If you enjoyed this fine book from PARADIGM RESEARCH,
you'll be glad to know that we offer a complete menu
of affirmatives, disadvantages, counterplans, kritiks,
LD & Public Forum research, and much more.
Shop our online store anytime - www.oneparadigm.com
Catalogue is available on website
The Paradigm Affirmatives #4: Electronic Communication
July 2015
Copyright © 2015 by Paradigm Research, Inc. All rights reserved.
First Edition Printed In The United States Of America
For information on Paradigm Debate Products:
PARADIGM RESEARCH
P.O. Box 14924
Minneapolis, MN 55414
Phone: 651.307.6980
Toll Free / Fax: 844.277.2536
Web: www.oneparadigm.com
E-mail: [email protected]
All rights are reserved. This book, or parts thereof, may not be reproduced by any means - graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including
photocopying, recording, taping, or information storage and retrieval systems - without the written permission of the publisher. Making copies of
this book, or any portion, is a violation of United States and international copyright laws.
Electronic Communication Affirmative: Index
Electronic Communication Affirmative: Introduction .......................................................................................5
Electronic Communications First Affirmative
Electronic Communication Affirmative: First Affirmative—Status Quo...........................................................9
Electronic Communication Affirmative: First Affirmative—Solvency (Congress Limits) .............................. 12
Electronic Communication Affirmative: First Affirmative—Solvency (FCC Oversight) ................................ 13
Electronic Communication Affirmative: First Affirmative—Solvency (SSRA) .............................................. 15
Electronic Communication Affirmative: First Affirmative—Solvency (Core) ................................................ 17
Electronic Communication Affirmative: First Affirmative—Democracy Advantage ...................................... 18
Electronic Communication Affirmative: First Affirmative—Internet Advantage ............................................ 21
Status Quo Extensions
Status Quo: Topshelf Ext ................................................................................................................................. 26
Status Quo: EO 12333 Programs ..................................................................................................................... 28
Status Quo: FISA Fails Now ............................................................................................................................ 31
Status Quo: Mass Surveillance Now ................................................................................................................ 32
Status Quo: Mass Surveillance Understated..................................................................................................... 34
Status Quo: Obama Reforms Fail..................................................................................................................... 35
Status Quo: Oversight Failures ........................................................................................................................ 37
Status Quo: Section 215 Reforms Inadequate .................................................................................................. 38
Status Quo: USA Freedom Act Fails ............................................................................................................... 39
Solvency Extensions
Solvency: Ban Mass Surveillance .................................................................................................................... 43
Solvency: Congressional Actions..................................................................................................................... 45
Solvency: Congressional Oversight ................................................................................................................. 48
Solvency: FCC Oversight ................................................................................................................................ 49
Solvency: Surveillance State Reform Act ........................................................................................................ 51
Democracy Advantage Extensions
Democracy Adv: Internal Link—General ........................................................................................................ 57
Democracy Adv: Internal Link—Modeling ..................................................................................................... 60
Democracy Adv: Internal Link—NSA............................................................................................................. 61
Democracy Adv: Impact Ext ............................................................................................................................ 62
Internet Advantage Extensions
Internet Adv: Brinks ........................................................................................................................................ 63
Internet Adv: Internal Link—Topshelf ............................................................................................................ 64
Internet Adv: Internal Link—China ................................................................................................................. 65
Internet Adv: Internal Link—General .............................................................................................................. 67
Internet Adv: Internal Link—Hypocrisy .......................................................................................................... 69
Internet Adv: Internal Link—Global Governance / ITU .................................................................................. 70
Internet Adv: Internal Link—Localization....................................................................................................... 72
Internet Adv: Internal Link—Rallying Point ................................................................................................... 73
Internet Adv: Internal Link—U.S. Leadership ................................................................................................. 74
Internet Adv: Impact—Multiwarrant / Topshelf .............................................................................................. 75
Internet Adv: Impact—China Stability ............................................................................................................ 77
Internet Adv: Impact—Democracy .................................................................................................................. 78
Internet Adv: Impact—Economy (General) ..................................................................................................... 79
Internet Adv: Impact—Economy (Innovation) ................................................................................................ 80
Internet Adv: Impact—Economy (Jobs) .......................................................................................................... 82
Internet Adv: Impact—Economy (Tech Sector) .............................................................................................. 83
Internet Adv: Impact—Human Rights ............................................................................................................. 85
Internet Adv: Impact—Innovation / Leadership .............................................................................................. 86
Internet Adv: Impact—Rights .......................................................................................................................... 87
Internet Adv: Impact—Trade ........................................................................................................................... 88
Internet Adv: Solvency—Domestic Reform Key ............................................................................................. 89
Internet Adv: Solvency—Transparency ........................................................................................................... 90
Internet Adv: Solvency—Answers to “Irreversible” ........................................................................................ 92
Add-On Advantages
Allied Cooperation Add-On: 2AC ................................................................................................................... 93
Cybersecurity Add-On: 2AC............................................................................................................................ 95
Human Rights Add-On: 2AC ........................................................................................................................... 96
Paradigm Research 2015-2016
CX—Electronic Communication Aff
Offcase Answers
Disadvantage Ans: Terrorism—General .......................................................................................................... 97
Disadvantage Ans: Terrorism—Cooperation Turn ........................................................................................ 100
Disadvantage Ans: Terrorism—Effectiveness Exaggerated........................................................................... 101
Disadvantage Ans: Terrorism—Effectiveness Exaggerated (Specific Cases) ................................................ 102
Disadvantage Ans: Terrorism—Empirically .................................................................................................. 104
Disadvantage Ans: Terrorism—Focus Turn .................................................................................................. 106
Disadvantage Ans: Terrorism—Human Intelligence Tradeoff Turn .............................................................. 107
Disadvantage Ans: Terrorism—Human Intelligence Turn (Answers to “It Fails”) ........................................ 110
Disadvantage Ans: Terrorism—Human Intelligence Turn (Answers to “SIGINT Superior”) ....................... 111
Disadvantage Ans: Terrorism—Information Overload Turn ......................................................................... 112
Disadvantage Ans: Terrorism—Terror—Other Means Solve ........................................................................ 115
Disadvantage Ans: Terrorism—Smart Power Turn ....................................................................................... 116
Disadvantage Ans: Terrorism—Trust Turn.................................................................................................... 117
Disadvantage Ans: Terrorism—Answers to “Dozens of Attacks Stopped” ................................................... 118
Disadvantage Ans: Terrorism—Answers to “FISA Links” ............................................................................ 120
Disadvantage Ans: Terrorism—Answers to “Information Key” / “Transparency Links” .............................. 121
Disadvantage Ans: Terrorism—Answers to “Lone Wolf” ............................................................................. 122
Disadvantage Ans: Terrorism—Answers to “NAS/NRC Report / No Alternative” ....................................... 123
Disadvantage Ans: Terrorism—Answers to “Would Have Stopped 9/11” .................................................... 126
4
Paradigm Research 2015-2016
CX—Electronic Communication Aff
Electronic Communication Affirmative: Introduction
The recent revelations from Edward Snowden, a former contractor with the National Security Administration (NSA),
sparked a domestic and international firestorm over the extent and effects of the U.S.’s growing domestic and
international surveillance programs. Many of the most controversial components of the program deal with the agency’s
surveillance of electronic communications. The affirmative case in this book adopts a macro-level perspective on the
controversy, and proposes several different restrictions on the U.S.’s electronic surveillance programs. The case has very
strong advantage arguments and touches on many “core of the topic” issues, offering you substantial competitive benefits
while allowing you to explore many of the most important issues raised by the resolution.
Many of the objections raised against the NSA programs concern the type and scope of surveillance. One important
element that distinguishes current programs from their predecessors is that they involve “programmatic” surveillance,
which differs substantially from the traditional “particularized” surveillance approaches that predominated prior to the
widespread use of integrated communications networks. The technical and policy differences between these surveillance
schemes are outlined in a recent law review article:
Programmatic surveillance initiatives like these differ in simple yet fundamental ways from the traditional forms of
monitoring with which many people are familiar--i.e., individualized or particularized surveillance. Individualized
surveillance takes place when authorities have some reason to think that a specific, known person is breaking the law.
Investigators will then obtain a court order authorizing them to collect information about the target, with the goal of
assembling evidence that can be used to establish guilt in subsequent criminal proceedings. Individualized
surveillance is common in the world of law enforcement, as under Title III of the Omnibus Crime Control and Safe
Streets Act of 1968. It is also used in national security investigations. FISA allows authorities to obtain a court order
to engage in wiretapping if they demonstrate, among other things, probable cause to believe that the target is "a
foreign power or an agent of a foreign power." By contrast, programmatic surveillance has very different objectives
and is conducted in a very different manner. It usually involves the government collecting bulk data and then
examining it to identify previously unknown terrorists, spies, and other national security threats. A good example of
the practice is link analysis, in which authorities compile large amounts of information, use it to map the social
networks of known terrorists--has anyone else used the same credit card as Mohamed Atta?--and thus identify
associates with whom they may be conspiring. (It is also possible, at least in theory, to subject these large databases to
pattern analysis, in which automated systems search for patterns of behavior that are thought to be indicative of
terrorist activity, but it's not clear that the NSA is doing so here.) Suspects who have been so identified can then be
subjected to further forms of monitoring to determine their intentions and capabilities, such as wiretaps under FISA or
other authorities. In a sense, programmatic surveillance is the mirror image of individualized surveillance. With
individualized monitoring, authorities begin by identifying a suspect and go on to collect information; with
programmatic monitoring, authorities begin by collecting information and go on to identify a suspect. [Nathan
Alexander Sales, Associate Professor, Law, Syracuse University, “Domesticating Programmatic Surveillance: Some
Thoughts on the NSA Controversy,” I/S: A JOURNAL OF LAW AND POLICY FOR THE INFORMATION
SOCIETY v. 10, Summer 2014, p. 527-528]
Programmatic surveillance is viewed by critics are highly problematic because of the broad scope and indiscriminate
nature of the programs.
Generally speaking, the federal government is able to gather data under three circumstance—criminal investigations,
foreign intelligence investigations inside the U.S., and foreign intelligence investigations outside the U.S.
In general, the federal government is prohibited from intercepting the contents of private telephone calls and e-mails
of any person, except in three circumstances. First, in the context of criminal investigations, Title III of the Electronic
Communications Privacy Act authorizes the government to intercept such communications if a federal judge issues a
warrant based on a finding that there is probable cause to believe that an individual is committing, has committed, or
is about to commit a federal crime and that communications concerning that crime will be seized as a result of the
proposed interception. Second, as enacted in 1978, FISA authorized the federal government to intercept electronic
5
Paradigm Research 2015-2016
CX—Electronic Communication Aff
communications if a judge of the FISC issues a warrant based on a finding that the purpose of the surveillance is to
obtain foreign intelligence information, the interception takes place inside the United States, and there is probable
cause to believe that the target of the surveillance is an agent of a foreign power (which includes, among other things,
individuals engaged in international terrorism, the international proliferation of weapons of mass destruction, and
clandestine intelligence activities). Third, there is foreign intelligence surveillance that takes place outside the United
States. At the time FISA was enacted, Congress expressly decided not to address the issue of electronic surveillance
of persons located outside the United States, including American citizens, noting that the “standards and procedures
for overseas surveillance may have to be different than those provided in this bill for electronic surveillance within the
United States.” It was apparently assumed that intelligence collection activities outside the United States would be
conducted under the Executive Branch’s inherent constitutional authority and the statutory authorizations granted to
each Intelligence Community agency by Congress, and that it would be governed by presidential Executive Orders
and by procedures approved by the Attorney General. To that end, in 1981 President Ronald Reagan issued Executive
Order 12333, discussed above, which (as amended) specifies the circumstances in which the nation’s intelligence
agencies can engage in foreign intelligence surveillance outside the United States. [Richard A. Clarke et al.,
President’s Review Group on Intelligence and Communications Technologies, LIBERTY AND SECURITY IN A
CHANGING WORLD, Report and Recommendations, 12—12—13, p. 131-132]
Mass surveillance can occur in any of these areas, although it is far and away most common in foreign and domestic
intelligence contexts. One important thing to note, however, is that the NSA has been accused of providing information
obtained in intelligence investigations to domestic law enforcement agencies, raising serious civil rights concerns.
Agencies are able to obtain electronic surveillance orders under both Title III and through the Federal Intelligence
Surveillance Court (FISC), a special, secret court created by congress in 1978 to address the thorny technical and legal
challenges of regulating intelligence work on U.S. soil. The major differences and similarities between these two schemes
are explained in the following quote:
Under the statutory scheme designed by Congress in 1978, orders issued by the FISA Court share a critical feature
with regular Title III warrants: both require prior judicial scrutiny of an application for an order authorizing electronic
surveillance in a particular case. This is not to say, however, that FISA orders are equivalent to warrants issued by
regular federal courts. Title III allows a court to enter an ex parte order authorizing electronic surveillance if it
determines, on the basis of the facts submitted in the government’s application, that “there is probable cause for belief
that an individual is committing, has committed, or is about to commit” a specified predicate offense. By contrast,
FISA’s highest standard, which is reserved for the targeting of U.S. persons, requires a showing of probable cause that
the target’s activities “involve or may involve” a violation of U.S. criminal law. While Congress intended for this
standard to approach the threshold for criminal warrants (as discussed above), the absolute secrecy surrounding the
FISA procedure precludes a full understanding of how this standard operates in practice. For example, documents
leaked by Edward Snowden revealed that the government had obtained FISA orders targeting prominent Muslim
American community leaders with no apparent connection to criminal activity. Traditional FISA orders also require
much less proof that the surveillance activities will yield the information sought. Under Title III, the government must
demonstrate probable cause to believe that particular communications concerning specified crimes will be obtained
through an interception. Under FISA, the government instead must show probable cause that the facilities at which the
surveillance is directed are used by a foreign power or its agent; it need not show probable cause that collecting on
these facilities will yield the desired information. A high-level government official must certify that the information
sought is foreign intelligence information and designate the type of information being sought. However, the court
reviews the substance of this certification only when the target is a U.S. person, and even then, the court’s review is
limited to determining whether the certificate is “clearly erroneous.” As the legislative history of the statute itself
acknowledges, this “standard of review is not, of course, comparable to a probable cause finding by the judge.” Like
warrant applications under Title III, FISA applications are generally heard on an ex parte basis. However, unlike
individuals monitored under Title III, those whose communications are intercepted under FISA are highly unlikely to
receive notice of the intrusion. Title III requires notice to the target (and, within the discretion of the judge, to other
persons whose communications were intercepted) once the surveillance order expires. FISA does not require notice
6
Paradigm Research 2015-2016
CX—Electronic Communication Aff
unless the government “intends to enter into evidence or otherwise use or disclose” such communications in a trial or
other legal proceedings. Moreover, recent reports suggest that the government has taken a very narrow view of when
and how this notice requirement applies. [Elizabeth Goitein and Faiza Patel, Co-Directors, Liberty and National
Security Program, Brennan Center for Justice, WHAT WENT WRONG WITH THE FISA COURT, Brennan Center
for Justice, New York University School of Law, 2015, p. 18]
Although many analysts are highly critical of the issuance of Title III warrants, a majority of objections to current
surveillance programs arise from programs authorized by the FISC. These criticisms have become even stronger since a
series of amendments to the 1978 FISA enacted by Congress in 2008, which some advocates maintain set the stage for the
troubling programs revealed by Snowden.
The affirmative case included in the text includes three different plans designed to address the problems with the U.S.’s
current mass surveillance programs. The solvency evidence included with each plan can be supplemented with the “Core”
solvency evidence, which is useful irrespective of which solvency mechanisms you choose. The first plan option is a
simple, “vanilla” version that imposes congressional limits on mass surveillance. There is good evidence arguing that
congressional action is necessary to both rein in the democracy-threatening effects of mass surveillance and to the restore
the country’s Internet credibility. As noted previously, the reforms advanced in the USA Freedom Act are grossly
inadequate. If you wanted to, you could specify an array of potential reforms, including amendments to the Privacy Act, a
total ban on mass surveillance, a prohibition on metadata, etc. However, given the general nature of the solvency
evidence, there is little reason to over-specify the restrictions, unless you decide to write a new advantage that is based
upon a very specific set of restrictions.
