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Comment by COGlory | Hacker News Reader

There's a dead comment from a throwaway that I mostly disagree with. Except for this last line:

>This seems like the government outsourcing controversial activities to Israel.

It certainly feels that way to me, as well. The US is in a sticky situation. This just feels like a standard burn. You're caught, now you're out. NSO made too much noise and got cut loose. Obviously the NSA and others are going to continue this kind of work.

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It makes perfect sense for the US to outsource controversial work to the Israeli military industrial complex, just like it makes perfect sense for fortune 500 corporations to outsource controversial work to mckinsey. Plausible deniability for the party that cares about their image, money for the party that has embraced the destruction of theirs. I guess the US could use domestic contractors instead, but then they'd have to admit the contractors were sanctioned when they don't bring criminal charges.

I'd be much more worried if US government was found to be hacking/assassinating Saudi dissidents, because that would mean the leaders of the US government are completely incompetent. That's not to say it's not happening, just that it would be idiotic for the government to do that themselves when they can use foreign contractors instead.

Yep. Also see: Wuhan lab, and the US ties to it.

Do you think US intelligence agencies were hindered whatsoever by their bad reputation?

Absolutely. Look at the Patriot Act. It took a national crisis to justify that for them.

What did they do after the patriot act that they weren't doing before it?

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