[Zigurd]

Politics in the security state selects for the kind of politician at the national level who is bought-in to the rightness and necessity of the security state, early in their careers, long before the people choose among them. It doesn't have to be powered by blackmail, assassination, or other exotic methods 99.99% of the time to be effective. It's the water they swim in. They hardly notice.

All the possible "radicalism" ends up at one end of the scale: PRISM, NDAA, and "least untruthful" causing barely a ripple.

The statement "Every national government in the civilized world needs an intelligence-gathering agency that can operate with some degree of operational secrecy." is true, but it's true at every scale. Suppose someone spilled ALL the beans, and the US had to start over in deciding what's secret and what isn't, going forward. How long would it take to accumulate our current trove of secrets, and what does that say about the necessity of most of them?