At worse, Section 31 can be considered unethical and ruthless, but there's no evidence that they are a threat to the Federation.
Didn't they have a hand in Jaresh-Inyo's death?
That's in the novels, perhaps, but nothing of the kind was ever featured in any TV story.
True. Section 31 comes across as being considerably more incompetent in the canon. They're betrayed by the Klingons in "Affliction/Divergence" and that mistake nearly leads to the destruction of
Enterprise and
Columbia. They try to recruit a guy ideologically predisposed to hate them in "Inquisition." They plant a mole of dubious loyalty on the Continuing Committee at the expense of a Romulan Senator who had genuine affection for the Federation in "
Inter Arma Enim Silent Leges." Their guy get captured by Bashir and O'Brien in "Extreme Measures." And their genocidal attempt to win the war before any shots were fired
completely backfired on them and nearly cause the Female Shapeshifter to give the Federation Alliance a pyrrhic victory at the final battle of the war.
Canonically, Section 31 has
never been depicted as doing anything even merely useful.
Who said anything about letting Section 31 get off the hook? It certainly wasn't in DS9. Once it was revealed that Section 31 was willing to commit genocide to end the Dominion War, Doctor Bashir essentially launched a personal campaign to end Section 31 for crossing the line.
I think the other posters are objecting to their perception that you want to excuse them their crimes.
The simple fact is, Section 31's very *existence* - as a shadow organization, answerable to ABSOLUTELY NO ONE but themselves - is, by definition, poison to the concepts of freedom and democracy.
And it could be that freedom and democracy might not exist without a shadow organization to defend against
other shadow organizations.
Bullshit. Liberal democracy is not that weak and vulnerable.
Listen, no one's saying that the Federation shouldn't have an intelligence unit. And I for one am certainly not saying that the Federation shouldn't have the option of engaging in black ops missions from time to time.
What I and others are objecting to more than anything else is the fact that Section 31 does not operate within the framework of a democratically-accountable government. It does whatever it wants, to whomever it wants, whenever it wants, however it wants, and answers to no one for it.
To put it another way:
A liberal democracy cannot survive, cannot function, if it operates on the basis of secrecy, lies, and unaccountability. Don't believe me? Just look around the United States today. Until Obama came along, people were beginning to lose faith in the United States. When the rule of men is placed over the rule of law, the social contract is fundamentally undermined.
Section 31 could very well be a response against other foreign agencies that operate in secret to undermine the Federation.
No. ENT made it clear that Section 31 was founded during the era of the United Earth Starfleet by people who decided to take a clause in the UESF Charter and stretch it beyond the breaking point of credibility in justifying their paranoid actions.
No one is saying that Section 31 is proper or that its methods are just, but it is likely a necessary evil to protect the Federation in secret wars where espionage and lies are the name of the game.
How could it possibly do that when it operates without accountability to the Federation President? Without oversight from the Federation Council?
How on Earth can Section 31 be trusted to defend the Federation when it isn't actually working for anyone but itself?
Starfleet Intelligence can handle the secret wars of espionage with the Tal Shiar and Obsidian Order and Klingon Imperial Intelligence, and they can do it within the framework of accountability to the law.
The Romulans have the Tal'Shiar, the Cardassians the Obsidian Order, and lord knows what the Klingons might have,
Klingon Imperial Intelligence, established in DS9's "Trials and Tribble-ations." Arne Darvin was an agent for them in the 2260s.
And thank you for outlining a perfectly good reason for the Federation never to develop its own secret police force. Is the UFP supposed to take the Romulan Star Empire, Cardassian Union, and Klingon Empire as role models?
but the Federation isn't supposed to have anything to combat that?
The Federation has Starfleet Intelligence, and we've seen SI and the main branches of Starfleet do a perfectly fine job of combating foreign espionage in the past. Certainly SI wouldn't be so stupid as to undermine Earth's defenses to allow the abduction of a foreign citizen by a hostile power, only to be surprised when that hostile power later betrays them.
Starfleet can only do so much and still maintain its image as good guys.
Says who? Listen, it's an accepted fact of life that in times of extraordinary crisis, sometimes good people have to do bad things for liberal democracy to survive. You'll notice that not that many people hate Sisko as much as Section 31, even though his tricking the RSE into joining the Dominion War is at least as morally questionable as anything we've seen Section 31 do. Why is that?
Because Sisko doesn't treat every situation as though it's an extraordinary crisis requiring that he circumvent the normal rules of society. He doesn't contravene the rule of law by his very existence. Section 31 does.
