Pretty bad when intelligence services customarily operate above the law and don't even tell the government they're supposedly beholden to.
The Netherlands specifically had cabinets (i.e., governments) fall due to the responsible ministers not knowing what their agencies were doing, with snap elections as result.
In fact, in the last decade or so this happened quite often. Accountability in The Netherlands isn’t just based on knowing something and still doing the wrong things, its often also based on “should’ve known something as the person responsible for the agency in question” and not being in the know. In terms of accountability, in both cases the person in question is considered to have fucked up.
So the plausible deniability angle, is not really a benefit. Provided it comes out during that person’s tenure, although in rare instances even current office holders have been held responsible for the lack of knowledge of their prior office holders, based on the idea that the current office holder should’ve been aware such a thing happened and should’ve informed parliament post haste upon learning about it.
They describe the process on how things can be approved and what needs to be done for that. But this thing sounds like it was more an MIVD (military) thing and I can imagine there isn't nearly as much legal due process on that side.
Would reccommend it for Dutch language speakers.
The whole point is to do the dirty work it isn't supposed to be happen.
There's not knowing and "not knowing". Plausible deniability and all.