Lo and behold, that same obvious idea occurred long ago to the CIA, which seems to be “wire-tapping” (yes, I get the anachronism of this phrase, but that does not mean the basic idea is not entirely and substantively correct) people SOLELY to gather dirt. After all, the fucking NSA is ALREADY doing that work. The CIA, for its part, was doing it with even less transparency, and for no apparent valid intelligence purpose. After all, is the CIA not FORBIDDEN from working inside the United States? Does that prohibition not go back to the Church hearings in the mid-1970’s?
The CIA was founded to combat Communism, and it appears to have been instead infiltrated BY them. Perhaps its useful time is done.
I wonder if we could get rid of the CIA entirely, by folding it, person by person, into the NSA and/or the DIA, trickling them through carefully to weed out all people suspected of totalitarian loyalties.