NPIA Proposed Charter

mcmasterdonia

Just like a queef in the wind, so is life
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TNP Nation
McMasterdonia
Here is a proposed charter for the NPIA. Take a read of it and provide negative (or even positive:P) feedback in this thread. This was based slightly on the original charter authored by Eluvatar but has been changed significantly. A thank you to R3n for his help with this document.

Note: Council thought the word "Agents" was better than "officers". I'm indifferent, so if people feel strongly either way we will take that into account. It has also received the full approval of council, excluding Blue Wolf and Eluvatar who were absent.

The Charter of The North Pacific Intelligence Agency:
This document is a charter from the Delegate establishing the new North Pacific Intelligence Agency (hereinafter referred to as "the Agency"). Contravention of this charter is punishable by removal from the Agency by the Director..

Section 1: Staff

1. The Agency comprises of the Agents and the Director.

Article I: Director

2. The Director of the North Pacific Intelligence Agency (“Director”) is the primary interface between the Agency and the rest of the government.
3. The Director is responsible for the running of all and has discretion over all activities of the Agency.
4. A majority of Agents may ask the Delegate to appoint a new Director. The Delegate may remove the Director whenever they see fit.
5. Whenever the position is vacant, The Delegate will appoint the Director from among the Agents.
6. The Agents may nominate a list of several potential candidates for the Delegate to consider.
7. The Director is considered to be a government official for all legal purposes.

Article 2: The Agents

8. Agents of the North Pacific Intelligence Agency ("Agents") will collectively carry out the duties of the Agency.
9. All Agents must be citizens of The North Pacific in good standing.
10. No list of Office may be published outside the NPIA forums, at any time.
11. Agents may recommend any citizen of The North Pacific to be invited to become an Agent.
12. Such a recommendation for invitation may be blocked from being granted by the objection of at least two Agents.
13. The Director shall have final discretion on whether to grant a recommendation for invitation that has not been blocked.
14. Individuals invited to become Agents must take the following oath once invited to join the Agency, and taking of the oath constitutes assumption of their role as Agents:

Agents Oath
I, {Forum name}, do swear to serve The North Pacific as an Agent of the North Pacific Intelligence Agency. I have read the Agency's charter and I pledge not to contravene it.


Section 2: Ethics

1. Forum destruction is prohibited.
2. Sharing personal information with a person who is not an Agent is prohibited. Personal information includes, but is not limited to, real names, postal addresses, email addresses, occupations, photographs, obsessions, hobbies, personal websites, age, religious views, income, sexual orientation, sexual identity, sexual behavior, images of a player's physical appearance, and any information which can be used to locate a person.

3. Cracking is prohibited. Cracking includes, but is not limited to, compromising of accounts, cracking of passwords (excluding region passwords), cross-site scripting, cross-site request forgery, or any other such activities.
4. Engaging in real life illegal activities or violating Nationstates terms of service is prohibited.
5. Conspiracy to do any of the above is prohibited. That includes encouraging a person who is not an Agent to do it.


Section 3: Information Security and Dissemination


1. Intelligence is all information which has been gained by the activities of the Agency, or describing the activities of the Agency, or is in the possession of the Agency, and which has not already become accessible to the general public.
2. The Director will provide the Delegate with a monthly report on the state of the Agency.
3. The Director must promptly report intelligence regarding regional security of the North Pacific to the Delegate and the Security Council; in cases when the intelligence indicates a risk to the region from the Delegate, the Director will report to the Security Council exclusively.
4. The Director will promptly report intelligence regarding regional security of allied regions to the Delegate and, if permitted by the Delegate, to the appropriate officials of the allied region.
5. If an Agent believes that the Agency is engaging in illegal activity, they may report such activity to the Delegate or the first member in the Security Council line of succession as they deem appropriate.
6. Subject to the provisions of this section, Agents may not share intelligence with a person who is not an Agent without the prior authorization of the Director.
7. NPIA Agents will report to the Nationstates authorities any violation of the Nationstates terms of service, including activities that will directly affect Nationstates servers or properties.
8. Arrangements regarding intelligence security and dissemination among Agents are at the discretion of the Director.



