"a foreign intelligence service that wasn't gathering some foreign intelligence, I'd ask him 'what the hell are we paying the money for?"
The ye old argument of a defensive force. Why should we spend all this money on a army that just sit at home and wait for others to attack?
This is of course different from when you have a defined target which threatens the country in a specific way. At that point, a defensive force and intelligence service should be deployed as it is appropriate to address that target.
intelligence services should operate the same way as the police do. The police job is to find out who commit crimes, but that doesn't mean they should invade peoples home at random in order to find out who the criminals are. Their start position is one where they suspect a specific crime is committed by specific people, and then go after those people using methods approved by society.
The ye old argument of a defensive force. Why should we spend all this money on a army that just sit at home and wait for others to attack?
This is of course different from when you have a defined target which threatens the country in a specific way. At that point, a defensive force and intelligence service should be deployed as it is appropriate to address that target.