a years-long process of locating Hydra infiltrators within their ranks, SHIELD was dissolved, and the Avengers spent the better part of a year hunting down and capturing Hydra bases across the planet.