No doubt. The same incompetence line (they're incompetent, so don't worry) has been used against numerous large agencies in the US, including the CIA. The CIA has been endlessly mocked, in every manner possible, across every possible medium (movies to books), for being incompetent. Does anyone question the CIA's ability to fuck shit up (coup city doesn't have to be a pleasant place to live)? To cause nightmare outcomes around the world? To get the US into wars based on fake intel?
I equate that thinking as identical to "I have nothing to hide, so I'm not worried." It's one part evasion, deflection out of fear (head burying); and it's one part failure to understand how those agencies - systems - really work, and why they exist at all. Not only does the occasional (or frequent) incompetence not matter when you're untouchable like such agencies usually are, it can be super useful ('the CIA could have never been responsible for causing that, they're far too incompetent').
I equate that thinking as identical to "I have nothing to hide, so I'm not worried." It's one part evasion, deflection out of fear (head burying); and it's one part failure to understand how those agencies - systems - really work, and why they exist at all. Not only does the occasional (or frequent) incompetence not matter when you're untouchable like such agencies usually are, it can be super useful ('the CIA could have never been responsible for causing that, they're far too incompetent').