The second plan option is the one that requires the most explanation. The plan requires that the NSA surveillance
activities that occur on domestic communications infrastructure (including cell networks, the domestic Internet, phone
landlines, etc.) be subjected to oversight by the Federal Communications Commission (FCC), the federal agency tasked
with the regulation America’s telecommunications companies and infrastructure. The solvency evidence, from a new law
review article by Audra Healy, contends that FCC oversight would be an effective vehicle for implementing the array of
reforms suggested by the Privacy and Civil Liberties Oversight Board (PCLOB), a federal blue-ribbon panel that recently
conducted a review of the NSA’s activities. The solvency evidence is quite detailed, and makes a strong case for the use
of FCC oversight as a means of reining in NSA abuses and signaling to the American public and international community
that our elected officials are serious about curbing excessive NSA practices. Regardless, it would make sense for you to
track down and read the original Healy article—doing so will help increase the depth and quality of your cross-x answers
and solvency arguments.
A third plan option is to enact the Surveillance State Repeal Act (SSRA), a reform bill proposed this past year by U.S.
representatives Pocan and Massie. The bill would effectively repeal the 2001 PATRIOT Act and the 2008 FISA
Amendments Act (FAA), and advance other protections designed to safeguard individual privacy against government
intrusion, including reforms to the FISA Court. The bill is far more expansive than the recently passed USA Freedom Act,
and many privacy activists argue that a root-and-branch reform like that embodied in the SSRA is necessary to both
remove the legal authorities that allow widespread NSA surveillance and to signal to the agency that congress and the
public will not tolerate domestic spying without very strong national security justification. If you are worried about
solving for big-stick surveillance-based impacts, this is a solid option, although the broad nature of the reforms does leave
you vulnerable to a variety of plan-inclusive counterplans.
Each plan option includes good solvency evidence for the two advantages included in the 1AC—Democracy and the
Internet. The Democracy Advantage argues that mass domestic surveillance corrodes the deliberative and oversight
mechanisms that allow our own government to function as a democracy, while also undermining the signal that our
country sends globally about the importance of civil liberties and respect for the rule of law. The Internet Advantage
claims that U.S. surveillance schemes are fostering a global backlash that threatens the “nationalization” of the global
Internet, potentially through changes to global Internet governance and/or data traffic and storage localization
7
Paradigm Research 2015-2016
CX—Electronic Communication Aff
requirements. There is very good evidence arguing that a failure to substantially overhaul our mass electronic surveillance
risks the fragmentation of the Internet, which would in turn undercut the Internet’s economic and freedom-promoting
potential. The cards on this advantage are really good, and we would not be surprised if the argument featured in many
2ARs this season.
Finally, this book includes an extensive set of answers to the ubiquitous “Terrorism Disadvantage,” which promises to be
one of the strongest negative generic arguments on this topic. Although some of the negative link arguments are pretty
solid, they tend to be relatively narrow and a bit repetitive. A well-prepared affirmative should be able to overwhelm the
negative with nuanced link turn arguments, waiting to capitalize on a block error with a bevy of new evidence on the
strongest link turn or two in the 1AR. A particularly compelling link turn is the allied cooperation argument, which argues
that U.S. mass surveillance schemes deter our allies from cooperating with us in counterterrorism programs. There is good
evidence claiming that this cooperation is far more important than the any information gained from NSA programs. The
human intelligence (HUMINT) turn is also pretty strong—some advocates argue that a focus on electronic surveillance
trades off with traditional spying techniques, which are more likely to obtain the information that our government needs to
stop terrorist attacks. A third effective link turn is the information overload argument, which claims that government
efforts to gather more data into an “information haystack” makes it much harder for us to find the needles (valuable
information). Critics like to point to the fact that the U.S. had adequate information to piece together the 9/11 attacks in
advance, yet failed to do so. There are also several other effective turns, and given the commonality of the Terror DA, you
would be well-served to familiarize yourself with your various link turn options. You should also remember that many of
these arguments can be used by other cases that impose some limits on mass surveillance, whether through court action,
congressional reform, or tweaks to the Federal Intelligence Surveillance Court.
Cases like this one are likely what most supporters envisioned when they voted for this particular topic, and the evidence
does not disappoint—the advantages and solvency mechanisms offered here are a good start, but with some work you can
readily customize your case to fit your argument interests and the demands of your circuit.
Best of luck!
8
Paradigm Research 2015-2016
CX—Electronic Communication Aff
Electronic Communication Affirmative: First Affirmative—Status Quo
Observation One: The Status Quo
A. The USA Freedom Act left the National Security Administration untouched—mass surveillance remains the
norm
Michael Brenner, Professor, International Affairs, University of Pittsburgh, “The NSA’s Second Coming,” HUFFINGTON POST, 6—
8—15, www.huffingtonpost.com/michael-brenner/the-nsas-second-coming_b_7535058.html, accessed 6-9-15.
Americans have acquired a fondness for worlds of make-believe. Torture was done by "a few bad apples." Or, we must await the
"verdict of history" to judge how our invasion of Iraq turned out. Or, America is besieged by hordes of crazed Islamist terrorists scaling
the walls and dedicated to surpassing the horror of 9/11. Or, The Sniper salvaged American dignity and self-respect from that tragic
fiasco. Or, that it was a brilliant CIA and valiant Seals who avenged a righteous America by storming Abbottabad to assassinate an
infirmed old man in his bed. This last is one of the threads of make-believe woven into the fabricated narrative about the Congressional
psycho-drama this past week over electronic spying on Americans. That engrossing campfire tale has our noble representatives
struggling to find the path of Solomonic wisdom that walks a tightrope between security and liberty. We awaited in suspense to see if the
perilous feat would reach its goal. We agonized at word of the NSA being forced by obedience to the Law to shut down its all-seeing
networks -- thereby, for a few hours, leaving America exposed to the diabolical schemes of the bearded devils. The White House warned
that we are playing "Russian roulette" with the country's very survival. No one pressed the question of all six chambers in fact being
uncharged. That all makes for one awesome production. Doubtless there will be a film adaptation immortalized in a script by Bob
Woodward. Something like that will happen -- even though it is a concocted yarn whose meaning has been twisted and whose
significance has been vastly inflated. For the truth is that what Congress did, and what it did not do earlier, changes very little -- and
nothing of cardinal importance. The main effect is to give the impression of change so as to release pressure for reform that might really
be meaningful. The base truth is that everything that counts remains the same. To entrench and to legitimate a system of massive
surveillance that undercuts our privacy while doing nothing to secure our well-being. Matters of Fact 1. The so-called restrictions on
bulk data collection apply only to telephone calls. All else is exempted: emails, Internet searches, social media, and info regarding each
that is retained in our communicating devices. 2. The restrictions on real-time surveillance of telephone calls can be overcome by the
granting of a warrant by the FISA upon request by NSA, FBI, Justice Department, CIA -- not to speak of local authorities. That Court,
over the past eight years, has refused only 11 of 33,900 requests. The judges, by the way, are handpicked by Supreme Court Chief
Justice John Roberts who has jumped into the policy arena by declaring himself strongly opposed to any tightening of restrictions on
how the court operates or on the NSA's methods. The FISA court's attitude toward government spying on Americans has been generous
to the extreme. Former lead judge of the FISA Court, John D. Bates, has campaigned vigorously on behalf of the status quo. He even
objected to the extra workload of requiring that courts approve all national security letters, which are administrative subpoenas allowing
the F.B.I. to obtain records about communications and financial transactions without court approval. 3. The specified targets may be
organizations, groups and networks as well as an individual. In practice, that means each grant of surveillance power may authorize
comprehensive electronic spying on hundreds or thousands of citizens. Currently the NSA is overwhelmed by the billions of
communications they register and try to catalogue each week. Long-term data retention only makes sense if there is a project afoot to
exploit it systematically in order to control, to suppress, to penalize. There is no such Big Brother plan in place or on the horizon. NSA
operations fortunately have instead been conceived and managed by fantasists and bureaucratic empire builders -- as is demonstrated by
Edward Snowden's leaks of their immense target list and their major intelligence failures. 4. The terms of the warrants allow for a twostep "hop" from the identified target to others whose suspect communications emerge from the initial combing.
9
Paradigm Research 2015-2016
CX—Electronic Communication Aff
Electronic Communication Affirmative: First Affirmative—Status Quo [cont’d]
B. Specifically, mass surveillance continues under a number of other authorities—the ‘fix’ to Section 215 ignores
other statutes and Executive Order 12333, which enable massive domestic surveillance
Stephen Vladeck, Professor, Law, American University, “Forget the Patriot Act – Here Are the Privacy Violations You Should Be
Worried About,” FOREIGN POLICY, 6—1—15, https://foreignpolicy.com/2015/06/01/section-215-patriot-act-expires-surveillancecontinues-fisa-court-metadata/, accessed 6-1-15.
But whatever the merits of the competing sides in this debate, the larger problem is that this conversation has missed the forest for a very
small — and largely irrelevant — tree. In fact, from the perspective of individual privacy rights, the phone records program is much less
problematic than the government’s other authorities to conduct mass surveillance under Executive Order 12333 and the 2008 FISA
Amendments Act. And so, in focusing on how to “fix” Section 215, we’ve given short shrift to the far more significant problems raised
by these other authorities — and, just as importantly, the broader lessons we should be taking away from the surveillance reform
conversation that Snowden started. To understand the significance of these other authorities, it’ll help to describe their aims: Executive
Order 12333, issued in 1981, is directed at the overseas interception of communications — both metadata and content — of non-citizens
outside the United States, who, under a 1990 Supreme Court decision, categorically lack Fourth Amendment rights. The 2008 FISA
Amendments Act was enacted to close a loophole that new technology had helped to create, where non-citizens outside the United States
were nevertheless communicating through servers or other telecommunications infrastructure located stateside, which the government
could not surveil under the executive order. Ordinarily, the government needs a warrant before collecting the content of domestic
communications, one based upon a judge’s determination that there’s good reason to believe a particular individual either is engaged in
the commission of a crime or is an agent of a foreign power. But Executive Order 12333 and the 2008 FISA statute, by focusing on
individuals who fall outside the Fourth Amendment, capitalize on the lack of constitutionally required individualized assessments and
instead allow the government to engage in bulk collection of such information — as if it were using an industrial vacuum cleaner to pick
up individual particles of dirt. It’s easy to see how these authorities could cause diplomatic headaches (as, for example, with the
contretemps surrounding U.S. surveillance of German Chancellor Angela Merkel’s cell phone). But most commentators have assumed
that, at least legally, the validity of these programs turns on their overseas focus. After all, if the government is only targeting the
communications of non-citizens outside the United States, what could possibly be the constitutional objection? The answer, we now
know, has everything to do with technology. Although the government is only allowed to “target” non-citizens outside the United States,
it is inevitable, given how it collects information under both of these regimes, that the communications of U.S. citizens and non-citizens
lawfully present in the United States will also be collected, albeit “incidentally,” as the government puts it. After all, when thousands of
unrelated emails and other electronic communications are bundled together in a packet that travels through an Internet switch that’s
physically located in the United States (for the 2008 statute) or overseas (for Executive Order 12333), it’s simply not possible for the
government to only collect the communications between non-U.S. citizens and leave the others untouched, any more so than it’s possible
for a vacuum to segregate particles of dirt. To be sure, the U.S. government doesn’t dispute that it routinely collects the communications
of U.S. citizens. Instead, it has argued that any potential for abuse is mitigated by so-called “minimization requirements” — procedural
rules that require the relevant intelligence agency to take steps to avoid the improper retention and use of communications collected
under these authorities. The government’s defense, as we’ve come to learn, is flawed in two vital respects: First, as several sincedisclosed opinions from the FISA Court have made clear, the government’s minimization requirements under the 2008 statute were often
too skimpy, allowing the retention and use of information that both the statute and the Fourth Amendment prohibit. Second — and
perhaps more importantly — even where the minimization rules were legally sufficient, there have been numerous instances in which
government officials violated them, with the FISA Court only discovering the abuses after they were voluntarily reported by Justice
Department lawyers. As a result, the government collected and retained a large volume of communications by U.S. citizens that neither
Congress nor the Constitution allowed it to acquire. More alarmingly, with regard to collection under Executive Order 12333, there isn’t
any similar judicial review (or meaningful congressional oversight), which means that it has entirely been up to the government to police
itself. As State Department whistleblower John Napier Tye explained last summer, there is every reason to doubt that such internal
accountability has provided a sufficient check. In his words, “Executive Order 12333 contains nothing to prevent the NSA from
collecting and storing all … communications … provided that such collection occurs outside the United States in the course of a lawful
foreign intelligence investigation.” To put the matter bluntly, whereas the Section 215 debate has addressed whether the government can
collect our phone records, Executive Order 12333 and the 2008 FISA Amendments Act allow the government to collect a lot of what
we’re actually saying, whether on the phone, in our emails, or even to our search engines. There is no question that, from a privacy
perspective, these programs are far more pernicious than what’s been pegged to Section 215. There is also no question that such
collection raises even graver constitutional questions than the phone records program. Whereas there is an open debate over our
expectation of privacy in the metadata we voluntarily provide to our phone companies, there’s no doubt that we have an expectation of
privacy in the content of our private communications. Why, then, has all the fuss been around Section 215 and the phone records
program, while the far more troubling surveillance authorities provided by Executive Order 12333 and the 2008 FISA Amendments Act
have flown under the radar? Part of it may be because of the complexities described above. After all, it’s easy for people on the street to
<<continued, no text removed>>
10
Paradigm Research 2015-2016
CX—Electronic Communication Aff
Electronic Communication Affirmative: First Affirmative—Status Quo [cont’d]
<<continued, no text removed>>
understand what it means when the government is collecting our phone records; it’s not nearly as obvious why we should be bothered by
violations of minimization requirements. Part of it may also have to do with the government’s perceived intent. Maybe it seems more
troubling when the government is intentionally collecting our phone records, as opposed to “incidentally” (albeit knowingly) collecting
the contents of our communications. And technology may play a role, too; how many senders of emails know where the server is located
on which the message is ultimately stored? If we don’t realize how easily our communications might get bundled with those of noncitizens outside the United States, we might not be worried about surveillance targeted at them. But whatever the reason for our myopic
focus on Section 215, it has not only obscured the larger privacy concerns raised by these other authorities, but also the deeper lessons
we should have taken away from Snowden’s revelations. However much we might tolerate, or even embrace, the need for secret
government surveillance programs, it is all-but-inevitable that those programs will be stretched to — and beyond — their legal limits.
That’s why it’s important not only to place substantive limits upon the government’s surveillance authorities, but also to ensure that they
are subject to meaningful external oversight and accountability as well. And that’s why the denouement of Section 215 debate has been
so disappointing. This should have been a conversation not just about the full range of government surveillance powers, including
Executive Order 12333 and the 2008 FISA Amendments Act, but also about the role of the FISA Court and of congressional oversight in
supervising those authorities. Instead, it devolved into an over-heated debate over an over-emphasized program. Congress has tended to
a paper cut, while it ignored the internal bleeding. Not only does the expiration of Section 215 have no effect on the substance of other
surveillance authorities, it also has no effect on their oversight and accountability. Reaching some degree of closure with regard to the
phone records program may leave many with the impression that America has concluded a meaningful and productive national debate
over surveillance reform. We haven’t. And although the 2008 FISA Amendments Act is also set to expire — on December 31, 2017 —
the debate over Section 215 leaves little reason to believe that we’ll have it then, either.
11
Paradigm Research 2015-2016
CX—Electronic Communication Aff
Electronic Communication Affirmative: First Affirmative—Solvency (Congress Limits)
Hence we offer the following plan:
The United States Congress should substantially curtail mass domestic surveillance. Funding and enforcement are
guaranteed.
Observation Two: Solvency
A. Current reforms are not enough—the only way to protect ourselves is to ban all mass surveillance
Fred Branfman, journalist, “We Live Under a Total Surveillance State in America—Can We Prevent It from Evolving into a Full-Blown
Police State?” ALTERNET, 9—25—13, www.alternet.org/activism/we-live-under-total-surveillance-state-america-can-we-prevent-itevolving-full-blown-police, accessed 6-1-15.
