As a anarchist leaning leftist I'm trying to wrap my head around the idea that since tankies think the CIA is bad... It's good actually. Like no that's one thing every leftist should absolutely agree on.

Another point on the "competency" discussion is that you don't need to be particularly competent if you (1) have all the resources the most powerful country on the planet can muster and (2) can get caught and still largely get away without punishment.

Say you or I want to bug someone's home. Where do we get a bug? If nice equipment costs $10K, where do we get the money? How are we going to break into someone's house undetected? Say we need to find out when they're gone, the type of lock they have, and how to pick it -- how are we doing surveillance? If we go online to do research or talk to a locksmith, does that leave an incriminating trail of evidence? How are we going to go through all the hours of recordings to make sense of any of it? If we need any help in this endeavor, how are we going to find willing, trustworthy people? If we get caught, how many years are we spending in prison?

All of this shit gets real easy if you have the resources, authority, and ass-covering ability of a federal agency. Competency isn't what makes the CIA dangerous -- it's that if they want to fuck with you, they can put a dozen people on the job, and if you find out you're being fucked with you have no recourse.