In Defense of Section 31

The Federation needs Section 31 even though it won’t admit it.

I’ve always been intrigued by Section 31 in the storytelling universe of Star Trek. Section 31 was introduced to us in the Star Trek: Deep Space 9 episode “Inquisition” as a shadowy intelligence and defense organization that operates independently of the United Federation of Planets under the Starfleet Charter, Article 14, Section 31. That article allows for extraordinary measures to be taken in times of extreme threat. Section 31 does the necessary and nasty things that Starfleet cannot, to maintain the peaceful utopia that Federation citizens live in.

For many Star Trek fans, Section 31 is an insult to the vision of Gene Roddenberry, the creator of Star Trek. Roddenberry believed that in the future, we would be beyond the pettiness that pervades our society today. In the Roddenberry vision, a clandestine organization like Section 31 would have no reason to exist. In my opinion, that’s a nice vision, but it’s utterly unrealistic. Clandestine operations are a fact of life. Governments must be able to recognize and confront threats from without and within, which cannot be done without espionage. Another fact of life is that leaders of governments must have plausible deniability for the actions of covert operations.