&gt; The bad thing is that the reputation of the FBI and other such agencies is now such that an analogy with the Hoover days can no longer be rejected out of hand &#x27;because they&#x27;d never do such a thing&#x27;.<p>Not only that but when someone&#x27;s life is as public as a politician - and their career dependent on that credibility - it takes far less than Hoover-era style blackmail to ruin such a person.<p>So even if the FBI is no longer acting like the Hoover era agents there are significant careers risks in standing up to the three-letter agencies, (and their similarily-powerful network of friends and former employees). Those risks have only grown as the power of the NSA&#x2F;FBI have grown with the spread of technology&#x2F;internet.<p>The bar for making such a claim is much lower than in the 1950s, especially in the context of a politician.