[dragonwriter]

> That's different from a dictatorship,

Its exactly equivalent to a dictatorship by the head of the CIA, unless the CIA is effectively answerable to some other authority despite not being answerable to the law, and then it is equivalent to a dictatorship by that higher authority.

[JumpCrisscross]

> Its exactly equivalent to a dictatorship by the head of the CIA

No it's not. I can commit all manner of illegal acts in my home unnoticed, that doesn't make me a dictator.

[dragonwriter]

Yes, and if the hypothetical were that the CIA was effectively outside of control of the law for actions committed in private by CIA personnel in their homes, then the conclusion would be different (even though an agency the scale of the CIA would still have different implications than an individual even then), but that wasn't the hypothetical under discussion, which had much fewer—as in zero—qualifications on the CIA’s lack of accountability.

Analogies don't work when they aren't analogous.

[JumpCrisscross]

> if the hypothetical were that the CIA was effectively outside of control of the law for actions committed in private by CIA personnel in their homes

My point is their actions are committed outside the law. They've just been able to avoid punishment by covering it up. What they are not is above the law, at least not in the long run. (There are absolutely short bouts where the CIA acts above the law overseas, and rare cases where it has done so domestically. But the fact that they're covering it up betrays that they're crafty bastards, not invincible ones.)

[sneak]

The CIA ran torture prisons, got caught, then there was a congressional inquiry, and they hacked into the computers of the congresspeople to delete the evidence of torture.

Then they got caught hacking congressional computers to delete evidence.

Nothing happened to them.

They are above the law. You are not.

[JumpCrisscross]

> CIA ran torture prisons, got caught, then there was a congressional inquiry, and they hacked into the computers of the congresspeople to delete the evidence of torture

One, source?

Two, this above reproach. Not above the law. They deleted the evidence, they didn't just blow the scandal off. (Historically, our IC was popular. Right now, it's the deep state. You're seeing political appointees at the FBI and CIA exert control.)

[neutronicus]

The CIA can’t rule by edict.

Being above the law is necessary but not sufficient to be a dictator.

We also don’t know enough about the internal politics of the CIA to assert much about the head of the CIA.

[fuzzfactor]

From what I gather, it's so tight that when a clandestine company has served its purpose and winds down, anybody who managed to become a shareholder gets to cash out.

Anything else could blow the cover for next time.