The biggest people have with Section 31 is merely that such an organization simply exists.
No. The biggest problem people have with Section 31 is that it places itself above the law and answers to no one for its actions. Even if its operations only ever consisted of sitting around playing Andorian Bingo, an organization that is above the law is a fundamental threat to liberal democracy. Remember Richard Nixon, ranting about how something can't be illegal if the President does it? There's a reason he was forced out of office.
It shatters the illusion of the Federation as some kind of perfect society where there are no lies and secrets.
No, because I never considered the Federation a perfect society with no lies or secrets. Federation society has always struggled with major social problems -- slavery on the Federation Member world of Ardana; conflict between Humans, Vulcans, Andorians, and Tellarites when it originated; corruption within Starfleet (the conspiracy to assassinate President Ra-ghoratreii in
Star Trek VI, the coup attempt in "Homefront"/"Paradise Lost"), its willingness to sell out its citizens' homes to appease hostile enemies in late TNG, its refusal to accept the Maquis' desire for political independence, its desire to spread its cultural values to every other society it encounters, its constant tendency to become embroiled in wars. Clearly, the UFP is not a perfect utopia and never was.
But you know what it
was? It was a society where there was the rule of law. It was a society where if Admiral Kirk stole the
Enterprise, even for a good cause, he still stood down and allowed himself to be court-martialed for his actions. It was a society where even if the characters disobeyed orders in an extreme circumstance, they were still accountable to Starfleet Command. It was a society where there was accountability to the democratically-elected government, and, therefore, accountability to the electorate.
I wouldn't have nearly as much of a problem with Section 31 if they answered to the President and if they hadn't tried to commit genocide. Hell, I'd have less of a problem with them even if they had still tried to commit genocide, provided that they still answered to the President. But as they're presented, they're
so extreme, their behavior would in real life constitute
such a threat to the rule of law and liberal democracy, that I can't help but put them up there in the pantheon of villains right along with the Borg and Gul Dukat.
It's probably for this reason that Section 31 does likely operate mostly in secret, because its existence is not something the Federation is proud of.
No, it probably operates in secret because it rightly recognizes that the Federation government won't allow a rogue cabal of people to run around, doing whatever they want and getting away with it, and would probably try to either put Section 31 under the control of the civilian government or to shut them down as a threat to Federation security.
Section 31 claims that they deal with threats to the Federation. Well, who determines just what IS a threat? Think about it.
But don't OVERthink it either.
Right, because that's exactly where you don't want too much thinking -- national security!
Section 31 deals with outside threats to the Federation from foreign powers.
How the hell do we know that? Because they say so? Well, gosh, that's a reliable source, isn't it?
And even if that were the case, so what? They do it without accountability to the government. They have no political legitimacy, no right to exist as an organization, within a liberal democracy. If they want to be able to kill whomever they want without needing to get anyone's permission, they should move to a non-Federation world.
Anything else is would likely be considered an internal affair and the province of either Starfleet or the Federation Council.
That's an incredibly naive argument. Are you seriously going to tell me that an organization given absolute power, absolute carte blanche, to act however it likes with no accountability, can be trusted
not[/i to abuse that power? Can be trusted not to eventually start acting in its own interests at the expense of the state?
They put a spy in the Cabinet. They were literally spying on their own President! Think about that. These are obviously not people who recognize any limits to their power or authority. These are people who think they can do whatever they want, and it's inherently okay because they're them.
Let's say that, for example, there were antiwar protestors during the conflict with the Dominion. (I'm sure there were. Section 31 or not, the Federation still is a democracy.) What if S31 decided that *they* were a threat and moved to eliminate them?
I don't think that would ever happen by your very definition.
Actually, that's exactly what happened in the DS9 novel Hollow Men by Una McCormack. Section 31 decided that an anti-war protestor was a threat to Federation security because he was undermining the war effort and moved to find a way to get rid of him.
Section 31 was created to do the kind of ugly, morally questionable missions that would offend the sensibilities of so-called enlighted 24th-Century Federation citizens if they became public knowledge,
No, Starfleet Intelligence was created to do the kind of ugly, morally questionable missions that would offend the sensibilities of most Federates in times of extraordinary crisis. Section 31 was created by power-mad, jingoistic nationalists who can't differentiate between doing the ugly, morally questionable missions that may be necessary in a time of extraordinary crisis and doing whatever it wants with no accountability at all times.
but I do think there's a line that Section 31 won't cross.