These were clearly illusory reforms, as the Electronic Frontier Foundation noted, that would continue mass surveillance of Americans.
First, the Executive would continue to only tell Congress and the Judiciary what it felt was "appropriate" for them to know—including
the FISC "adversary"; second, the "legal rationales" for Executive wrongdoing are just that: rationales which no one concerned about
Executive surveillance can take seriously; and thirdly four of the five "outside experts" Obama wound up appointing are all deeply
implicated in Executive wrongdoing, including former CIA Deputy Director Michael Morrell, and they are to report to director of
National Intelligence James Clapper, a key architect of the surveillance state. Predictably, the first meeting of this Potemkin Panel did
not even discuss NSA surveillance of innocent Americans and only confined itself to private sector concerns. Open Technology Institute
director Sascha Meinrath, who attended the meeting, declared that “My fear is it's a simulacrum of meaningful reform … Its function is
to bleed off pressure, without getting to the meaningful reform." A N.Y. Times editorial accurately noted that "President Obama
proposed a series of measures on Friday that only tinker around the edges of the nation's abusive surveillance programs. It is the
existence of these programs that is the problem, not whether they are modestly transparent. As long as the N.S.A. believes it has the right
to collect records of every phone call ... then none of the promises to stay within the law will mean a thing." Mr. Obama's "reforms" thus
still envision continued Executive collection of hundreds of millions of Americans' phone and Internet records. Believers in democracy
must set their own “red line” against surveillance of innocent Americans. A line must be drawn somewhere. Once we allow the
Executive to store all our emails and Internet communications for all time, why not allow them to read them if they decide it might
protect somebody, somewhere, sometime? Why should a court get involved? Don't we trust them? As Edward Snowden has said, “the
Internet is on principle a system that you reveal yourself to in order to fully enjoy, which differentiates it from, say, a music player. It is a
TV that watches you.” But this does not "protect" us nearly as efficiently as would a real TV or flat screen equipped with a transponder
allowing them to watch us whenever they wish. Where do we draw the line? Mr. Obama and present congressional leaders’ typically
honeyed words mean nothing absent a complete halt to gathering information on innocent Americans. Republican House Judiciary Chair
Robert Goodlatte, for example, recently declared "I am committed to … our nation's intelligence collection programs includ(ing) robust
oversight, additional transparency, and protections for Americans' civil liberties." But at the same time he stated that “eliminating this
program altogether without careful deliberation would not reflect our duty, under article I of the constitution, to provide for the common
defense," and had opposed the Conyers-Amash amendment in July that would have ended NSA surveillance of innocent Americans. The
“reforms” proposed by Goodlatte and other Republican House leaders are clearly meant to head off any significant reform of NSA mass
surveillance. A serious attempt to bring democracy to America must have the following bottom line: no mass surveillance of any kind of
Americans about whom there is no evidence of wrongdoing. None. The first and necessary step toward creating a "functioning
democracy" in America is for both the House and Senate to pass the Conyers-Amash amendment forbidding NSA mass collection of
phone and Internet American records of innocent Americans.
B. Congress should end programmatic surveillance
Elizabeth Goitein and Faiza Patel, Co-Directors, Liberty and National Security Program, Brennan Center for Justice, WHAT WENT
WRONG WITH THE FISA COURT, Brennan Center for Justice, New York University School of Law, 2015, p. 45.
The most effective reform would be for Congress to end programmatic surveillance. This would entail expressly prohibiting bulk
collection under Section 215 and similar provisions, as well as repealing Section 702 and replacing it with a regime requiring an
individualized court order for the interception of communications involving U.S. persons, regardless of whether they are the identified
target of the surveillance. Ending programmatic surveillance would return the FISA Court to its traditional role of applying the law to the
facts of a particular case. This would mitigate many of the Article III concerns relating to the absence of a case or controversy. If the
standard for issuing a surveillance order were sufficiently strict (discussed below), ending programmatic surveillance could address
Fourth Amendment objections as well. But these changes would not fully cement the constitutional status of the FISA Court’s activities.
FISA orders will never look entirely like criminal warrants because they rarely culminate in criminal prosecutions, thus removing the
primary vehicle for challenging their legitimacy. Concerns about the lack of adversarial process thus would remain even if programmatic
surveillance were replaced with an individualized regime. To address them, the reforms listed in the next section would be needed.
12
Paradigm Research 2015-2016
CX—Electronic Communication Aff
Electronic Communication Affirmative: First Affirmative—Solvency (FCC Oversight)
Hence we offer the following plan:
The United States federal government should curtail National Security Administration surveillance by subjecting
its activities on domestic communications infrastructure to oversight by the Federal Communications Commission.
Funding and enforcement are guaranteed.
Observation Two: Solvency
A. FCC oversight is necessary and effective—Congress should enact the plan
Audra Healey, J.D. Candidate, “A Tale of Two Agencies: Exploring Oversight of the National Security Administration by the Federal
Communications Commission,” FEDERAL COMMUNICATIONS LAW JOURNAL v. 67 n. 1, 2014, p. 111-114.
Congress is equipped to enact legislation codifying FCC oversight of the NSA by virtue of both current law and the PCLOB’s
recommendations. First, the Telecommunications Act can serve as the basis for the FCC to take action to further develop its protection
of consumers on the Internet, Moreover, there has been some movement in Congress calling on the FCC to take action regarding the
NSA phone database, indicating the possibility of the FCC taking up an oversight role. 116 Further, Congress gave the FCC broad
investigation, regulatory, and enforcement powers, as well as the privacy-focused directive of implementing Consumer Propriety
Network Information protection. Additionally, the first PCLOB Report calls for extensive changes in the NSA and FISA Court regime
while the second report calls expressly for industry input and expertise: the FCC could facilitate some of the suggested changes through
its subject matter expertise. Even as the FCC is set up to facilitate the PCLOB recommendations, Congress needs to codify the legal
authority for the FCC to do this specifically. Granting express legal authority is key, as organic statutes of agencies determine what a
given agency can and cannot do. Congressional authorization would be a logical outgrowth of both the FCC’s regulatory interests and
current legal recommendations regarding NSA oversight. A. Congress should amend the organic statutes of the FCC and NSA and
encourage participation in the FISA Court. The lack of oversight of NSA data collection practices will continue to be problematic
moving forward, as national security is an ongoing concern and technology is a large part of life in a modern society. There is need for
effective and transparent oversight of the NSA’s data collection. As such, Congress should act by amending the organic statutes of both
the NSA and the FCC to provide the FCC with oversight authority over the NSA, and by allowing the FCC to participate as amicus
curiae with the FISA Court. 1. Congress should amend the NSA organic statute to provide for collection of data by the FCC. The NSA
needs transparent and easily understood oversight. While it should not have to disclose national security information, the agency should
be required to disclose basic statistics, such as how much information it is gathering, similar to Recommendation 9 in the second
PCLOB Report. This would at least illustrate to the public, via the FCC, that the NSA is targeting its surveillance at legitimate threats to
national security—rather than performing blanket surveillance of all Internet users. Further, these reforms would comport with the
PCLOB’s enumerated Recommendations. As of now, “lawmakers and the public do not have even a rough estimate of how many
communications of U.S. persons are acquired under section 702.” Because the NSA is required to target foreign communications in
order for its surveillance to be lawful, an annual snapshot showing the volume of its surveillance will help foster some degree of
transparency, helping assure citizens that their privacy is not being intruded upon, without hampering legitimate national security efforts.
This expanded role for the FCC in relation to the NSA should be codified by Congress. First, Congress should amend the NSA’s organic
statute to require the agency to comply with FCC requests for data. Additionally, while the FCC does not have the security clearance to
review the substance of the surveillance, such clearance is not necessary on an agency-wide basis. Instead, Congress should require the
NSA to provide targeting statistics that could be reasonably disclosed, or at least preliminary statistics that could focus the FCC’s
inquiry. This new legislation is all that is necessary to facilitate oversight on the NSA side, as the FCC will require most of the
congressional authorization. 2. The FCC’s organic statute should be amended to allow the FCC authority over NSA data collection and
participation in the FISA Court. To enact a solution based on FCC oversight of NSA data collection, Congress should pass legislation
allowing the FCC to collect information from the NSA, and to allow the FCC to submit its findings about this data to congressional
oversight committees as well as the FISA Court. While novel, this solution is in keeping with the PCLOB recommendations, particularly
the recommendation emphasizing the need for the NSA to publicly disclose the scope of its surveillance. Moreover, it is not uncommon
for agencies to have oversight authority over other agencies. Thus, this type of interagency accountability could be codified to provide
the FCC with oversight authority over NSA data collection. Congress should first authorize the FCC to request certain types of data from
the NSA. Similar to the PCLOB’s recommendation, this data, rather than being substantive, would be statistical; for instance, it might
include data and the basic context surrounding how many communications providers from which the NSA is collecting metadata, or how
many email contact lists the NSA is gathering. This would thereby provide oversight over the relevancy problem, wherein the NSA
collects information in such wide swaths so as not to be tied to any particularized inquiry. The FCC would therefore be in a position to
review the volume of information, while keeping it confidential. The legislation should also include authorization for the FCC to interact
with the other oversight bodies. Congress should give the FCC the authority to send any of the statistics that the agency finds
problematic to the FISA Court and the relevant congressional committees, and should provide for the FCC to be informed of
<<continued, no text removed>>
13
Paradigm Research 2015-2016
CX—Electronic Communication Aff
Electronic Communication Affirmative: First Affirmative—Solvency (FCC Oversight) [cont’d]
<<continued, no text removed>>
proceedings implicating data collection over which the FCC would be granted authority. Additionally, Congress should provide a
mechanism for the FCC to liaise with Congress on a regular basis specifically about the NSA data collection since it involves sensitive
information: for instance, setting out regular reports or allowing Congress to send inquiries to the FCC as needed on the technical aspects
of the NSA’s methods of data collection. The language could also allow for public comment on NSA collection to some extent, modeled
on the current FCC notice and comment procedures. The FCC could thereby ask for generalized comments without disclosing the exact
nature of its inquiry. Thus, the FCC could solicit public comment on the underlying idea of NSA surveillance as it relates to the
communications infrastructure and incorporate valid comments in its representations to the relevant oversight mechanisms. This would
enable the FCC to incorporate comments by carriers and consumer interest groups into the oversight process and allow some degree of
public participation without sacrificing national security. Moreover, the legislation must include a mechanism for protecting national
security information. The FCC has knowledge about the underlying infrastructure where the data is coming from as well as experience
dealing with sensitive information. However, there are valid concerns in disclosing any sort of information implicating national security.
To that end, Congress may wish to consider adding a position in the FCC for an intelligence officer with clearance who can look into
relevance when the amounts of data raise a red flag in the FCC’s internal process for reviewing the data. Moreover, placement of a
member of an NSA staffer in the FCC would facilitate inter-agency cooperation and dialogue about data collection. For enforcement, in
order to preserve national security, Congress should avoid providing the FCC any mechanism to call the NSA before it via hearing.
However, the FCC would be able to report specially to the House and Senate committees, as well as petition the FISA Court as amicus
curae. Additionally, if the PCLOB wants to stay involved and keep developing oversight, Congress should provide an avenue for the
FCC to call forth another PCLOB investigation should the need arise.
B. FCC oversight is superior to the status quo—multiple reasons
Audra Healey, J.D. Candidate, “A Tale of Two Agencies: Exploring Oversight of the National Security Administration by the Federal
Communications Commission,” FEDERAL COMMUNICATIONS LAW JOURNAL v. 67 n. 1, 2014, p. 108-110.
2. FCC oversight of the NSA could confer significant benefits. The lack of oversight indicates the need for a solution that is publically
visible but would not undermine national security: due to its relevant expertise, the FCC is that solution. First, there are benefits specific
to the FCC’s area of expertise which make it well-suited to provide insight into the data collection regarding the public good and
communications infrastructure. Second, the FCC’s unique insights into the technological aspects of the Internet put the agency in a
position to be uniquely helpful to congressional oversight committees. Moreover, the FCC is also particularly well-suited to provide
oversight consistent with plans advocated by the PCLOB: for instance, specially providing the FISA Court with useful and insightful
amicus curiae briefs. There are significant benefits to the FCC being the agency to provide insight into the NSA’s monitoring activities.
The NSA gets the information it collects from “major Internet switches” and depending on the type of surveillance, does not have to
notify the companies from which it collects data. However, the FCC could, with additional congressional authority, provide insight into
basic statistics about the information collected by the NSA: for instance, volume, requiring the NSA to at least show patterns (i.e., the
“relationship mapping” aspects). This could be beneficial to the national security mission: by providing a volumetric, technical analysis,
based on practices that can be described, the FCC could help focus the NSA’s data collection, and thereby contribute to the effort to
reduce overcollection, as well as provide a grounds for congressional monitoring and more effective court cases. Moreover, the FCC
routinely deals with sensitive information and collecting public comments. For instance, the FCC often makes certain pieces of
information confidential in its proceedings. Recently, the agency issued protective orders in its comment-seeking proceeding regarding
the Technological Transition of the Nations Communications Infrastructure. This experience would facilitate the FCC acting as a bridge
between the NSA and its oversight mechanisms. Additionally the PCLOB report calls for a similar oversight scheme. The PCLOB, in its
first report, calls for the government to work with Internet service providers and other companies that regularly receive FISA production
orders to develop rules permitting the companies to voluntarily disclose certain statistical information. Additionally, the PCLOB
recommends that the government publicly disclose detailed statistics to provide a more complete picture of government surveillance
operations. The PCLOB also recommends that independent experts as well as telecommunications service providers help assess at least
one data collection technique. The FCC regularly interacts with these companies in its own rulemaking proceedings, and would therefore
be in a position to facilitate independent expertise being utilized in assessing the efficacy of the collection. This is not only because the
agency works with the companies and the infrastructure involved already, but also because the FCC’s general technical expertise places
the agency in a position to consider what types of statistics would be helpful to the public. The need for expertise in determining the
technical aspects of whether the data being collected is authorized is not limited to DOJ and NSA efforts, but extends to the FISA Court.
In its first report, the PCLOB calls for Congress to enact legislation enabling the FISA Court to hear independent views. While a federal
agency rather than an “independent” entity, the FCC would be particularly well-suited to bolster the outside input and provide the FISA
Court with information regarding the impact on telecommunications, particularly the Internet, of NSA surveillance of the American
public. The FCC would be a particularly helpful independent view to involve in the FISA Court proceedings because of its technical
expertise. Furthermore, the FCC has significant experience dealing with sensitive information, such as trade secrets. Both these traits
make the agency particularly well-suited to provide helpful insights to the FISA Court.
14
Paradigm Research 2015-2016
CX—Electronic Communication Aff
Electronic Communication Affirmative: First Affirmative—Solvency (SSRA)
Hence we offer the following plan:
The United States federal government should enact the Surveillance State Repeal Act. Funding and enforcement
are guaranteed.
Observation Two: Solvency
A. The SSRA solves—allows targeted surveillance while rendering mass surveillance illegal
Shahid Buttar, Executive Director, Bill of Rights Defense Committee, “Can the Surveillance State Repeal Act Shift the Course on
Spying?” OCCUPY, 4—8—15, www.occupy.com/article/can-surveillance-state-repeal-act-shift-course-spying, accessed 5-11-15.