Signed
McMasterdonia
Delegate of The North Pacific
 
mcmasterdonia:
It has also received the full approval of council, excluding Blue Wolf and Eluvatar who were absent.
Did any of them proofread it? My suggestions are marked in red and blue below. I'll offer substantive commentary later.

The Charter of The North Pacific Intelligence Agency:
This document is a charter from the Delegate establishing the new North Pacific Intelligence Agency (hereinafter referred to as "the Agency"). Contravention of this charter is punishable by removal from the Agency by the Director..

Section 1: Staff

1. The Agency comprises of the Agents and the Director.

Article I: Director

2. The Director of the North Pacific Intelligence Agency (“Director”) is the primary interface between the Agency and the rest of the government.
3. The Director is responsible for the running of all and has discretion over all activities of the Agency.All activities of the Agency are run by the Director at his discretion.
4. A majority of Agents may askBy majority vote, the Agents may petition the Delegate to appoint a new Director. The Delegate may remove the Director whenever they see fit.
5. Whenever the position is vacant, The Delegate will appoint the Director from among the Agents.
6. The Agents may nominate a list of several potential nominees candidates for the Delegate to consider.
7. The Director is considered to be a government official for all legal purposes.

Article 2: The Agents

8. Agents of the North Pacific Intelligence Agency ("Agents") will collectively carry out the duties of the Agency.
9. All Agents must be citizens of The North Pacific in good standing.
10. No list of OfficeAgents may be published outside the NPIA forums, at any time.
11. Agents may recommend any citizen of The North Pacific to be invited to become an OfficerAgent.
12. Such a recommendation for invitation may be blocked from being granted by the objection of at least two Agents.
13. The Director shall have final discretion on whether to grant a recommendation for invitation that has not been blocked.
14. Individuals invited to become Agents must take the following oath once invited to join the Agency, and taking of the oath constitutes assumption of their role as Agents:

OfficerAgent Oath
I, {Forum name}, do swear to serve The North Pacific as an OfficerAgent of the North Pacific Intelligence Agency. I have read the Agency's charter and I pledge not to contravene it.


Section 2: Ethics

1. Forum destruction is prohibited.
2. Sharing personal information with a person who is not an OfficerAgent is prohibited. Personal information includes, but is not limited to, real names, postal addresses, email addresses, occupations, photographs, obsessions, hobbies, personal websites, age, religious views, income, sexual orientation, sexual identity, sexual behavior, images of a player's physical appearance, and any information which can be used to locate a person.

3. Cracking is prohibited. Cracking includes, but is not limited to, compromising of accounts, cracking of passwords (excluding region passwords), cross-site scripting, cross-site request forgery, or any other such activities.
4. Engaging in real life illegal activities or violating Nationstates terms of service is prohibited.
5. Conspiracy to do any of the above is prohibited. That includes encouraging a person who is not an OfficerAgent to do it.


Section 3: Information Security and Dissemination


1. Intelligence is all information which has been gained by the activities of the Agency, or describing the activities of the Agency, or is in the possession of the Agency, and which has not already become accessible to the general public.
2. The Director will provide the Delegate with a monthly report on the state of the Agency.
3. The Director must promptly report intelligence regarding regional security of the North Pacific to the Delegate and the Security Council; in cases when the intelligence indicates a risk to the region from the Delegate, the Director will report to the Security Council exclusively.
4. The Director will promptly report intelligence regarding regional security of allied regions to the Delegate and, if permitted by the Delegate, to the appropriate officials of the allied region.
5. If an OfficerAgent believes that the Agency is engaging in illegal activity, they may report such activity to the Delegate or the first member in the Security Council line of succession as they deem appropriate.
6. Subject to the provisions of this section, Agents may not share intelligence with a person who is not an OfficerAgent without the prior authorization of the Director.
7. NPIA Agents will report to the Nationstates authorities any violation of the Nationstates terms of service, including activities that will directly affect Nationstates servers or properties.
8. Arrangements regarding intelligence security and dissemination among Agents are at the discretion of the Director.



