Generally, for every crime x, the act of planning x is a crime known as "conspiracy to commit x"

Well, they are accused of not investigating possible espionage in their own army. Lacking details, it is really hard to say what is the exact situation, but obviously they are not interested in preventing crimes.

The community here is understandably very anti-surveillance, but you're right about the purpose of intelligence.

When we talk about intelligence and counter-terrorism, it's more about preventing terrorist attacks than reacting to them.

The UK is more open with statistics than the US — their most senior counter-terrorism officer claims that they foiled 22 terrorist attacks from March 2017 to September 2019 [1].

[1] https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2019/sep/09/foiled-terro...

This would generally be the function of a counter-intelligence or internal (criminal) investigation group.

In the US that would be handled by the FBI -- they're legally the only ones that can spy on citizens in in the US. They work hand-in-glove with other agencies, but they own domestic.

A non-US example would be Russia, where the FSB (which Putin used to be the head of) handles internal investigations and counterintelligence like the FBI, while the SVR handles foreign intelligence. Or MI5 vs MI6 in the UK, etc.

Have you ever thought that maybe there was a reason for those rules to be imposed? It is really easy to put on the kindergarten act and to say that if the other side did it first, then it is okay. However, what is the difference between you and the other side then? The state has rather enormous power as it is and it is quite able to use it without letting the power trips of random individuals.

It seems that you’re implying that allowing intelligence agencies unlimited discretion in spying on their own populations is necessary in order to “win” against hostile foreign powers.

This seems like a fairly extraordinary claim that you haven’t backed with either evidence or logic.

If these rules are not followed, then what is the difference between us, Russia, and others? The amount of propaganda coming from Washington?