Eager to reset the debate and anchor it in long overdue transparency, a bipartisan block of representatives have introduced a bill to
restore civil liberties, privacy, and freedom of thought. The Surveillance State Repeal Act, HR 1466, would do this by repealing the twin
pillars of the NSA dragnet: the PATRIOT Act (not only the three expiring provisions) and the 2008 FISA amendments. On multiple
occasions, executive officials have lied under oath to congressional oversight committees about the scope of domestic surveillance. Yet
the very same officials still appear in oversight hearings as if they maintained any credibility. It took whistleblowers resigning their
careers to prove that senior government officials’ blithe assurances to Congress were in fact self-serving lies. Some members of
Congress paid attention: the authors of the PATRIOT Act moved to curtail their own legislative opus, and have encouraged their
colleagues not to reauthorize the expiring provisions unless they are first curtailed. HR 1466 (the SSRA) represents a profound challenge
by members of Congress from across the political spectrum fed up with the national security establishment and its continuing assault on
our Constitution. By repealing the twin pillars of the surveillance dragnet, the SSRA would essentially shift the burden of proof, forcing
intelligence agencies like the NSA and FBI to justify the expansion of their powers from a constitutional baseline, rather then the
illegitimate status quo. Most policymakers forget the 9/11 commission’s most crucial finding: the intelligence community's failures that
enabled the 9/11 attacks were not failures of limited data collection, but rather failures of data sharing and analysis. Over the last 15
years, Congress has allowed the agencies to expand their collection capacities, solving an imaginary problem while creating a host of
real threats to U.S. national security far worse than any act of rogue violence: the specter of state omniscience, immune from oversight
and accountability, and thus vulnerable to politicization. This was among the fears of which President Eisenhower warned us in his last
speech as President. Meanwhile, the SSRA would preserve what the PATRIOT Act’s authors have said they meant to authorize: targeted
investigations of particular people suspected by authorities to present potential threats. HR 1466 would also advance transparency, both
by protecting conscientious whistleblowers from the corrupt retaliation of agencies and careerists, and by giving judges on the secret
FISA court access to technical expertise they have been denied. Finally, the bill would directly address disturbing government duplicity,
prohibiting agencies from hacking encryption hardware and software, and from using an executive order authorizing foreign surveillance
as a basis to monitor Americans. Mass surveillance has never been popular in America. Hundreds of cities and multiple states have
raised their voices seeking a restoration of constitutional limits on an increasingly imperial federal executive. Nor is mass surveillance
constitutional. A 1979 case contorted by agency lawyers into providing a legal basis for surveillance stands for nothing of the sort: Smith
v Maryland was a case addressing targeted surveillance of a particular person, based on reasonable suspicion, limited to a particular
time. Intelligence agencies today monitor every American, without any basis for suspicion, all the time. Members of Congress who
remember their oaths of office should support the SSRA to force a long overdue transparent debate. And Americans who value privacy,
checks and balances, or freedom of thought should take a moment to educate Members of Congress who might not.
15
Paradigm Research 2015-2016
CX—Electronic Communication Aff
Electronic Communication Affirmative: First Affirmative—Solvency (SSRA) [cont’d]
B. Status quo reforms are simply inadequate to rein in the surveillance state—we need the Surveillance State
Repeal Act to impose meaningful limits on NSA surveillance
Rush Holt, U.S. Representative, “Time to End the ‘Surveillance State’,” MSNBC, 1—17—14, www.msnbc.com/msnbc/time-end-thesurveillance-state, accessed 3-20-15.
The president’s remark came in a nearly hour-long speech intended to calm public fury over the National Security Agency’s abuses of its
surveillance authority. His speech suggested that the intelligence community is undergoing meaningful reforms, but the truth is that the
president’s reform proposals are not nearly as exhaustive, or as effective, as he implied. We should start by remembering that the NSA’s
abusive practices originated in the organizational culture of the intelligence community as a whole: collect everything, keep everything –
forever. The NSA has dedicated, patriotic Americans who employ astounding, sophisticated capabilities and who are developing more
every day. Naturally, in their zeal to do their job, they want to use their capabilities to the fullest, even if this tramples on the rights of
Americans or is ineffective. But rather than meaningfully reining in these capabilities, the president’s proposals continue to allow
surveillance of Americans without requiring a Fourth Amendment determination of probable cause. They continue to regard Americans
as suspects first and citizens second. They continue to allow the government to build backdoors into computer software and hardware.
They fail to strengthen protections for whistleblowers who uncover abusive spying. The most disturbing omission from President
Obama’s reforms was any commitment to enforcing the Fourth Amendment’s warrant-based, probable-cause standard for seizing and
searching the communications of any American. Instead, the president required only “reasonable suspicion” to query the NSA’s mass
surveillance databases – a much lower standard that was already in place during the abuses uncovered to date. In embracing the
“reasonable suspicion” doctrine, the president overruled his own task force on surveillance reform and endorsed a practice that a U.S.
District Court judge has found unconstitutional. He also misinterpreted the intent of our Founders when they wrote the Bill of Rights in
the first place. In his history lesson he omitted discussion of the despised general warrants that colonists found so daunting and
frightening and that have returned now in the wholesale collection of data on Americans. The Fourth Amendment does not exist to
impede police or intelligence agencies. To the contrary, it exists to hold to hold government agents to a high standard – to ensure that
they act on the basis of evidence and pursue real culprits, rather than wasting time and resources on wild goose chases. The president
also left unaddressed the subversion of encryption standards by the NSA, as well as its efforts to pressure companies to build “back
doors” into their products to facilitate NSA access to hardware, firmware, or software. American tech companies stand to lose billions of
dollars in overseas business due to the revelation that the NSA has pressured them to hamper their own products. That economic toll
seems likely to mount in the months ahead. And of course, the president’s remarks left unaddressed a deeper problem: how can we trust
that the intelligence community is being honest about its own activities? Even I, as a member of Congress, have been repeatedly misled
by the NSA. In December 2005, for instance, when I was a member of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, I asked
NSA Director Keith Alexander whether the NSA was spying on Americans. He assured me they were not. One week later, The New
York Times ran its initial story on what is now known as the “Stellar Wind” warrantless surveillance program. How, in an atmosphere of
such secrecy, can the public ever gain full confidence that the NSA is operating within legal bounds? Because the work of the NSA is so
extensive and so technical, courts overseeing its programs need enhanced technical expertise. And because the NSA’s executives are so
skilled at presenting only the information they chose, full oversight is possible only with inside information from whistleblowers who
understand the programs. Without whistleblower protections for intelligence employees that are similar to those afforded to other
government employees, Congress and the public will learn of failures or abuses too late, if ever. But the president’s proposals omitted
any mention of whistleblower protections, as well. Even the modest improvements that the president announced – for instance, requiring
a cost-benefit analysis before spying on the heads of state of foreign nations, rather than simply spying on everyone – are subject to
reversal at a stroke of the president’s pen. These new standards are backed only by the president’s good intentions. But as Daniel
Webster observed in an earlier age, “Good intentions will always be pleaded for every assumption of authority. It is hardly too strong to
say that the Constitution was made to guard the people against the dangers of good intentions. There are men in all ages who mean to
govern well, but they mean to govern. They promise to be good masters, but they mean to be masters.” Our duty is to ensure that our
nation remains under the rule of law, not the whims of those in power. We must eliminate these NSA programs and their actual and
latent potential for abuse. To achieve that end, Congress should pass the Surveillance State Repeal Act – legislation I’ve authored that
would repeal the laws that made the NSA’s abuses possible in the first place.
16
Paradigm Research 2015-2016
CX—Electronic Communication Aff
Electronic Communication Affirmative: First Affirmative—Solvency (Core)
C. Bulk data collection is the core of the problem
Harley Geiger, Senior Counsel and Deputy Director, Project on Freedom, Security, and Technology, Center for Democracy and
Technology, Testimony before the Senate Selection Committee on Intelligence, 6—5—14,
www.intelligence.senate.gov/140605/geiger.pdf, accessed 2-18-15.
Although questions remain and further debate is needed in many areas, a near consensus has emerged on a critical issue that has been of
central focus to the American public: The government’s bulk collection of records of phone calls and emails to, from and within the
United States is both intrusive and unnecessary, and Congress must act to prohibit this activity. The vehicle with the most headway in
accomplishing this goal is the bicameral, bipartisan USA FREEDOM Act. The USA FREEDOM Act directly takes on the bulk
collection problem, attempting to prohibit untargeted mass collection while preserving the key requirement of prior court approval for
surveillance demands, without unreasonably interfering with the government’s ability to make targeted record requests. The legislation
also pursues other important reforms, including permitting greater company disclosure regarding national security orders, and enhancing
transparency of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court (FISC).
D. The NSA will not circumvent the plan—reaction to USA Freedom Act proves
Spencer Ackerman, journalist, “Fears NSA Will Seek to Undermine Surveillance Reform,” THE GUARDIAN, 6—1—15,
www.theguardian.com/us-news/2015/jun/01/nsa-surveillance-patriot-act-congress-secret-law, accessed 6-3-15.
Despite that recent history, veteran intelligence attorneys reacted with scorn to the idea that NSA lawyers will undermine surveillance
reform. Robert Litt, the senior lawyer for director of national intelligence, James Clapper, said during a public appearance last month
that creating a banned bulk surveillance program was “not going to happen”. “The whole notion that NSA is just evilly determined to
read the law in a fashion contrary to its intent is bullshit, of the sort that the Guardian and the left – but I repeat myself – have fallen in
love with. The interpretation of 215 that supported the bulk collection program was creative but not beyond reason, and it was upheld by
many judges,” said the former NSA general counsel Stewart Baker, referring to Section 215 of the Patriot Act. This is the section that
permits US law enforcement and surveillance agencies to collect business records and expired at midnight, almost two years after the
whistleblower Edward Snowden revealed to the Guardian that the Patriot Act was secretly being used to justify the collection of phone
records from millions of Americans. With one exception, the judges that upheld the interpretation sat on the non-adversarial Fisa court, a
body that approves nearly all government surveillance requests and modifies about a quarter of them substantially. The exception was
reversed by the second circuit court of appeals. Baker, speaking before the Senate voted, predicted: “I don’t think anyone at NSA is
going to invest in looking for ways to defy congressional intent if USA Freedom is adopted.”
E. Data collection practices are pivotal—they magnify the synergistic effects of multiple surveillance schemes
Jay Stanley and Barry Steinhardt, staff, Technology and Liberty Program, BIGGER MONSTER, WEAKER CHAINS: THE GROWTH
OF AN AMERICAN SURVEILLANCE SOCIETY, American Civil Liberties Union, 1—03, p. 11.
Multiple surveillance techniques added together are greater than the sum of their parts. One example is face recognition, which combines
the power of computerized software analysis, cameras, and databases to seek matches between facial images. But the real synergies of
surveillance come into play with data collection. The growing piles of data being collected on Americans represent an enormous
invasion of privacy, but our privacy has actually been protected by the fact that all this information still remains scattered across many
different databases. As a result, there exists a pent-up capacity for surveillance in American life today – a capacity that will be fully
realized if the government, landlords, employers, or other powerful forces gain the ability to draw together all this information. A
particular piece of data about you – such as the fact that you entered your office at 10:29 AM on July 5, 2001 – is normally innocuous.
But when enough pieces of that kind of data are assembled together, they add up to an extremely detailed and intrusive picture of an
individual’s life and habits.
17
Paradigm Research 2015-2016
CX—Electronic Communication Aff
Electronic Communication Affirmative: First Affirmative—Democracy Advantage
Advantage One: Democracy
A. Congress and the courts are failing to act to check executive-driven surveillance abuses—threatens our
democratic form of government
American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), A CALL TO COURAGE: RECLAIMING OUR LIBERTIES TEN YEARS AFTER 9/11, 9—
11, p. 27.
These stories contain key elements of our post-9/11 national “surveillance society.” The executive branch has taken advantage of our
society’s technological revolution—on which Americans increasingly rely for the benefits and conveniences it brings to every aspect of
our personal and professional lives—to monitor us without any suspicion of wrongdoing. Every day, the NSA (which is just one of 16
major intelligence agencies in the United States) is now able to intercept and store 1.7 billion e-mails, phone calls, and other
communications. Today, the government is able to spy on our speech and actions through our mobile smartphones, GPS location
tracking, and search engines, to name a few. Congress has not only failed to curb the executive’s violations, it has ratified them. Courts
have, for the most part, refused to review the legality of executive authorities or violations, dismissing challenges on procedural grounds.
And the American public is left almost entirely in the dark. Together, these elements constitute a profound threat to democratic
government. Because citizens cannot object to clandestine governmental activities about which they are systematically deceived, checks
and balances are particularly critical. When the government institutions that are responsible for providing those checks fail to do so, the
result is a national surveillance society in which Americans’ right to privacy is under unprecedented siege.
B. Mass surveillance threatens to destroy our democracy
Shayana Kadidal, Senior Managing Attorney, Center for Constitutional Rights, “NSA Surveillance: The Implications for Civil
Liberties,” I/S: A JOURNAL OF LAW AND POLICY FOR THE IFNORMATION SOCIETY v. 10 n. 2, 2014, p. 477-478.
Snowden’s first sentence neatly summarizes the polling data I described earlier. The second illustrates the potential scope for corruption
of the democratic process posed by sweeping content and metadata surveillance, whether or not Congress is exempted from some or all
of it. Mass surveillance of this all-seeing scale, with the government able to assemble together everything about us that exists outside of
our heads–all of our consumer activities, all of our communication patterns and other social connection–is arguably fundamentally
incompatible with democratic self-governance. One reason the Framers paid so much attention to protecting property rights from the
state is that they thought private property ensured autonomy from the state; give the government sufficient power to control wealth and
the means to produce it, and the people would not be independent enough to control the government. Essentially, to have a democracy,
you need the citizenry to be somewhat autonomous from government, independent of all-encompassing government control. Mass
surveillance threatens that independence enough to corrupt democracy itself. When the government “can literally see your thoughts form
as you type,” your degree of control over government is at the very least limited by the same sort of self-censorship that afflicts the
lawyers and journalists who first sued over these NSA Program in 2006.
C. NSA surveillance of political leaders limits their ability to exercise effective oversight—risks corrupting the
political process
Shayana Kadidal, Senior Managing Attorney, Center for Constitutional Rights, “NSA Surveillance: The Implications for Civil
Liberties,” I/S: A JOURNAL OF LAW AND POLICY FOR THE IFNORMATION SOCIETY v. 10 n. 2, 2014, p. 476-477.
That brings me to one final thought on checks-and-balances: To what extent are judges, members of Congress and other elected officials
exempted from NSA surveillance? If they are not, the chilling effect that afflicts attorneys and journalists applies here as well and has
similarly-enormous potential to corrupt the political process. Imagine Anthony Weiner had not accidentally mass-tweeted that fateful
photograph, and had remained in the House, but knew that the NSA knew about his habits–and was casting the deciding vote on a bill
limiting the powers of the NSA? Such a scenario is not entirely the stuff of fiction: FBI director J. Edgar Hoover had accumulated
dossiers on all sorts of elected officials, which is why James Comey’s term in that same office has been limited to ten years by statute–to
avoid allowing any future FBI director to accumulate that much dirt on (and accompanying passive leverage over) Congressmen. Even
Supreme Court justices had been surveilled in the past, as the Church Committee discovered. Perhaps one consequence of the
accumulation of private conversations from foreign leaders’ cell phones and email accounts will be not to undermine their negotiating
positions at the G20 or the UN directly, but to allow the accumulation of leverage by discovering embarrassing secrets in their closets.
Either way, the potential for surveillance corrupting the political process extends to multinational negotiations between democracies as
well.
18
Paradigm Research 2015-2016
CX—Electronic Communication Aff
Electronic Communication Affirmative: First Affirmative—Democracy Advantage [cont’d]
D. Democracy promotion is critical to prevent terrorism and instability, generate peace and economic trade, and
decrease the risk of refugee flows.
Paul D. Miller, Assistant Professor of International Security Affairs at the National Defense University in Washington DC, SURVIVAL,
“American Grand Strategy and the Democratic Peace,” vol. 54, no. 2, April–May 2012, pp. 49–76, accessed 5-20-2015: academic search
premiere.
A grand strategy that includes promoting the democratic peace has much to recommend it. The historical evidence seems convincing:
established democracies rarely, if ever, fight one another. The more states that adopt democracy, the fewer there are that are likely to
become enemies of the United States. Additionally, as summarised by Sean M. Lynn Jones, editor of International Security, democracy
has a number of other benefits directly helpful for US national security. Democracies are less likely to use violence against their own
people and therefore less likely to draw in outside intervention. They rarely sponsor international terrorism. Democracies have better
long-run economic prospects, rarely experience famine, and produce fewer refugees than non-democracies, which means they require
less international aid, are more likely to trade with and invest in the United States, and are more likely to become centres of innovation
and productivity. Scholars have offered a range of reasons why democracies rarely fight one another, which collectively suggest that the
benefits of democracy are not ephemeral accidents but permanent features of this form of government. Citizens of democracies believe
they share values with other democracies, and thus are slower to see other democracies as potential enemies or combatants. Democracy
enforces peaceful dispute-resolution domestically, a norm that democratic leaders may simply transplant to the international arena,
especially in disputes with other democracies. Institutional considerations are also relevant. Democracies typically constrain the
government’s war powers through civilian control and checks and balances, making it harder to launch a war. The public, which pays the
cost of war in a democracy, is likely to be more selective about the wars it chooses to fight. And democracies are unable to control
information about themselves because of the freedoms of speech and press, which decreases misperceptions that could lead to war and,
in a militarised dispute, improves the credibility of a democracy’s military threats and hence decreases opponents’ willingness to gamble
on war.