Signed
McMasterdonia
Delegate of The North Pacific

For the record, I don't care if they're called Agents or Officers, but let's be consistent. Clearly, someone did ctrl+f to find "Officers" and replace them with "Agents," but not to find "Officer" and replace it with "Agent." As I said above, I might have comments on the content later...
 
:eyeroll: The changing from Officer to Agents was my fault. You are right, I forgot to check for officers and didn't read it after posting here.

I like your change to 3. 4 I'm indifferent to, if people prefer it, I'll go with it.
 
Well, the way 4 is written, it sounds like a majority of the agents can ask the delegate to appoint a new director, and the rest of them can't. ;)
 
mcmasterdonia:
It has also received the full approval of council, excluding Blue Wolf and Eluvatar who were absent.
Have Eluvatar and Blue Wolf II now had the opportunity to review this?
 
Chasmanthe:
mcmasterdonia:
It has also received the full approval of council, excluding Blue Wolf and Eluvatar who were absent.
Have Eluvatar and Blue Wolf II now had the opportunity to review this?
It's been here for a while, so I would hope so. Though we have not reconvened to discuss this matter, and I have not received word from either of them.
 
To be honest, I forgot all about it.

My only issue with it as written is that there is still no oversight. The only people who are mentioned in the entire document are the delegate, the director, and the agents. If anyone in the agency does something illegal, it's basically up to the delegate and the director whether or not they should be punished for it. Since the agency is immune to FOIA requests, no one will ever know anything that an agent does except the director and sometimes the delegate, unless one of them chooses to reveal it. It's too easy to cover up illegal activity.
 
Crushing Our Enemies:
To be honest, I forgot all about it.

My only issue with it as written is that there is still no oversight. The only people who are mentioned in the entire document are the delegate, the director, and the agents. If anyone in the agency does something illegal, it's basically up to the delegate and the director whether or not they should be punished for it. Since the agency is immune to FOIA requests, no one will ever know anything that an agent does except the director and sometimes the delegate, unless one of them chooses to reveal it. It's too easy to cover up illegal activity.
It's an intelligence agency. That's the price you pay. Have a little bit of faith in the agents, the director and the delegate. Chances are that someone will jump up and down if there is illegal activity.
 
Our government system is not founded on faith; it's founded on law. Plenty of people are concerned about outside interests influencing the government. Sure, it's all fine when McM is delegate, but what happens when these "outside interests" elect one of their own delegate? I have faith in some people - I don't have faith in an office that anyone, in theory, can be elected to.
 
A few things, first, I do believe it should be standard policy for the NPIA to deny any agents, even if they are caught red handed and the facts are self-evident. We had a major problem in the past with LWU and The Lexicon catching the same agent and the NPIA acknowledging the agent in LWU but denying the agent being present in The Lexicon, despite a clear IP match. This lead to The Lexicon declaring war upon TNP, which could have been easily avoided by just denying the existence of the NPIA agent in both cases instead of in only one. This should be written into the Charter to make it clear that this is not a suggestion, but rather a rule.

Second, the proposal needs to have teeth. We must have a way to legally prosecute any NPIA agent who violates their oath, the Charter, or both and simply expelling them from the NPIA is not enough. I can not support the proposal without, at the very least, this provision.
 
Crushing Our Enemies:
Blue Wolf is smart and I agree with him.
Sorry? Explain to me how that fixes the oversight problem? It's really easy to poke holes in things but it's harder to find acceptable solutions.

But yes Blue Wolf's suggestion has merit.
 
It doesn't fix the oversight problem, but he pointed out a problem I didn't notice earlier, and I agree that is a problem.

There are multiple ways to fix the oversight problem, and all of them involve naming at least one member of another branch of government, and giving them some power to regulate the NPIA.
 