Then you obviously haven't studied real history. Organizations that are accountable to no one can never be trusted to stay within any lines. As the cliche goes, power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely.
I also think that the Federation Council and Starfleet Headquarters are well aware of everything Section 31 does and allows it to function by not saying anything about it.
There's no evidence of that. Sisko makes it clear that there wasn't any real inquiry into the existence of Section 31 and that someone was covering up for them. More than likely the Federation Council isn't aware that them and they're protected by Section 31 agents who have infiltrated Starfleet Command.
It does indeed become a question of "What price for freedom?" Should the Federation rather allow itself to be destroyed by outside forces rather than compromise any of its principles during times of war?
That's an entirely separate question. The question is not, "Do the ends justify the means?" The question is, "Can liberal democracy survive without the rule of law, if some people are above the law?" And the answer is No.
No one is saying that the existence of Section 31 is something to be proud of, but I do think it's unfortunately necessary against other similar organizations from foreign powers employing the same kind of dirty tactics.
Why? Every canonical operation they've undertaken has been incredibly bone-headed, and their non-canonical operations have been undeniably tyrannical. And you haven't cited any actual evidence that an organization that's above the law is necessary to defend the Federation.
And even then, I don't think Section 31 goes to the level of murdering Federation citizens
Funny, because their very first episode made it clear that they did.
The alternative would probably be to just let the Federation go belly up and be conquered by its enemies...
Bullshit. Starfleet and SI are more than capable of defending the Federation against its enemies -- and of doing so whilst still being accountable to the government.
ETA:
And it could be that freedom and democracy might not exist without a shadow organization to defend against other shadow organizations. Section 31 could very well be a response against other foreign agencies that operate in secret to undermine the Federation.
Yeah, yeah. Coulda, woulda, shoulda. That's a lot of maybes.
And yet the possibility cannot be denied. It MAY even be a fundamental truth.
And it MAY not be. It MAY be a fundamental truth that there's an elephant wearing a tutu sitting in Buckingham Palace. A lot of things MAY be fundamental truths. But you don't base policy on MAYBE. We based our policies on MAYBE when we invaded Iraq; look how well THAT turned out.
YOU are the person making the extraordinary claim (i.e., that Section 31 is necessary to defend the Federation). Therefore, the burden of proof falls to YOU.
Ah, but they didn't know that Bashir was really Bashir either. That's why they had to use their own methods of determining whether or not he was the real thing or a shapeshifter.
You are COMPLETELY misremembering "Inquisition." They didn't abduct Bashir and put him in the holodeck program to determine if he actually was a Dominion spy. He was never actually under suspicion. They abducted him and subjected him to that kind of interrogation as part of their standard recruitment procedure for new agents. And when he asked what would have happened to him if they hadn't considered him sufficiently "loyal," Sloan implied they would have murdered him.
I disagree, because that kind of reasoning can also apply to starship captains on the frontier working without immediate instructions from HQ.
Big, big difference. Starfleet captains on the frontier get special training from the democratically-accountable military and its government, and they answer for their actions when all is said and done. Section 31 does no such thing -- it just does whatever it wants and everyone else can go hang.
I do think Section 31 draws the line at murdering Federation citizens--despite what some novels might say.
Again, "Inquisition" disagrees with you.
They would have murdered Bashir. He *is* a Federation citizen.
But they
didn't murder Bashir because he *is" a Federation citizen.
1. They shouldn't be not-murdering people because they're Federates, they should be not-murdering people because they have no right to kill people.
2. They didn't not-murder Bashir because he's a Federate, they not-murdered Bashir because they decided that he was sufficiently "loyal" to the Federation in their opinion. God help him if he had thought that maybe the Federation President shouldn't have allowed Sisko to mine the Wormhole first.
And don't forget, they attempted to assassinate President Ra-ghoratreii (Star Trek VI) - not even for being a shapeshifter, but simply for pursuing peace with the Klingons!!! (True, Section 31 had not been thought of by the writers at the time that film was made, but in retrospect it was obviously a Section 31 operation anyway.)
Is that from some kind of novel or something? I don't recall any of that from any TV episode or film, which is probably the source of our different opinions about Section 31.
That's not from a novel. The book Section 31: Cloak established that Admiral Cartwright was a member of Section 31, but that doesn't mean that the Khitomer conspiracy to assassinate President Ra-ghoratreii was a Section 31 operation. (In fact, if it was, they would almost certainly have been exposed.)
