Regardless of what disputes and conflicts Victoria Hand and Stephanie Malik—two women close in age, though the latter was younger—had once had due to their differing allegiances, and regardless of the personal wishes and preferences of them and their staff, the Ministry of Internal Affairs and the Defense Intelligence Agency had to cooperate under the Emperor's orders. There was now no distinction between Hydra and S.H.I.E.L.D. between them, only the Latverian Ministry of Internal Affairs and the Emperor's War Council. These were the new identities granted to the two organizations after they were reorganized following Alexander Pierce's rebellion and personally rescued by the Emperor. Forgetting those identities was equivalent to denying their oaths of loyalty.
After S.H.I.E.L.D. was destroyed, nearly every surviving loyal Agent of S.H.I.E.L.D. underwent strict scrutiny from the US Government. Every year, Congress approved vast budgets for S.H.I.E.L.D., and the Pentagon permitted it to use numerous U.S. military facilities, allowing Americans to make up the majority within this UN Security Council organization and making it an indispensable force behind many Security Council resolutions. This was hardly something to praise, and no one knew how much compromising information S.H.I.E.L.D., with such authority, held over American officials and dignitaries. This was not something that could be smoothed over with some cheap tactic for dealing with reporters like the "Clinton family death list," so rigorous investigations and questioning were essential.
The unlucky Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. targeted by the United States Department of Homeland Security and the FBI had escaped lifelong surveillance and wiretapping, as well as prisons where incarceration meant a one-hundred-percent chance of suicide, only because the Emperor had used forged death certificates, missing-person records, medical parole, and other methods to let them assume new names and regain their freedom with their families.
Nick Fury had always regarded himself