Wolf:
A few things, first, I do believe it should be standard policy for the NPIA to deny any agents, even if they are caught red handed and the facts are self-evident. We had a major problem in the past with LWU and The Lexicon catching the same agent and the NPIA acknowledging the agent in LWU but denying the agent being present in The Lexicon, despite a clear IP match. This lead to The Lexicon declaring war upon TNP, which could have been easily avoided by just denying the existence of the NPIA agent in both cases instead of in only one. This should be written into the Charter to make it clear that this is not a suggestion, but rather a rule.
I disagree that this should be a policy mandated by the Charter. While it may had been a blunder that the NPIA acknowledged the agent in the case Wolf mentioned, there are circumstances under which acknowledgement of an agent may be beneficial (e.g., for intimidation, or to limit the fallout if an agent is uncovered spying against an allied region).

It is a matter of policy that should be left at the discretion of the Director.

Wolf:
Second, the proposal needs to have teeth. We must have a way to legally prosecute any NPIA agent who violates their oath, the Charter, or both and simply expelling them from the NPIA is not enough. I can not support the proposal without, at the very least, this provision.
This is something that I also brought up during the drafting discussions. The issue is, however, that criminal offenses cannot be created in the Charter. The Charter is a Delegate directive, and therefore is law inferior to the Legal Code, which in Chapter 1 says:
Legal Code Chapter 1:
1. No citizen holding no public office may be punished for any crime not listed in the Criminal Code.
Given this issue, as I recommended during drafting, this should be dealt with by:
  • going through the Criminal Code and making sure that the definitions of the existing offenses cover all violations of the Charter (probably treason or espionage cover some of these); and
  • if that is not true, introducing an amendment to the Legal Code that makes the necessary changes.
So, even though I agree that this is important, I believe it is independent of the Charter and needs to be addressed separately through the legislature.


On a small drafting issue:
3. The Director is responsible for the running of all and has discretion over all activities of the Agency.All activities of the Agency are run by the Director at his discretion.
I disagree with this change proposed by COE. Firstly, from a stylistic point of view, the emphasis of this clause is on the Director's role and what they get to do; therefore it should be in active, not passive voice. Secondly and more importantly, both responsibility and discretion need to be mentioned.

I do agree that the original wording can be improved, for instance:
3. The Director is responsible for and has discretion over all activities of the Agency.
 
Crushing Our Enemies:
It doesn't fix the oversight problem, but he pointed out a problem I didn't notice earlier, and I agree that is a problem.

There are multiple ways to fix the oversight problem, and all of them involve naming at least one member of another branch of government, and giving them some power to regulate the NPIA.
It's a solution. Whether it's an acceptable solution is another story. The more people you bring into the equation, the greater the chance of leaks.

I say this because this charter has suffered enough feet dragging as it is. More oversight would come at too much of a cost.
 
Lovely vague comments won't help this document change in a way that accommodates your needs. What member of government exactly should be fully informed of all NPIA activities?

I don't get where you think there is no oversight at all. For one thing, there is very little ability for the NPIA to release information of it's own accord. It does not exclusively give oversight to the Delegate. It provides for the security council to be informed of illegal activities by it's organization, the current individual who would be informed (Great Bights Mum). Another suggestion from r3n, was to appoint someone trustworthy, probably a Security Council member, to have full access to the area and be responsible for reporting illegal or unethical activities to the necessary authorities.

Lets also not forget that as a government official, the NPIA Director has the full accountability of any other, and may be recalled by the Regional Assembly.

With Blue Wolf's concerns, I think the best way to deal with that would be to have part of this document included into law similar to the way the NPA Doctrine was. This as the guiding document (like the NPA Code of Governance), with real force in law.
 
Two thoughts:
1. Drop the NPIA tag. It is obvious from BW's snark above that even after seven years (?) the name carries baggage in some people's heads. To be honest, except in Hersfold's head, the NPIA was never much more than an inactive front: something for people to tilt at while the real work went on elsewhere.

2. Personally, I would not have "charters" and "oversight" at all. Intel is about working behind the scenes. Just find a few trustworthy people who have the skills and ask them to start drawing up the intel: lists of names and alts, IP addresses, e-mails, known alliegences and networks etc. Start placing some people into regions and groups you want to keep an eye on. Don't do it through the government or the legal system - that way the region has deniability.
 
Kiwi:
Crushing Our Enemies:
To be honest, I forgot all about it.

