Spy network meme
This of course is not a problem with the people but in the quality of governance and the level of education/information of a society. There is not only the problem of abuse but also that in an open society, especially if democratic, the people would not sanction some of the activities of those agencies and subsequently would repudiate their own governments.
– Victor Marchetti, Former Special Assistant to the Deputy Director of the CIA Secrecy exists to keep you, the American public, from knowing what is going on, because in many ways you are the real enemy." from knowing what’s going on, because the enemy usually does know. "Secrecy is maintained not to keep the opposition. This creates a continuous paradox that often leads to the question "Who watches the watchers?" (from the Latin, Quis custodiet ipsos custodes?), that does not only addresses the access to the information but the responsibility and oversight of the agencies activities. This creates a constant need to utilize an often contrived monitoring system, as to balance keeping activities secretive, move responsibility away from blame and to maintain the possibility of deniability. Dirty deeds do prefer to be done in the dark. The power and activities of information services are extremely susceptible of being abused, and history proves that it is so.
Most often the management of such enterprises is done indirectly via a specialized and distinct (from the rest of the government) hierarchical structure. The larger portion of spy agencies are directly controlled by national governments or due to "the nature of the business" have governmental oversight. A simple example would be how police forces attempt " to turn" assets from the opposing side, creating in fact double agents. For operations that focus in gathering and processing information, infiltration of other organizations and the subversion of their competition. It is not uncommon for police forces, criminal organizations and even private investigators to function and use spy techniques and procedures for espionage also referred as " spy-craft"/" trade-craft" or simply " craft", sometimes also referred as " dark arts". Most if not all spy agencies are also referenced as intelligence agencies or services. It can be state or prevalently controlled a mixture or the two or even a supra national enterprise.