E. Democratization helps to check the rise of aggressive hegemons in Eurasia and deal with the threat of failed
states, including terrorism, proliferation, disease, and piracy.
Paul D. Miller, Assistant Professor of International Security Affairs at the National Defense University in Washington DC, SURVIVAL,
“American Grand Strategy and the Democratic Peace,” vol. 54, no. 2, April–May 2012, pp. 49–76, accessed 5-20-2015: academic search
premiere.
Promoting democracy also fits naturally with other long-standing components of US grand strategy. Washington has, for example, long
sought to prevent the rise of a hostile hegemon in strategically important areas of the world – especially Europe or East Asia – by
maintaining a favourable balance of power through military dominance and a network of allies. Preventing hegemony has rightly
animated US policy for generations, from its tack-and weave between Britain and France from 1776 to 1815 to its involvement in both
World Wars and the Cold War. A commitment to democracy is, in a sense, the corollary to resistance to hegemony, as democratic
systems are defined by a diffusion of power among many actors, thus limiting the chances for tyranny. The same holds internationally:
the United States should work to keep power diffused among many sovereign states and international organisations to prevent the rise of
a hostile, coercive hegemon. Regimes committed to those ideals at home are more likely to apply them abroad, while autocracies are
more likely to seek to expand their power at others’ expense, both domestically and internationally. The growth of democracy abroad
alters the balance of power in the United States’ favour. Finally, promoting democracy is well suited to one of the major challenges of
the twenty-first century: state failure and its attendant threats. The United States can and should respond to the rising tide of state failure
across the world with democratic peace-building interventions. The consequences of state failure and anarchy across much of the world
– including the rise of terrorist groups, organised crime, drug cartels, human traffickers, nuclear smugglers, pandemic disease and piracy
– collectively erode global stability and liberalism and raise the cost of US leadership. Effective democratic peace-building (meaning
peace-building that is well armed, well-funded and well planned) is the answer to this challenge. When successful, it holds out the
promise not just of treating these various symptoms, but of addressing the disease. The alternative is to play global Whack-a-Mole with
the crisis du jour, sniping pirates one day, drone-bombing terrorists or barricading drug cartels into narco-statelets the next. Such policy
is reactive, defensive and events-driven, the opposite of what strategy is supposed to be. A grand strategy would complement these
immediate, short-term actions to stave off threats with longer-term efforts to address the underlying challenges to stability and
democracy.
19
Paradigm Research 2015-2016
CX—Electronic Communication Aff
Electronic Communication Affirmative: First Affirmative—Democracy Advantage [cont’d]
F. Restrictions on domestic surveillance are critical to protecting democratic self-governance—are also key to our
democratic model
Richard A. Clarke et al., President’s Review Group on Intelligence and Communications Technologies, LIBERTY AND SECURITY IN
A CHANGING WORLD, Report and Recommendations, 12—12—13, p. 154.
Against that background, FISA’s especially strict limitations on government surveillance of United States persons reflects not only a
respect for individual privacy, but also—and fundamentally—a deep concern about potential government abuse within our own political
system. The special protections for United States persons must therefore be understood as a crucial safeguard of democratic
accountability and effective self-governance within the American political system. In light of that history and those concerns, there is
good reason for every nation to enact special restrictions on government surveillance of those persons who participate directly in its own
system of self-governance. As an aside, we note that the very existence of these protections in the United States can help promote and
preserve democratic accountability across the globe. In light of the global influence of the United States, any threat to effective
democracy in the United States could have negative and far-reaching consequences in other nations as well. By helping to maintain an
effective system of checks and balances within the United States, the special protections that FISA affords United States persons can
therefore contribute to sustaining democratic ideals abroad.
20
Paradigm Research 2015-2016
CX—Electronic Communication Aff
Electronic Communication Affirmative: First Affirmative—Internet Advantage
Advantage Two: The Internet
A. Internet governance is on the brink—we need to act to keep it open
Brett D. Schaefer, Senior Research Fellow, “Internet Governance: Past, Present, Future,” SAVING INTERNET FREEDOM, Special
Report n. 168, Heritage Foundation, 6—3—15, p. 13.
The future of Internet governance is at a crossroads. No system of Internet governance is perfect, including the current system, which
many countries resent because of a perceived dominance by the U.S. However, the strong growth of the Internet in recent decades, and
the economic growth resulting from that development, illustrate the virtues of the minimal governance model. The greatest risk to this
successful model would arise from granting a more overt governance role to states either through the ITU or another intergovernmental
organization, or by enhancing government authority within ICANN. The March 2014 NTIA announcement clearly expresses the U.S.
preference that governments and intergovernmental organizations should be relegated to a backseat role, following the lead of the private
sector and civil society. Most of the private sector represented in the multi-stakeholder community supports this U.S. perspective on
Internet governance. However, many powerful governments would prefer to exert tighter control of and oversight over the Internet.
There are ample opportunities for countries that want more direct government control of the Internet to press their agenda. It is unclear
how this dispute will be resolved. But the stakes are high. If Internet functions and freedom are harmed or subjected to unnecessary
regulatory burdens or political interference, not only would there be economic damage, but a vital forum for freedom of speech and
political dissent would be compromised.
B. Localization remains a substantial threat in the long run—the threat of NSA surveillance will catalyze it
Danielle Kehl et al., policy analyst, “Surveillance Costs: The NSA’s Impact on the Economy, Internet Freedom & Cybersecurity,”
POLICY PAPER, Open Technology Institute, New America, 7—14, p. 17.
Moreover, while the recent developments may temper short-term concerns, they could also set the stage for more troubling changes in
the long run. Until recently, most foreign countries have accepted the fact that the U.S. has a comparative advantage in the technology
industry that is extremely difficult to challenge. In a number of cases, however, the threat of NSA surveillance may be the catalyst that
forces countries to invest heavily in markets that they would otherwise have left to the U.S., including cloud computing and data
storage—a shift that will be worth huge amounts of money over time. There is some risk at the moment that the short-term logistical
challenges of requiring data localization or turning away from U.S. companies will create a false sense of security among U.S.
policymakers and business leaders, obscuring the fact that the United States will squander massive economic value in the long term if it
fails to address issues raised by NSA surveillance.
21
Paradigm Research 2015-2016
CX—Electronic Communication Aff
Electronic Communication Affirmative: First Affirmative—Internet Advantage [cont’d]
C. A free and open Internet is vital to solving virtually all of the problems that we face
David Eagleman, Director, Laboratory for Perception and Action, Baylor College of Medicine, “Six Ways the Internet Will Save
Civilization,” WIRED, 11—9—10, www.wired.co.uk/magazine/archive/2010/12/start/apocalypse-no, accessed 3-11-15.
Many great civilisations have fallen, leaving nothing but cracked ruins and scattered genetics. Usually this results from: natural disasters,
resource depletion, economic meltdown, disease, poor information flow and corruption. But we’re luckier than our predecessors because
we command a technology that no one else possessed: a rapid communication network that finds its highest expression in the internet. I
propose that there are six ways in which the net has vastly reduced the threat of societal collapse. Epidemics can be deflected by
telepresence One of our more dire prospects for collapse is an infectious-disease epidemic. Viral and bacterial epidemics precipitated the
fall of the Golden Age of Athens, the Roman Empire and most of the empires of the Native Americans. The internet can be our key to
survival because the ability to work telepresently can inhibit microbial transmission by reducing human-to-human contact. In the face of
an otherwise devastating epidemic, businesses can keep supply chains running with the maximum number of employees working from
home. This can reduce host density below the tipping point required for an epidemic. If we are well prepared when an epidemic arrives,
we can fluidly shift into a self-quarantined society in which microbes fail due to host scarcity. Whatever the social ills of isolation, they
are worse for the microbes than for us. The internet will predict natural disasters We are witnessing the downfall of slow central control
in the media: news stories are increasingly becoming user-generated nets of up-to-the-minute information. During the recent California
wildfires, locals went to the TV stations to learn whether their neighbourhoods were in danger. But the news stations appeared most
concerned with the fate of celebrity mansions, so Californians changed their tack: they uploaded geotagged mobile-phone pictures,
updated Facebook statuses and tweeted. The balance tipped: the internet carried news about the fire more quickly and accurately than
any news station could. In this grass-roots, decentralised scheme, there were embedded reporters on every block, and the news
shockwave kept ahead of the fire. This head start could provide the extra hours that save us. If the Pompeiians had had the internet in
79AD, they could have easily marched 10km to safety, well ahead of the pyroclastic flow from Mount Vesuvius. If the Indian Ocean had
the Pacific’s networked tsunami-warning system, South-East Asia would look quite different today. Discoveries are retained and shared
Historically, critical information has required constant rediscovery. Collections of learning -- from the library at Alexandria to the entire
Minoan civilisation -- have fallen to the bonfires of invaders or the wrecking ball of natural disaster. Knowledge is hard won but easily
lost. And information that survives often does not spread. Consider smallpox inoculation: this was under way in India, China and Africa
centuries before it made its way to Europe. By the time the idea reached North America, native civilisations who needed it had already
collapsed. The net solved the problem. New discoveries catch on immediately; information spreads widely. In this way, societies can
optimally ratchet up, using the latest bricks of knowledge in their fortification against risk. Tyranny is mitigated Censorship of ideas was
a familiar spectre in the last century, with state-approved news outlets ruling the press, airwaves and copying machines in the USSR,
Romania, Cuba, China, Iraq and elsewhere. In many cases, such as Lysenko’s agricultural despotism in the USSR, it directly contributed
to the collapse of the nation. Historically, a more successful strategy has been to confront free speech with free speech -- and the internet
allows this in a natural way. It democratises the flow of information by offering access to the newspapers of the world, the photographers
of every nation, the bloggers of every political stripe. Some posts are full of doctoring and dishonesty whereas others strive for
independence and impartiality -- but all are available to us to sift through. Given the attempts by some governments to build firewalls,
it’s clear that this benefit of the net requires constant vigilance. Human capital is vastly increased Crowdsourcing brings people together
to solve problems. Yet far fewer than one per cent of the world’s population is involved. We need expand human capital. Most of the
world not have access to the education afforded a small minority. For every Albert Einstein, Yo-Yo Ma or Barack Obama who has
educational opportunities, uncountable others do not. This squandering of talent translates into reduced economic output and a smaller
pool of problem solvers. The net opens the gates education to anyone with a computer. A motivated teen anywhere on the planet can
walk through the world’s knowledge -- from the webs of Wikipedia to the curriculum of MIT’s OpenCourseWare. The new human
capital will serve us well when we confront existential threats we’ve never imagined before. Energy expenditure is reduced Societal
collapse can often be understood in terms of an energy budget: when energy spend outweighs energy return, collapse ensues. This has
taken the form of deforestation or soil erosion; currently, the worry involves fossil-fuel depletion. The internet addresses the energy
problem with a natural ease. Consider the massive energy savings inherent in the shift from paper to electrons -- as seen in the transition
from the post to email. Ecommerce reduces the need to drive long distances to purchase products. Delivery trucks are more eco-friendly
than individuals driving around, not least because of tight packaging and optimisation algorithms for driving routes. Of course, there are
energy costs to the banks of computers that underpin the internet -- but these costs are less than the wood, coal and oil that would be
expended for the same quantity of information flow. The tangle of events that triggers societal collapse can be complex, and there are
several threats the net does not address. But vast, networked communication can be an antidote to several of the most deadly diseases
threatening civilisation. The next time your coworker laments internet addiction, the banality of tweeting or the decline of face-to-face
conversation, you may want to suggest that the net may just be the technology that saves us.
22
Paradigm Research 2015-2016
CX—Electronic Communication Aff
Electronic Communication Affirmative: First Affirmative—Internet Advantage [cont’d]
D. An open Internet is key to U.S. economic growth, exports and innovation
Ron Wyden, U.S. Senator, Statement before the Senate Finance Committee, Subcommittee on International Trade, Customs and Global
Competitiveness, 11—18—10, www.finance.senate.gov/imo/media/doc/111810rw.pdf, accessed 3-7-15.
There is rampant global protectionism being deployed against America’s digital exports and the purpose of today’s hearing is to expose
it, describe it, and identify ways to combat it. Today we shine new light onto an old issue: the importance of keeping the modes of
international trade open. Whether it’s the Oregon Trail, the Silk Road or the World Wide Web, safe and efficient trade routes that enable
people to connect allow economies to grow. The modes over which trade is conducted changed over time, but the fundamentals do not.
The development of civilization parallels the growth of open trade routes and the Internet represents the trade route of the 21st century.
Keeping the Internet open – at home and overseas – is of paramount importance to the American economy because it is increasingly the
primary way that the global population will communicate, create, and conduct commerce. The United States economy faced some dark
times over the last two years, but one big bright spot is the continued innovation in the digital economy. American companies, whether
they are designing and manufacturing semiconductors or rearranging the way that people socialize and engage in commerce, are
transforming the global society in profound, irreversible ways. The innovation isn’t just happening in the Silicon Valley. It’s literally
occurring in every community around the nation. To be sure, Intel, Facebook, and Apple, come to mind when many of us think of the
digital economy, but these firms are also the platforms upon which further innovation occurs, and by which a seller in the Pacific
Northwest can reach a buyer in Southeast Asia without leaving her desk. This is why I am very pleased that Mike Sax is here today from
Eugene, Oregon. Mike develops applications that piggyback onto mobile IT platforms, like Apple’s iPhone. Thanks to Mike, over a
million early iPhone adopters around the world could download his app to type their e‐mail and text messages much easier. Mike is here
representing hundreds of small developers and entrepreneurs all around the country. The ability of American IT companies to penetrate
foreign markets directly affects American companies’ ability to increase exports of goods and services, digital or otherwise. So when an
Internet website is blocked or filtered, or data flow is impeded, it has a direct impact on the American economy and its ability to produce
the new, good paying jobs that we need. As American technology firms create and expand global market for digital products, and
outpace their competitors doing so, foreign governments are resorting to discriminatory measures against U.S. technology and content
providers. According to industry sources that relied on the work of the Open Network Initiative, more than 40 countries impose broad
restrictions on online information, which represents a ten‐fold increase from just a decade ago. In many cases, this censorship does not
aim to serve a repressive political motive, but rather a protectionist commercial one. These actions constitute a direct economic threat to
the United States. We have seen this time and time again. American firms drive innovation but then foreign regimes think they have a
license to disfavor American technology because their own companies cannot get off the starting line.
23
Paradigm Research 2015-2016
CX—Electronic Communication Aff
Electronic Communication Affirmative: First Affirmative—Internet Advantage [cont’d]
E. Economic decline causes a global war
Harold James, Professor, History, Princeton University, “Debate: Is 2014, Like 1914, a Prelude to World War?” GLOBE AND MAIL,
6—24—14, www.theglobeandmail.com/globe-debate/read-and-vote-is-2014-like-1914-a-prelude-to-world-war/article19325504/,
accessed 9-22-14.
