The monarchic courts of the great world empires have always had crucial networks of spies, such as Walsingham for Elizabeth and the painter Rubens for the Spanish Habsburgs, but it is probably true that if these lacked branches of gov't, that the real growth of a professional and disproportionate intelligence service is part of the modern neo-baroque arcana of power. Habermas would like to call the press a fourth estate, and this did indeed rise under the umbrella of the 19th century British Empire and the night-watchman's state, whereas the rise of a giant secret service in a 'republic', the great landed imperial republic, is a 20th century phenomenon and one especially potent in the modern 'globalized' or 'gatist' phase of US led capitalist world system in contrast to the earlier 'fordist' model, if one discounts other institutions of empire like the Inquisition or East India Co.. as not primarily public institutions or espionage/intelligence organizations.
It is also clearly the case that Democratic executives cannot control the post-9/11 intelligence apparatus, assuming they want to and that the Democratic Party is not part of the neo-liberal consensus (a more likely and dour reality) just as Clinton had little control of the new professionalized Reagan-inspired military (cf gays in the military). But the like Mafia in Italy, or the Russian secret service, all this feeds the executive power at the expense of all else and just destroys the idea of branches of gov't rather than constituting a 'fourth' one. This sort of claim ends up being a constitutional category error....
-- a school child...
more on this developoment
http://www.truth-out.org/news/item/37291-turkey-and-iran-reach-agreement-on-conditions-for-syria-peace
The monarchic courts of the great world empires have always had crucial networks of spies, such as Walsingham for Elizabeth and the painter Rubens for the Spanish Habsburgs, but it is probably true that if these lacked branches of gov't, that the real growth of a professional and disproportionate intelligence service is part of the modern neo-baroque arcana of power. Habermas would like to call the press a fourth estate, and this did indeed rise under the umbrella of the 19th century British Empire and the night-watchman's state, whereas the rise of a giant secret service in a 'republic', the great landed imperial republic, is a 20th century phenomenon and one especially potent in the modern 'globalized' or 'gatist' phase of US led capitalist world system in contrast to the earlier 'fordist' model, if one discounts other institutions of empire like the Inquisition or East India Co.. as not primarily public institutions or espionage/intelligence organizations.
It is also clearly the case that Democratic executives cannot control the post-9/11 intelligence apparatus, assuming they want to and that the Democratic Party is not part of the neo-liberal consensus (a more likely and dour reality) just as Clinton had little control of the new professionalized Reagan-inspired military (cf gays in the military). But the like Mafia in Italy, or the Russian secret service, all this feeds the executive power at the expense of all else and just destroys the idea of branches of gov't rather than constituting a 'fourth' one. This sort of claim ends up being a constitutional category error....
-- a school child...