My only issue with it as written is that there is still no oversight. The only people who are mentioned in the entire document are the delegate, the director, and the agents. If anyone in the agency does something illegal, it's basically up to the delegate and the director whether or not they should be punished for it. Since the agency is immune to FOIA requests, no one will ever know anything that an agent does except the director and sometimes the delegate, unless one of them chooses to reveal it. It's too easy to cover up illegal activity.
It's an intelligence agency. That's the price you pay. Have a little bit of faith in the agents, the director and the delegate. Chances are that someone will jump up and down if there is illegal activity.
Emphasis mine. Intelligence agencies tend to be insular, and they tend not to invite people with contrasting perspectives to join their ranks. So no, it's highly unlikely that someone would "jump up and down" if they did anything illegal. The former NPIA (whose members include some of those who will be involved in this endeavor) have done things which are, at best, questionably legal.

Our government is built on a fundamental structure of oversight and transparency - disregarding that for any reason, particularly based on "faith", is not in keeping with our strong traditions, nor is it in keeping with our established laws.

As to the charter, I think it's frankly crap. It fails to restrict the organization from infiltrating or undermining our allies, or our friends. It fails to provide any clear mission for the organization, beyond "gather intelligence" which is vague, and is also sufficiently broad so as to allow the organization to basically conduct any activity it wishes, provided it's not illegal IRL, in violation of NS rules, or forum-crashing.

The personal information protections are a nice gesture, but are meaningless. The regulations for becoming an agent are incredibly easy to move through in a non-substantive manner, such that any individual with whom the Agency wishes to share information, could easily become an Agent with a puppet, and then be given any and all information, regardless of any need for such information, solely at the discretion of the Director. Not exactly the stringent privacy protections that the document claims. Even if you decide, based on "faith", that this scenario is unlikely to come to pass, that would still allow the NPIA to share any and all personal information it gathers within the organization. Is that really what we want?

Speaking briefly of the requirements to be an Agent, the Oath is crap. It binds the agents to only obey the rules of the Agency, and not to actually act in TNP's best interests, or to obey the law. Later, it gives them the option to disclose breaches of the law, but says nothing about any consequences which will come of that, either inside of or outside of the NPIA. Any Agent who disclosed potential illegal activity would, it is reasonable to assume, be sacrificing their NPIA position, and possibly subjecting themselves to prosecution, on behalf of their ideals. And the only people to whom they're allowed to report violations are those people who are already supposed to be aware of operations that are ongoing, and who quite likely may have already approved the operations which would be resulting in the illegal activity. Reporting breaches of the law to the people who are already overseeing the activities that lead to breaches of the law, is not oversight.

There's nothing about transparency. At all. Transparency is required of all government officials and bodies by the Bill of Rights.

Did I mention that there's nothing requiring the NPIA to abide by the treaties the region has signed? It can be vaguely inferred from the fact that NPIA agents must be citizens, but there's nothing explicit. A conspicuous omission, much like the omission of true oversight, or anything requiring Agents to abide by TNP law. In fact, the words 'law', 'constitution', and 'bill of rights' don't ever appear in the Charter. Not relevant?

As to the office of the Director, he/she can only be removed by the Delegate (unilaterally), or by majority request of the people whom that Director has selected to serve in the NPIA. It is of note that the Director would be subject to recall - a nice nod to accountability, but given the history of recalls in TNP, overwhelming evidence of gross negligence tends to be the minimum for a successful recall, and with zero disclosure or oversight mechanisms in place, I think we can all agree that that's a token nod that is largely meaningless.

That's all that jumps out at me for now, but I'm sure there's more.

tl;dr zero protections for civil rights, zero requirement to abide by treaty or legal obligations, zero substantive oversight, zero accountability, paltry personal privacy protections and a useless process for reporting breaches of the law. At least it bans forum destruction - that's something.
 
Well, ironically, the best intelligence organizations and operations are the ones that no one knows to exist at all. Oh, wait..... Nunquam ante numquam interum.

Other than that, the document looks good to me.
 
The other day I had an idea: A TNP Intelligence Court (or perhaps NPIA Court?).

  1. This court would be appointed confidentially by the Delegate with the consent of the Security Council.
  2. NPIA officers and/or agents would be provided with a method of secretly submitting information for investigation to this court.
  3. The 3 members would serve staggered 4 month terms. (Two of the first members would perhaps serve a 3 month term and a 2 month term).
  4. They would keep their own identities and any information given to them which is not legally declassified secret, including the identities of any whistleblowers who contact them (which must not be released).
  5. This would be a Judicial role, constitutionally: the members of the Intelligence Court would be constitutionally barred from holding office in the legislative or executive branches.
  6. The court would rule on:
    • Treason etc exemptions for Intel missions
    • Whether NPIA info can be withheld against subpoena following these guidelines:
      • illegal NPIA activities MUST be revealed
      • legal, ongoing missions MUST NOT be revealed or confirmed
      • legal, plausible missions MUST NOT be denied
    • Expulsion of NPIA members for violations of NPIA rules or regional law in carrying out NPIA duties.

Many of the above listed ideas are severable from the whole.
 
Eluvatar:
[*]This would be a Judicial role, constitutionally: the members of the Intelligence Court would be constitutionally barred from holding office in the legislative or executive branches.
Not sure about this part. Considering how many ministers, deputy ministers and so forth we have, this could limit the selection somewhat, as well as endanger anonymity. Not sure how I feel about the concept as a whole yet, but this part seems weak.
 
I'm not sure about it myself. On the one hand, allowing them to also be ministers or the Speaker could create potential for abuse of power. On the other hand, it could compromise their anonymity and make it too difficult to select them.
 
Was there ever any action on this particular subject? I've done some digging and can't find a vote in the RA on this.
 
Considering the amount of effort put into this, I would be remiss if I didn't ask. There was a nation that contacted me in-game after receiving the NPA recruitment TG, asking if we had an intelligence agency. I would be interested in getting this going again, if there's interest in seeing it through.
 
Crushing Our Enemies:
Eluvatar:
[*]This would be a Judicial role, constitutionally: the members of the Intelligence Court would be constitutionally barred from holding office in the legislative or executive branches.
Not sure about this part. Considering how many ministers, deputy ministers and so forth we have, this could limit the selection somewhat, as well as endanger anonymity. Not sure how I feel about the concept as a whole yet, but this part seems weak.

Agreed.

Eluvatar:
The other day I had an idea: A TNP Intelligence Court (or perhaps NPIA Court?).

  1. This court would be appointed confidentially by the Delegate with the consent of the Security Council.
  2. NPIA officers and/or agents would be provided with a method of secretly submitting information for investigation to this court.
  3. The 3 members would serve staggered 4 month terms. (Two of the first members would perhaps serve a 3 month term and a 2 month term).
  4. They would keep their own identities and any information given to them which is not legally declassified secret, including the identities of any whistleblowers who contact them (which must not be released).
  5. This would be a Judicial role, constitutionally: the members of the Intelligence Court would be constitutionally barred from holding office in the legislative or executive branches.
  6. The court would rule on:
    • Treason etc exemptions for Intel missions
    • Whether NPIA info can be withheld against subpoena following these guidelines:
      • illegal NPIA activities MUST be revealed
      • legal, ongoing missions MUST NOT be revealed or confirmed
      • legal, plausible missions MUST NOT be denied
    • Expulsion of NPIA members for violations of NPIA rules or regional law in carrying out NPIA duties.

Many of the above listed ideas are severable from the whole.
Strikethrough added.

Here's a list of legal changes we'd need:

1. A new law defining the intelligence court / commission and its jurisdiction and responsibilities.
2. Revisions to the FOIA to define this court / commission as the agency answering requests for information from the regional intelligence services.
3. Revisions to the criminal code's section on exemptions.

To avoid falling under the separation of powers rules currently in the constitution and causing some form of the complications COE mentioned, it may be appropriate to have the wording be:

nominated by the delegate and approved by the security council

Avoiding them being "appointed by the Delegate", which the constitution says would make them part of the Executive branch. This part I think needs careful examination to avoid shooting ourselves in the foot.
 
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