Some of the dynamics of the pre-1914 financial world are now re-emerging. Then an economically declining power, Britain, wanted to
use finance as a weapon against its larger and faster growing competitors, Germany and the United States. Now America is in turn
obsessed by being overtaken by China – according to some calculations, set to become the world’s largest economy in 2014. In the
aftermath of the 2008 financial crisis, financial institutions appear both as dangerous weapons of mass destruction, but also as potential
instruments for the application of national power. In managing the 2008 crisis, the dependence of foreign banks on U.S. dollar funding
constituted a major weakness, and required the provision of large swap lines by the Federal Reserve. The United States provided that
support to some countries, but not others, on the basis of an explicitly political logic, as Eswar Prasad demonstrates in his new book on
the “Dollar Trap.” Geo-politics is intruding into banking practice elsewhere. Before the Ukraine crisis, Russian banks were trying to
acquire assets in Central and Eastern Europe. European and U.S. banks are playing a much reduced role in Asian trade finance. Chinese
banks are being pushed to expand their role in global commerce. After the financial crisis, China started to build up the renminbi as a
major international currency. Russia and China have just proposed to create a new credit rating agency to avoid what they regard as the
political bias of the existing (American-based) agencies. The next stage in this logic is to think about how financial power can be
directed to national advantage in the case of a diplomatic tussle. Sanctions are a routine (and not terribly successful) part of the pressure
applied to rogue states such as Iran and North Korea. But financial pressure can be much more powerfully applied to countries that are
deeply embedded in the world economy. The test is in the Western imposition of sanctions after the Russian annexation of Crimea.
President Vladimir Putin’s calculation in response is that the European Union and the United States cannot possibly be serious about the
financial war. It would turn into a boomerang: Russia would be less affected than the more developed and complex financial markets of
Europe and America. The threat of systemic disruption generates a new sort of uncertainty, one that mirrors the decisive feature of the
crisis of the summer of 1914. At that time, no one could really know whether clashes would escalate or not. That feature contrasts
remarkably with almost the entirety of the Cold War, especially since the 1960s, when the strategic doctrine of Mutually Assured
Destruction left no doubt that any superpower conflict would inevitably escalate. The idea of network disruption relies on the ability to
achieve advantage by surprise, and to win at no or low cost. But it is inevitably a gamble, and raises prospect that others might, but also
might not be able to, mount the same sort of operation. Just as in 1914, there is an enhanced temptation to roll the dice, even though the
game may be fatal.
24
Paradigm Research 2015-2016
CX—Electronic Communication Aff
Electronic Communication Affirmative: First Affirmative—Internet Advantage [cont’d]
F. U.S. efforts to increase privacy will help restore trust lost because of the Snowden revelations
Ben FitzGerald and Robert Butler, Center for a New American Security, “NSA Revelations: Fallout Can Serve Our Nation,” REUTERS,
12—18—13, http://blogs.reuters.com/great-debate/2013/12/18/nsa-revelations-fallout-can-serve-our-nation/, accessed 3-2-15.
As the crisis grows, many in Congress and the executive branch now focus on explaining why these programs are critical to countering
terrorist threats and securing the country. President Barack Obama’s meeting with technology leaders Tuesday marks an early signal of
willingness to engage in open dialogue. But until Washington fully addresses the concerns of these various groups through tangible
government reform, the fallout will likely worsen. Trust has been the principal casualty in this unfortunate affair. The American public,
our nation’s allies, leading businesses and Internet users around the world are losing faith in the U.S. government’s role as the leading
proponent of a free, open and integrated global Internet. In discussing how the nation’s privacy and civil rights are being safeguarded,
the administration and Congress inadvertently dismiss surveillance concerns. Government officials maintain its programs are legal,
critical for national security, effective and managed with strict oversight — and thus should continue. Yet legality does not confer
legitimacy. The current approach to surveillance is widely viewed with skepticism and may even be unconstitutional. While no
government will be able to persuade all foreigners that its spying efforts are in the service of good, there are steps Washington can and
should take to limit the continuing damage from the Snowden fallout. Washington must try to rebuild the trust. There are several
proposals presented already that would take steps in this direction. The European Commission, for example, outlined six areas of action
that it insists would restore trust in data flows between the United States and the European Union — including reforms in data protection
and privacy standards. This would establish, or reinforce, agreed-upon rules and programs for government data collection on citizens,
legal frameworks to manage the transfer of that data between governments and methods for judicial redress when required. This
initiative is crucial because it enforces mutual accountability for all participants. In addition, leading technology companies have laid out
five principles for reform — data collection, oversight, transparency, data flow and government collaboration. Addressing these
principles will, the companies say, provide protection from overly intrusive surveillance — and thereby encourage continued use of the
businesses’ products and services. These proposals merit attention. Loss of trust, however, remains the fundamental issue. Washington
cannot fix this just by acceding to reforms suggested by others. The administration, with congressional support, must launch a proactive
reform agenda, which would demonstrate an understanding of citizens’ concerns — allies and businesses alike. The components are
straightforward: public outreach to concerned constituencies, such as Tuesday’s meeting with technology leaders, amendments to policy
and law — for example, updating the Safe Harbor frameworks for privacy protection — and review of the National Security Agency’s
oversight mechanisms. While these procedural steps are clear, the government can do more. The Snowden revelations are about trust as
much as technological frontiers — so Washington’s efforts must focus on confidence building. Security and openness need not be
mutually exclusive and technological capability should not be the key to defining operational limits. Confidence can be re-established
through government-led development of the explicit principles that set a better balance between security and openness. These principles
must be formalized in government agencies’ policies, federal laws, Supreme Court rulings and congressional oversight establishing the
government mechanisms to balance security and openness. Credibly addressing this balance represents Washington’s best chance to
rebuild the trust that has been so eroded. It is also an opportunity to recast the Snowden revelations as a reason to establish international
norms that will govern all nations that are now developing and using similar surveillance capabilities. What is required is to establish
standards that Washington can hold itself and others to in terms of healthy collaboration with business, productive relationships with
allies and appropriate protections for the data of private citizens. Powerful surveillance capabilities will only grow over time. The United
States must therefore establish a new “higher ground” in the international community to lead morally as well as technologically and
ensure mutual accountability among governments. The key is to act quickly. Though the United States needs to retain robust foreign
surveillance, it is clear that the fallout from the NSA revelations will continue until proactive steps — rooted in trust, policy and law —
are taken.
G. Surveillance reform is critical to restoring U.S. tech leadership
Daniel Castro, Vice President and Alan McQuinn, Research Assistant, “Beyond the USA Freedom Act: How U.S. Surveillance Still
Subverts U.S. Competitiveness,” Information Technology & Innovation Foundation, 6—15, p. 7.
When historians write about this period in U.S. history it could very well be that one of the themes will be how the United States lost its
global technology leadership to other nations. And clearly one of the factors they would point to is the long-standing privileging of U.S.
national security interests over U.S. industrial and commercial interests when it comes to U.S. foreign policy. This has occurred over the
last few years as the U.S. government has done relatively little to address the rising commercial challenge to U.S. technology companies,
all the while putting intelligence gathering first and foremost. Indeed, policy decisions by the U.S. intelligence community have
reverberated throughout the global economy. If the U.S. tech industry is to remain the leader in the global marketplace, then the U.S.
government will need to set a new course that balances economic interests with national security interests. The cost of inaction is not
only short-term economic losses for U.S. companies, but a wave of protectionist policies that will systematically weaken U.S.
technology competiveness in years to come, with impacts on economic growth, jobs, trade balance, and national security through a
weakened industrial base. Only by taking decisive steps to reform its digital surveillance activities will the U.S. government enable its
tech industry to effectively compete in the global market.
25
Paradigm Research 2015-2016
CX—Electronic Communication Aff
Status Quo: Topshelf Ext
1. The threat of surveillance creep is real—driven by multiple factors
Leslie Harris, President and CEO, Center for Democracy & Technology, Testimony before the European Parliament LIBE Committee
Inquiry on Electronic Mass Surveillance of EU Citizens, 9—24—13, www.cdt.org/files/pdfs/LIBEtestimony24September.pdf, accessed
2-18-15.
Recent revelations about the scope and scale of surveillance programs in the U.S. and in some EU Member State have highlighted what
national security officials candidly admit: that we have entered a “golden age of surveillance.” There are at least three factors driving a
paradigm shift away from particularized or targeted monitoring to systemic or bulk collection, in which government agencies seek larger
and larger volumes of data, claiming that bulk access is necessary to find “the needle in the haystack.” First, the storage revolution and
big data analytic capabilities, combined with fears about terrorism, are driving a steadily growing governmental appetite for access to
data held by the private sector. Governments are demanding more data on the theory that big data analytic capabilities will allow them to
extract small but crucial pieces of information from huge datasets. Second, as Internet-based services have become globalized, transborder surveillance has flourished, posing new challenges for human rights. As Frank La Rue, Special Rapporteur on the Promotion and
Protection of the Right to Freedom of Expression, noted, there is “serious concern with regard to the extraterritorial commission of
human rights violations and the inability of individuals to know they might be subject to foreign surveillance, challenge decisions with
respect to foreign surveillance or seek remedies.” Gone are the days when intelligence agencies had to establish foreign listening posts or
position satellites or antennas to capture communications that stayed largely within the country of origin. Now, in many instances,
communications pass through or are stored in other countries. In that respect, the United States has a unique position in terms of access
to global communications data since a great deal of global communications travel over U.S. networks or are stored with U.S. cloud
companies. Third, national security legal authorities have become increasingly powerful since 9/11 in the U.S. and in Europe. It has long
been the case that governments have claimed greater powers to collect data in the name of national security than in ordinary criminal law
enforcement cases. In the post 9/11 world, activities conducted in the U.S. (and possibly in other countries) under these separate rules for
national security have vastly expanded even as privacy safeguards have eroded.
2. The NSA has initiated massive surveillance programs
G. Alex Sinha, fellow, Human Rights Watch, WITH LIBERTY TO MONITOR ALL: HOW LARGE-SCALE US SURVEILLANCE IS
HARMING JOURNALISM, LAW AND AMERICAN DEMOCRACY, Human Rights Watch & the ACLU, 7—14, p. 1-2.
The United States government today is implementing a wide variety of surveillance programs that, thanks to developments in its
technological capacity, allow it to scoop up personal information and the content of personal communications on an unprecedented scale.
Media reports based on revelations by former National Security Agency (NSA) contractor Edward Snowden have recently shed light on
many of these programs. They have revealed, for example, that the US collects vast quantities of information—known as “metadata”—
about phone calls made to, from, and within the US. It also routinely collects the content of international chats, emails, and voice calls. It
has engaged in the large-scale collection of massive amounts of cell phone location data. Reports have also revealed a since-discontinued
effort to track internet usage and email patterns in the US; the comprehensive interception of all of phone calls made within, into, and
out of Afghanistan and the Bahamas; the daily collection of millions of images so the NSA can run facial recognition programs; the
acquisition of hundreds of millions of email and chat contact lists around the world; and the NSA’s deliberate weakening of global
encryption standards.
26
Paradigm Research 2015-2016
CX—Electronic Communication Aff
Status Quo: Topshelf Ext [cont’d]
3. The NSA is engaging in domestic surveillance—email, phone monitoring
Audra Healey, J.D. Candidate, “A Tale of Two Agencies: Exploring Oversight of the National Security Administration by the Federal
Communications Commission,” FEDERAL COMMUNICATIONS LAW JOURNAL v. 67 n. 1, 2014, p. 95-96.
Despite its foreign-centric mission and the express limits on its domestic authority, the NSA has increasingly turned its attention to
activities of persons within the United States in the wake of 9/11. For instance, in 2006, it was discovered that the NSA had created a call
database in 2001 that collected tens of millions of citizens’ phone records from data provided by AT&T, Verizon, and BellSouth. “[T]he
largest database ever assembled in the world” at the time, its goal was to log “every call ever made within the nation’s borders.” The
NSA itself has acknowledged its serious obligation to operate effectively in an increasingly interconnected and globalized world without
stepping on the toes of civil liberties for the sake of national security. Additionally, the NSA’s intrusions into domestic communications
extend beyond call data to reach citizens’ activity on the Internet. For years, the NSA “unlawfully gathered tens of thousands of emails
and other electronic communications between Americans” as part of the agency’s broader collection of communications as they “flow
across Internet hubs” under Section 702 of FISA. Pursuant to these practices, the NSA may have intercepted as many as 56,000 domestic
electronic communications through various methods, some of which the FISA Court has found unconstitutional.
4. Bulk data is untouched—the NSA can collect it via multiple authorities, despite the fact that it does not
increase our security
Michael Brenner, Professor, International Affairs, University of Pittsburgh, “The NSA’s Second Coming,” HUFFINGTON POST, 6—
8—15, www.huffingtonpost.com/michael-brenner/the-nsas-second-coming_b_7535058.html, accessed 6-9-15.
Americans have acquired a fondness for worlds of make-believe. Torture was done by "a few bad apples." Or, we must await the
"verdict 11. United States Intelligence agencies have multiple, redundant methods for acquiring bulk data or specific data. They also
have multiple legal justifications, however contrived they might be; those justifications are extremely difficult to challenge in the federal
courts who have pretty much neutered themselves on these types of security issues. Where top officials, including the President, feel it
necessary, they have few qualms about skirting the law. 12. There is not a single documented instance wherein bulk data collection, or
its variants, has resulted in stymying a terrorist plot in the United States. When questioned before Congressional Committees, Clapper
and then NSA chief General Keith Alexander claimed that there were 56 cases. That number quickly dropped to six, then "one or two,"
then one. That supposed case referred to the notorious pseudo-plot of a Corpus Christi used car salesman being approached by an
anonymous Iranian agent to assassinate the Saudi Ambassador to Washington -- such information as exists having in fact been derived
from conventional sources. Boston and Ft. Hood slipped under the misdirected and ill-conceived dragnet.
27
Paradigm Research 2015-2016
CX—Electronic Communication Aff
Status Quo: EO 12333 Programs
1. EO 12333 programs sweep up information on millions of Americans
Alvaro Bedoya, Executive Director, Georgetown Center on Privacy and Technology, “Executive Order 12333 and the Golden Number,”
JUST SECURITY, 10—9—14, http://justsecurity.org/16157/executive-order-12333-golden-number/, accessed 3-17-15.
Since Tye’s op-ed, critics have countered that the use of the 12333 data (e.g. for law enforcement purposes) raises significant
constitutional concerns. These arguments about the proper scope of minimization are important and valid, but they do not address the
core of Tye’s complaint. As he told Ars Technica: “My complaint is not that [the NSA is] using [Executive Order 12333] to target
Americans. My complaint is that the volume of incidental collection on US persons is unconstitutional.” Too few people are focusing on
the simple question that Tye is challenging us to ask: How many Americans’ communications are caught up in 12333 collection in the
first place? That number matters – a lot. It matters from a policy perspective: It may not make sense for Congress to allow a more lax set
of collection and minimization standards for 12333 collection if those programs collect as much if not more Americans’ data than FISA
collection. The number matters from a democratic perspective: Americans, and their elected officials, cannot reach an informed opinion
of these programs if they don’t know how broadly they impact Americans. Most critically, that number matters for the Fourth
Amendment. Americans’ Fourth Amendment rights don’t stop at the border. Even where the acquisition of foreign intelligence
information abroad is found to fall within the foreign intelligence exception to the warrant requirement, that acquisition must still satisfy
the Fourth Amendment’s reasonableness requirement. (See Laura Donohue’s forthcoming Harvard Journal of Law and Policy article on
section 702 for an in-depth discussion of the application of the reasonableness requirement abroad.) If an “incidental” collection of an
Americans’ data is too substantial, that collection may be rendered unreasonable by that fact alone. As Judge Bates wrote in his October
2011 opinion on section 702 collection: [T]he acquisition of non-target information is not necessarily reasonable under the Fourth
Amendment simply because its collection is incidental to the purpose of the search or surveillance. […] There surely are circumstances
in which incidental intrusions can be so substantial as to render a search or seizure unreasonable. Bates went on to clarify that an
incidental collection of Americans’ data can be particularly problematic for Fourth Amendment purposes if the data are entirely
unrelated to the targeted facility. “The distinction is significant and impacts the Fourth Amendment balancing,” he wrote. Based on this
reasoning, Judge Bates found that the NSA’s October 2011 proposed targeting and minimization procedures were not consistent with the
Fourth Amendment. Judge Bates did not reach this ruling because he discovered that the targeting procedures would result in the
discovery of millions, or even hundreds of thousands of Americans’ communications. No, the offending acquisition collected “roughly
two to ten thousand discrete wholly domestic communications […] as well as tens of thousands of other communications that are to or
from a United States person or a person in the United States but that are neither to, from, nor about a targeted selector.” This bears
repeating: Judge Bates found the 702 targeting procedures unconstitutional because they collected tens of thousands of U.S. person
communications. We need to know approximately how many Americans’ communications are collected under 12333. That’s the golden
number. But we don’t know it. Apparently, neither does the NSA. In a December 2013 Washington Post article on the use of 12333 to
collect cellphone location records, the NSA demurred an attempt to estimate how many Americans were swept up in that program: “It’s
awkward for us to try to provide any specific numbers,” one intelligence official said in a telephone interview. An NSA spokeswoman
who took part in the call cut in to say the agency has no way to calculate such a figure. Yet in that same story, a “senior collection
manager, speaking on the condition of anonymity but with permission from the NSA,” appears to have told the Post that “data are often
collected from the tens of millions of Americans who travel abroad with their cellphones every year.” In a separate Post story in October
2013 on the use of 12333 to collect address books globally, two U.S. senior intelligence officials told Bart Gellman and Ashkan Soltani
that that program sweeps in the contacts of many Americans. “They declined to offer an estimate but did not dispute that the number is
likely to be in the millions or tens of millions,” wrote Gellman and Soltani. Behind closed doors, the intelligence community seems to
acknowledge a scale of 12333 collection on Americans that far outstrips the collection that Judge Bates found unconstitutional under
section 702.
2. EO 12333 is the foundation of the NSA’s legal authority
Committee on Responding to Section 5(d) of Presidential Policy Directive 28 (PDD-28): The Feasibility of Software to Provide
Alternatives to Bulk Signals Intelligence Collection; Computer Science and Telecommunications Board; Division on Engineering and
Physical Sciences; National Research Council (NRC), BULK COLLECTION OF SIGNALS INTELLIGENCE: TECHNICAL
OPTIONS, 2015, p. 22.
The legal authorities under which NSA operates are described in a public document entitled NSA Missions, Authorities, Oversight and
Partnerships. As noted above, these authorities include Executive Order 12333 and the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act of 1978, as
amended. Executive Order 12333 is the foundational authority on which NSA relies to collect, retain, analyze, and disseminate foreign
SIGINT information.
28
Paradigm Research 2015-2016
CX—Electronic Communication Aff
Status Quo: EO 12333 Programs [cont’d]
3. EO 12333 programs collect enormous quantities of information about Americans
Alvaro Bedoya, Executive Director, Georgetown Center on Privacy and Technology, “Executive Order 12333 and the Golden Number,”
JUST SECURITY, 10—9—14, http://justsecurity.org/16157/executive-order-12333-golden-number/, accessed 3-17-15.
Executive Order 12333, by contrast, allows for pure bulk collection of overseas electronic communications. There is no requirement that
electronic surveillance under 12333 be targeted at a particular individual, organization or facility. A recent directive from the President
(PPD-28) explains: References to signals intelligence collected in “bulk” mean the authorized collection of large quantities of signals
intelligence data which, due to technical or operational considerations, is acquired without the use of discriminants (e.g., specific
identifiers, selection terms, etc.). (Emphasis mine.) Indeed, 12333 lets the government conduct any electronic surveillance, so long as it
does so from a location abroad, so long as it does not affirmatively target a U.S. person, and so long as it is done for a “foreign
intelligence or counterintelligence purpose.” The resultant difference in scale of collection is significant. In his 2011 opinion, Judge
Bates stated that NSA acquired over 250 million Internet communications annually under section 702; the Washington Post revealed that
a single program under 12333 collected nearly 5 billion cellphone location records every day. This may be a bit of an apples-to-oranges
comparison, but it’s an instructive one nonetheless. The untargeted nature and massive scope of 12333 collection strongly suggest that it
may be used to collect far more U.S. person communications than are collected under section 702. Moreover, because 12333 allows for
bulk collection, it would seem to stand a high chance of capturing Americans’ communications that are, in fact, entirely unrelated to
foreign intelligence – precisely the category of protected communications that Judge Bates found so problematic. Curiously, the new
report on 12333 from the NSA’s Civil Liberties and Privacy Office explicitly excludes bulk collection from its analysis.
4. EO 12333 enables very invasive surveillance, and Obama’s reforms don’t address that
Margo Schlanger Professor, Law, University of Michigan, “Guest Post: US Intelligence Reforms Still Allow Plenty of Suspicionless
Spying on Americans,” JUST SECURITY, 1—13—15, http://justsecurity.org/20033/guest-post-intelligence-reforms-plentysuspicionless-surveillance-americans/, accessed 3-17-15.
Last week, the Obama Administration released a report and documents cataloging progress toward signals intelligence (SIGINT) reform
goals set a year ago by the President in a document known as PPD-28. PPD-28 promises foreigners some of the same privacy protections
given to US citizens and residents. But it turns out that those protections, even for citizens, are fairly meager, in ways that have not yet
fully entered the public conversation about surveillance. US citizens and residents have been — and remain — exposed to suspicionless
electronic surveillance. Implementation of PPD-28 will do little to change that. To my mind, the surveillance I’m about to describe,
which proceeds under Executive Order 12333, rather than FISA, is far more worrisome than the programs under Section 215 of the
Patriot Act and Section 702 of the FISA Amendments Act that have received so much recent attention. (For example, here and here for
Section 215, here and here for Section 702, and here and here for more general info.) This is content surveillance that applies to both
wholly and partially domestic communications of US citizens and residents. The access and analysis rules are very, very loose. There is
no judicial supervision of any kind, and Congress does almost no 12333 oversight. (See here for more on how FISA and 12333 differ).
5. EO 12333 allows the NSA to collect virtually any information about us it wants
Margo Schlanger Professor, Law, University of Michigan, “Guest Post: US Intelligence Reforms Still Allow Plenty of Suspicionless
Spying on Americans,” JUST SECURITY, 1—13—15, http://justsecurity.org/20033/guest-post-intelligence-reforms-plentysuspicionless-surveillance-americans/, accessed 3-17-15.
The point is, so far as U.S. surveillance law is concerned, the NSA can, if it chooses, “collect [nearly] everything” — including your
domestic phone calls and emails — so long as it does not select which communications to collect using the identity of a “particular,
known” communicant. To be precise, it can collect communications where at least one party is abroad if it can find a non-wired way in.
And it can collect even entirely domestic communications if it can find a wire to tap abroad — like the Transatlantic cable — that is
carrying those conversations. Some have pointed out that methods exist to push domestic Internet traffic abroad to take advantage of
these FISA omissions. Such constraints as exist on this kind of collection — and concomitant retention, analysis, use, and dissemination
— are based not on FISA, but on non-statutory sources implementing Executive Order 12333 and, since last year, PPD-28. The 12333
implementing procedures — Department of Defense Directive 5240.1-R and US Signals Intelligence Directive 18 (USSID 18) — make
it clear that the NSA does indeed purposefully collect the content of US communications without FISA regulation.
29
Paradigm Research 2015-2016
CX—Electronic Communication Aff
Status Quo: EO 12333 Programs [cont’d]
6. EO 12333 authorizes massive surveillance—information about Americans will inevitably get sucked up by the
programs
Margo Schlanger Professor, Law, University of Michigan, “Guest Post: US Intelligence Reforms Still Allow Plenty of Suspicionless
Spying on Americans,” JUST SECURITY, 1—13—15, http://justsecurity.org/20033/guest-post-intelligence-reforms-plentysuspicionless-surveillance-americans/, accessed 3-17-15.
Let’s start with what we know, and then dive into how we know it. What do we know? Non-selective “vacuum cleaner” SIGINT
collection — mass collection of communications unlimited by particular communicants or subjects — is outside FISA’s ambit, so long
as the collection is either done abroad (for wire communications like those carried on landlines or cables) or involves at least one foreign
communicant (for wireless communications). This kind of collection can and does include wholly and partially domestic
communications of US citizens and residents. Once collected, analysis of these communications is also outside FISA’s ambit. Instead,
the use of SIGINT that was collected vacuum-cleaner-style is limited by PPD-28 to six topics: detecting and countering espionage,
terrorism, weapons of mass destruction, cybersecurity threats, threats to the armed services, and transnational crime. This kind of
entirely unlimited SIGINT collection is not favored, however: According to its new policies implementing PPD-28, when “practicable,”
the NSA searches for communications containing specific terms that narrow its collection to topics like “nuclear proliferation, oil sales,
[and] economics.” Economics! Again, so long as the collection is either done abroad (for wire communications) or involves at least one
foreign communicant (for wireless communications), FISA does not regulate term searching based on subject matter, rather than the
identity of a communicant. And because this approach uses a “discriminant,” it is not deemed “bulk” collection for purposes of PPD-28.
It may thereafter be searched by the NSA for any and all foreign intelligence purposes, not just the six topics identified above. When the
NSA uses subject matter searching — whether to acquire data or to search raw SIGINT acquired in bulk or otherwise — there is a mild
tailoring requirement. Specifically, policy requires use of only selection terms that are reasonably likely to flag communications that
include foreign intelligence topics (like oil sales). Policy also requires the NSA to try to develop selection techniques that “defeat, to the
greatest extent practicable under the circumstances” interception of non-foreign intelligence communications. While we don’t know
what “practicable” means in this context, term searching is very familiar; just think of using Google or Westlaw. It seems inevitable that
this approach exposes an extraordinary amount of innocent Americans’ communications to the eyes of intelligence analysts. So, when
the President says that foreigners will get the same protections against surveillance as US citizens and residents, keep in mind that those
protections leave a lot out.
7. The NSA engages in massive global electronic communications surveillance under Executive Order 12333
Danielle Kehl et al., policy analyst, “Surveillance Costs: The NSA’s Impact on the Economy, Internet Freedom & Cybersecurity,”
POLICY PAPER, Open Technology Institute, New America, 7—14, p. 4.
Beyond NSA surveillance inside the United States under Section 215 and Section 702, the NSA engages in massive surveillance of
Internet and telephone communications outside of the country as well. Unconstrained by statute and subject only to Executive Branch
oversight under the Reagan-era Executive Order 12333,9 this extraterritorial surveillance was revealed in October 2013 to include the
monitoring of key private data links that connect Google and Yahoo data centers around the world—monitoring that in just 30 days
processed 181,280,466 new records that traversed those links. Similarly, the NSA is using Executive Order 12333 to authorize the
collection of millions of email address books globally, and the recording of vast numbers of international phone calls—sometimes all of
the phone traffic in an entire country. Executive Order 12333 is also presumably the authority under which the NSA is assisting British
intelligence agencies in acquiring millions of webcam photos sent by users of Yahoo, and under which the NSA is collecting over five
billion cell phone location data points per day, enabling it to track individuals’ movements and relationships with others.
8. EO 12333 is currently not subjected to substantial congressional oversight
Laura K. Donohue, Professor, Law, Georgetown University, “Section 702 and the Collection of International Telephone an Internet
Content,” HARVARD JOURNAL OF LAW & PUBLIC POLICY v. 38, Winter 2015, p. 151.
Some of the regulations implementing Executive Order 12,333 have been made publicly available. But many of the guidelines, and the
programs conducted under the order, remain veiled from public scrutiny. Even Congress has limited view. Although the procedures
approved by the Attorney General under the order must be provided to the Congressional intelligence committees, SSCI Chairman,
Senator Dianne Feinstein, has acknowledged that the committee does not conduct extensive oversight of intelligence gathering
conducted under the order's auspices.
30
Paradigm Research 2015-2016
CX—Electronic Communication Aff
Status Quo: FISA Fails Now
1. Legal developments are eroded the protections against domestic spying contained in the original FISA
Elizabeth Goitein and Faiza Patel, Co-Directors, Liberty and National Security Program, Brennan Center for Justice, WHAT WENT
WRONG WITH THE FISA COURT, Brennan Center for Justice, New York University School of Law, 2015, p. 19.
Although the Supreme Court in Keith attempted to distinguish between surveillance of domestic organizations and surveillance of
foreign powers, the demarcation was never clean and has become ever more strained. Advances in technology mean that the exercise of
authorities aimed at foreigners abroad inevitably picks up swaths of information about Americans who should enjoy constitutional
protections. But rather than develop additional safeguards for this information, the law has developed in the opposite direction: the
government’s authority to collect communications pursuant to its foreign intelligence-gathering authorities has expanded significantly.
At the same time, the safeguard of judicial review — already limited when FISA was first enacted in 1978 — has eroded to nearnothingness. Indeed, in some cases, the role played by the FISA Court is so different from the normal function of a court that it likely
violates the Constitution’s separation of powers among the legislative, executive, and judicial branches.
2. FISA-authorized searches are highly invasive—multiple reasons
Robert C. Power, Associate Dean, Widener University School of Law, “’Intelligence’ Searches and Purpose: A Significant Mismatch
Between Constitutional Criminal Procedure and the Law of Intelligence-Gathering,” PACE LAW REVIEW v. 30, Winter 2010, p. 678680.
No one can doubt that the electronic surveillance and physical searches authorized by FISA are extremely intrusive on personal privacy.
Electronic surveillance has been recognized as among the most invasive of government investigative techniques since Berger v. New
York, where the Court stated: "Few threats to liberty exist which are greater than that posed by the use of eavesdropping devices." The
Court was equally clear in Keith: There is, understandably, a deep-seated uneasiness and apprehension that this [electronic surveillance]
capability will be used to intrude upon cherished privacy of law-abiding citizens. We look to the Bill of Rights to safeguard this privacy.
Though physical entry of the home is the chief evil against which the wording of the Fourth Amendment is directed, its broader spirit
now shields private speech from unreasonable surveillance. Interceptions of telephone conversations or face-to-face meetings, and
physical invasions of a person's home, even with a warrant, are frightening and degrading and a strong reason for the prominence of the
Fourth Amendment in constitutional text and history. Two additional aspects of FISA searches illustrate the fact that their impact is
unmatched among generally lawful intelligence-gathering activities. First, the lack of a criminal probable cause requirement opens the
door to government action based on general notions of subversion, disloyalty, or vocal policy disagreement. It is for this reason that
FISA explicitly provides that "no United States person may be considered a foreign power or an agent of a foreign power solely upon the
basis of activities protected by the first amendment to the Constitution of the United States." While this should help protect many within
the class of U.S. persons, the need to include it proves the potential threat to liber-ties. Here again the Keith Court was direct: Official
surveillance, whether its purpose be criminal investigation or ongoing intelligence gathering, risks infringement of constitutionally
protected privacy of speech. Security surveillances are especially sensitive because of the inherent vagueness of the domestic security
concept, the necessarily broad and continuing nature of intelligence gathering, and the temptation to utilize such surveillances to oversee
political dissent. Second, FISA searches are exceptionally lengthy. Electronic surveillance can be authorized for a year, and extensions
are possible; the same authorization periods apply even to physical searches. In contrast, electronic surveillance orders in criminal
investigations can only be valid for up to thirty days. Under typical search law, a physical search occurs once, within fourteen days of the
issuance of the search warrant.
31
Paradigm Research 2015-2016
CX—Electronic Communication Aff
Status Quo: Mass Surveillance Now
1. The NSA is engaged in a massive spying program—multiple indicators prove
Nadia Kayyali and Mark Rumold, staff, “What We Learned About NSA Spying in 2014—And What We're Fighting to Expose in 2015:
2014 in Review,” Electronic Frontier Foundation, 12—28—14, www.eff.org/deeplinks/2014/12/what-we-learned-about-nsa-spying2014-and-what-were-fighting-expose-2015, accessed 2-17-15.
Despite the slowdown, in 2014, we learned still more about the NSA’s surveillance programs than we knew before. We learned that:
Through the NSA’s Mystic program, the agency records every single cell phone conversation in the Bahamas and Afghanistan, storing
those conversations for up to 30 days. The NSA specifically targets sys admins—the people who are often charged with keeping
networks safe and secure. The NSA and its partners exploits mobile apps, such as the popular Angry Birds game, to access users’ private
information such as location, home address, gender, and more. The NSA sought to develop capabilities to infect millions of computers
with malware implants as part of its TURBINE program. The NSA’s Dishfire operation collects 200 million text messages daily from
users around the globe. The NSA “intercepts ‘millions of images per day’ — including about 55,000 ‘facial recognition quality images’”
and processes them with powerful facial recognition software. The NSA spies on civic leaders and model citizens—The Intercept put a
face to NSA spying, publishing a profile of five American Muslim leaders who have been targeted for surveillance. They including an
attorney, two professors, a former member of the Bush administration, and the founder of the Council on American-Islamic Relations.
Despite all this additional information, too much still remains secret.
2. We now have no expectation of privacy in our electronic communications
Lauren Regan, Executive director, Civil Liberties Defense Center, “Electronic Communications Surveillance,” MONTHLY REIVEW v.
66 n. 3, July-August 2014, http://monthlyreview.org/2014/07/01/electronic-communications-surveillance/, accessed 3-11-15.
The government is collecting information on millions of citizens. Phone, Internet, and email habits, credit card and bank records—
virtually all information that is communicated electronically is subject to the watchful eye of the state. The government is even building
a nifty, 1.5 million square foot facility in Utah to house all of this data. With the recent exposure of the NSA’s PRISM program by
whistleblower Edward Snowden, many people—especially activists—are wondering: How much privacy do we actually have? Well, as
far as electronic privacy, the short answer is: None. None at all. There are a few ways to protect yourself, but ultimately, nothing in
electronic communications is absolutely protected. In the United States, surveillance of electronic communications is governed primarily
by the Electronic Communications Privacy Act of 1986 (ECPA), which is an extension of the 1968 Federal Wiretap act (also called
“Title III”) and the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA). Other legislation, such as the USA PATRIOT Act and the
Communications Assistance for Law Enforcement Act (CALEA), supplement both the ECPA and FISA.
3. The capacity for state surveillance and wrong-doing has surged
American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), INFORMATIONAL PRIVACY IN THE DIGITAL AGE, 2—15, p. 2.
At the same time, State capacities to intercept and process large numbers of electronic data have grown exponentially, opening the door
to unprecedented levels of intrusion into our private lives. Official documents, including some that were leaked to the press by NSA
whistleblower Edward Snowden and others that were released in response to litigation, reveal that numerous governments have
capitalized on this confluence of events to collect and analyze vast quantities of data on countless people, most of whom are not
suspected of wrongdoing.
4. The NSA is engaged in bulk data collection
American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), “How the NSA’s Surveillance Procedures Threaten Americans’ Privacy,” 2013,
www.aclu.org/how-nsas-surveillance-procedures-threaten-americans-privacy, accessed 2-19-15.
4. The Procedures permit the NSA to collect international communications, including Americans' international communications, in bulk.
On its face, the Act permits the NSA to conduct dragnet surveillance, not just surveillance of specific individuals. Officials who
advocated for the Act made clear that this was one of its principal purposes, and unsurprisingly, the Procedures give effect to that design.
While they require the government to identify a "target" outside the country, once the target has been identified the Procedures permit
the NSA to sweep up the communications of any foreigner who may be communicating "about" the target. The Procedures contemplate
that the NSA will do this by "employ[ing] an Internet Protocol filter to ensure that the person from whom it seeks to obtain foreign
intelligence information is located overseas," by "target[ing] Internet links that terminate in a foreign country," or by identifying "the
country code of the telephone number." However the NSA does it, the result is the same: millions of communications may be swept up,
Americans' international communications among them.
32
Paradigm Research 2015-2016
CX—Electronic Communication Aff
Status Quo: Mass Surveillance Now [cont’d]
5. The NSA’s revealed surveillance programs are vast
Bruce Schneier, cryptographer, “Bruce Schneier: NSA Spying Is Making Us Less Safe,” interviewed by David Talbot, MIT
TECHNOLOGY REVIEW, 9—23—13, www.technologyreview.com/news/519336/bruce-schneier-nsa-spying-is-making-us-less-safe/,
accessed 2-18-15.
Taken together, what do all of the Snowden documents leaked thus far reveal that we didn’t know already? Those of us in the security
community who watch the NSA had made assumptions along the lines of what Snowden revealed. But there was scant evidence and no
proof. What these leaks reveal is how robust NSA surveillance is, how pervasive it is, and to what degree the NSA has commandeered
the entire Internet and turned it into a surveillance platform. We are seeing the NSA collecting data from all of the cloud providers we
use: Google and Facebook and Apple and Yahoo, etc. We see the NSA in partnerships with all the major telcos in the U.S., and many
others around the world, to collect data on the backbone. We see the NSA deliberately subverting cryptography, through secret
agreements with vendors, to make security systems less effective. The scope and scale are enormous.
6. The surveillance budget is huge—at least $75B
Jay Stanley, Senior Policy Analyst, Speech, Privacy & Technology Project, “How to Think About the National Security State,”
American Civil Liberties Union, Free Future, 9—5—13, www.aclu.org/blog/how-think-about-national-security-state, accessed 6-2-15.
The United States has grown a gigantic national security state. According to one analyst, our overall annual security budget is now more
than $1.2 trillion. And we now know that includes at least $75 billion for “intelligence.” In the wake of Edward Snowden’s revelations
that the NSA has been operating well outside any reasonable reading of the statutes on which it relies, and outside any national
consensus over the proper limits to domestic spying, what are we to make of this behemoth? How we think about our national security
state is a very important question, not least because it suggests what direction we ought to take moving forward.
7. The NSA program is a widespread information dragnet—it is far more than phone call records
American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), INFORMATIONAL PRIVACY IN THE DIGITAL AGE, 2—15, p. 25.
Recent developments invite specific Committee guidance on the practice of mass surveillance. In June of 2013, media outlets began
reporting on enormous surveillance programs run by the United States and various allies, courtesy of leaked documents taken from the
United States’ National Security Agency (NSA) by whistleblower and former NSA contractor Edward Snowden. Snowden’s documents
revealed a wide range of programs—aimed both at people inside and outside the U.S.—that threaten the right to informational privacy in
an unprecedented way. The data collected by the NSA as part of various programs include phone call records; cell phone location
information; internet activity; the content of phone conversations; the content of chats and emails; photographs of millions of people’s
faces; and more.
33
Paradigm Research 2015-2016
CX—Electronic Communication Aff
Status Quo: Mass Surveillance Understated
1. Our evidence understates the problem—there is still a lot about NSA spying that we do not know
Nadia Kayyali and Mark Rumold, staff, “What We Learned About NSA Spying in 2014—And What We're Fighting to Expose in 2015:
2014 in Review,” Electronic Frontier Foundation, 12—28—14, www.eff.org/deeplinks/2014/12/what-we-learned-about-nsa-spying2014-and-what-were-fighting-expose-2015, accessed 2-17-15.
In fact, some of the most significant information about the NSA’s surveillance programs still remain secret. Despite one of the most
significant leaks in American history and despite a promise to declassify as much information as possible about the programs, nearly two
years later the government still refuses to provide the public with the information it needs. For example, government officials still have
not answered a simple, yet vitally important, question: what type of information does the NSA collect about millions, or hundreds of
millions, of Americans (or the citizens of any other country, for that matter)? And the government still refuses to release some of the
most significant decisions of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court—the secret court tasked with monitoring the government’s
surveillance programs.
2. Mass surveillance is particularly dangerous—mission creep
Glenn Greenwald, journalist, “UN Report Finds Mass Surveillance Violates International Treaties and Privacy Rights,” THE
INTERCEPT, 10—15—14, https://firstlook.org/theintercept/2014/10/15/un-investigator-report-condemns-mass-surveillance/, accessed
3-8-15.
While worthless in counter-terrorism policies, the UN report warned that allowing mass surveillance to persist with no transparency
creates “an ever present danger of ‘purpose creep,’ by which measures justified on counter-terrorism grounds are made available for use
by public authorities for much less weighty public interest purposes.” Citing the UK as one example, the report warned that, already, “a
wide range of public bodies have access to communications data, for a wide variety of purposes, often without judicial authorization or
meaningful independent oversight.”
3. Post-9/11 programs need to be scaled back—we overreached
Richard A. Clarke et al., President’s Review Group on Intelligence and Communications Technologies, LIBERTY AND SECURITY IN
A CHANGING WORLD, Report and Recommendations, 12—12—13, p. 77.
It is now time to step back and take stock. With the benefit of experience, and as detailed below, we conclude that some of the
authorities that were expanded or created in the aftermath of September 11 unduly sacrifice fundamental interests in individual liberty,
personal privacy, and democratic governance. We believe that our recommended modifications of those authorities strike a better
balance between the competing interests in providing for the common defense and securing “the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and
our Posterity.” We make these recommendations with a profound sense of caution, humility, and respect, and with full awareness that
they will require careful deliberation and close attention to consequences. There is no doubt that the degree of safety and security our
nation has enjoyed in the years since September 11 has been made possible in no small part by the energetic, determined, and effective
actions of the Intelligence Community. For that, all Americans should be both proud and grateful. But even that degree of success does
not mean that we cannot strike a better balance for the future.
34
Paradigm Research 2015-2016
CX—Electronic Communication Aff
Status Quo: Obama Reforms Fail
1. Obama’s reforms simply do not adequately address NSA domestic spying
Mark Rumold, staff, “One Year Later, Obama Failing on Promise to Rein in NSA,” Electronic Frontier Foundation, 2—3—15,
www.eff.org/deeplinks/2015/02/one-year-later-obama-failing-promise-rein-nsa, accessed 2-17-15.
A year ago, President Obama made tepid promises to reform the NSA (check out our analysis of those commitments). Today, he
followed up with more specifics. What do you need to know? His reform plan: Fails to fix the problem of unconstitutional National
Security Letters The President’s reform proposes a three-year limit on the gag order that accompanies each NSL, but even a three-year
limit fails to cure the constitutional problem. Only a prompt and fully considered decision by a judge that a provider should remain
gagged is sufficient. Doesn’t stop the bulk collection of data on innocent Americans’ digital communications If the Intelligence
Community was serious about protecting privacy, it could end the bulk collection of Americans’ communications data—under Section
215 of the Patriot Act or under any provision of law—tomorrow. The President’s proposals do not curb the mass collection of phone
records under Section 215, and the proposals affirmatively allow bulk collection to occur for six, broadly defined categories of
intelligence collection. Continues "backdoor" surveillance on Americans without a warrant When the intelligence community performs
surveillance under Section 702 of the FISA Amendments Act, it sweeps in the communications of millions of Americans without a
warrant. The President’s Review Group recommended the government obtain a warrant before it searched for communications of US
persons contained within its vast database. The President rejected that proposal. Fails to provide non-US persons with the same privacy
protections afforded US persons On a daily basis, the United States intelligence community collects vast amounts of information about
millions of people around the world. While the President’s proposals take a step forward in unifying the retention requirements
applicable to collected non-US person information, they fail to afford the same privacy protections afforded US persons, and they fail to
rein in bulk collection in the first place. President Obama still has time in office to make this right, and he’s got ample power to rein in
NSA overreach without Congress lifting a finger. But if he continues to offer these weak reforms, then he should be prepared for a major
Congressional battle when sections of the Patriot Act come up for reauthorization in June.
2. Obama is continuing Bush-era secret surveillance programs
American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), A CALL TO COURAGE: RECLAIMING OUR LIBERTIES TEN YEARS AFTER 9/11, 9—
11, p. 28.
The Obama administration, like the Bush administration before it, has used excessive secrecy to hide possibly unconstitutional
surveillance. Two members of Congress have been ringing alarm bells about the government’s use of Patriot Act authorities, urging
additional congressional oversight—to no avail. Hobbled by executive claims of secrecy, Senators Ron Wyden and Mark Udall have
nevertheless warned their colleagues that the government is operating under a “reinterpretation” of the Patriot Act that is so broad that
the public will be stunned and angered by its scope, and that the executive branch is engaging in dragnet surveillance in which “innocent
Americans are getting swept up.” History threatens to repeat itself. But the American public deserves more than another secret
showdown; and we should not have to rely on government whistleblowers to come forward at the risk of criminal prosecution, to act as a
check and balance on an unaccountable executive.
35
Paradigm Research 2015-2016
CX—Electronic Communication Aff
Status Quo: Obama Reforms Fail [cont’d]
3. The reforms in Obama’s PDD-28 will do little to check dragnet NSA surveillance
Margo Schlanger Professor, Law, University of Michigan, “Guest Post: US Intelligence Reforms Still Allow Plenty of Suspicionless
Spying on Americans,” JUST SECURITY, 1—13—15, http://justsecurity.org/20033/guest-post-intelligence-reforms-plentysuspicionless-surveillance-americans/, accessed 3-17-15.
As might be expected, both vacuum-cleaner and term-searching techniques pull in massive amounts of raw data. The same training
slides (on slide 69) explain: “[R]aw SIGINT databases contain completely innocent U.S. person communications and non-foreign
intelligence information as well as FI [foreign intelligence].” As a result, NSA personnel are not free to trawl those databases willy nilly.
Rather, “to protect the privacy rights of US citizens, the Justice Department has determined search of these databases are a
collection/targeting activity.” (Slide 70.) This means searches of already-collected raw data are required to follow the USSID-18
tailoring rules. It bears reemphasizing that those tailoring rules are pretty loose. They require merely that searches of already-collected
raw SIGINT be reasonably likely to retrieve foreign intelligence, and that such searches be designed to the extent practicable not to
retrieve other communications. PPD-28 adds the smallest bit of extra protection. It limits what it describes as “bulk” collection to six
specified purposes (detecting and countering espionage, terrorism, weapons of mass destruction, cybersecurity threats, threats to the
armed services, and transnational crime). These are considerably narrower than “foreign intelligence. But the narrower purpose rules of
PPD-28 don’t cover collection that uses term searching, no matter how wide-open these terms are, or how much data is acquired under
them. Quite the contrary; such collection is excluded by definition. PPD-28 states: “References to signals intelligence collected in ‘bulk’
mean the authorized collection of large quantities of signals intelligence data which, due to technical or operational considerations, is
acquired without the use of discriminants (e.g., specific identifiers, selection terms, etc.).” (Emphasis added). Moreover, the Directive
specifically states that its limits on “bulk” collection “do not apply to signals intelligence data that is temporarily acquired to facilitate
targeted collection.” This carve-out is revealing: there would be no reason for it unless the NSA does, in fact, “temporarily acquire” data
and then subject it to various searches that facilitate “targeted” collection for purposes not authorized for bulk collection. (Note that
PPD-28 does not define “targeted;” I infer that “targeted” here covers use of topical selection terms as well as communicant targeting,
but I may be incorrect in this inference.) And finally, the NSA procedures released last week, which now govern SIGINT procedures for
non-US persons, constrain the agency the tiniest bit more, stating a preference for collecting data on specific subjects instead of
collecting everything: Whenever practicable, collection will occur through the use of one or more SELECTION TERMS in order to
focus the collection on specific foreign intelligence targets (e.g., a specific, known international terrorist or terrorist group) or specific
foreign intelligence topics (e.g., the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction by a foreign power or its agents). Note, though, that
notwithstanding the parenthetical examples, subject matter searching can be for any foreign intelligence topic (oil sales, economics, etc.),
not just counterterrorism or counterproliferation. So, all of this together adds up to the list I started off with, and to extraordinarily broad
access by the NSA to your domestic communications. Lots of unanswered questions remain: what about FBI and CIA? How much
unfiltered content communication data does the IC actually collect? How much does it retain? And so on. We’d need much more
transparency to answer those questions and dozens more that deserve answers.
36
Paradigm Research 2015-2016
CX—Electronic Communication Aff
Status Quo: Oversight Failures
1. Congressional oversight fails now—misleading statements, and the committees do not have complete
information
G. Alex Sinha, fellow, Human Rights Watch, WITH LIBERTY TO MONITOR ALL: HOW LARGE-SCALE US SURVEILLANCE IS
HARMING JOURNALISM, LAW AND AMERICAN DEMOCRACY, Human Rights Watch & the ACLU, 7—14, p. 15-16.
Both the US House of Representatives and the Senate have standing Committees on Intelligence and on the Judiciary, which are
designed, in theory, to provide oversight over the intelligence community’s activities. However, much of what these committees do is
itself secret. Moreover, effective oversight requires that the intelligence community candidly share information with these committees.
As Senator Ron Wyden, from the Senate Intelligence Committee, has noted, senior officials have repeatedly made misleading statements
about their activities in congressional hearings. Senate Intelligence Committee Chairman Dianne Feinstein has also noted that the
intelligence community has failed fully to inform the committee about its surveillance activities.
2. Most of the NSA’s programs have no oversight—likely violate the Fourth Amendment
Christopher Slobogin, