The entire existence of the NSA was classified for a long time too (including that they had a budget). These agencies seem to go through a cycle where a prior agency gets noticed/public and starts to get blowback, so can’t hide anymore. This makes it more difficult for them to do some or part of their mission, so a new secret agency gets spun up to do the new hotness part - and their existence is classified, wash rinse repeat.
And this is the American government functioning as intended! The president was given powers to create these agencies by Congress, and Congress regularly steps in to regulate and put into law various details of how they operate.
Today's Congress entirely failing to regulate the executive branch and seemingly... uninterested? in doing so is troubling for the stability of the republic.
> Today's Congress entirely failing to regulate the executive branch and seemingly...uninterested?
You say uninterested, yet it seems more like complicit. Both chambers of Congress are led by the same party as POTUS. They are quite happy with how things are going, and actively work to enable POTUS and his agenda. There are some things where previous Congress has put limits on POTUS that this POTUS is ignoring. If this Congress was really effective, they'd repeal those regulations so POTUS' actions would not run afoul of legislation. Instead, they are just ignoring the flagrant violations, and letting SCOTUS (also led by the same party) get involved with their decisions that POTUS has flagrantly pushed back against as well.
I’m assuming it’s some form of regulatory capture - Schumer’s comment to Trump [https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/schumers-warning-int...], and the many shenanigans that Diane Feinstein apparently ran into over the years, makes it clear they intentionally dodge oversight and probably have a lot of dirt on people.
And if you were the NSA, how could you pass up on using some of that ‘accidentally’ collected intel to help avoid distractions while you ‘protect the nation’ eh?
