By: Barry Soper | Wednesday, September 26, 2012 6:00 AM

Being a cop, or for that matter a spy, can't be an easy job. Their political masters can say what they like about them and they have to stay mum.

Usually when they carry out some mission, normally dubbed operation something or other, it's executed after advice from the Government's lawyers and once it's signed off by the politicians.

Think back to the year before State Homie John Key became Prime Minister. Operation 8, it was called, was when the police battered their way around the country and rounded up 17 terror suspects. Unfortunately they were wrongly advised to do phone taps and the like under the Terrorism Suppression Act.

The law didn't cater for what they did and the charges were thrown out, but those who advised them to do it were promoted - leaving the thin blue line looking a little threadbare.

Move on a few years to the current debacle, Operation Debut as it's known, although after this one there's unlikely to be an encore.

The politicians have been battling over who knew what and when over the Kim Dotcom debacle.

We've now discovered the Dipton Drawler Bill English knew the Government's super spy agency was involved when he signed off a top secret document in early August while The Homie was Stateside watching his son play baseball. It seems Key was kept in the dark until it became known that the spies were snooping illegally because they thought Dotcom was a foreigner - well he does speak with a German accent!

That left the Labour lot frothing at the mouth, and with good reason. A couple of years ago the internet giant threw a colossal bash to celebrate his citizenship, including a half a million buck fireworks display.

He hardly kept his new status secret and as Dithering David Shearer rightly stammered our top intelligence agency should have used it, intelligence that is, rather than having to ask the cops whether the German was a Kiwi.

But the cops told the spies he wasn't, which meant they were snooping on him illegally. So once again it's the cops' fault, but don't expect to hear from them - they've again been hung out to dry on the thin blue line.

And as for intelligence, well Labour's is lacking as well. They banged on all day about how The Drawler had signed off an indemnity, meaning the taxpayer would have to pick up the tab if Dotcom sues.

He hadn't!

Photo: NZ Herald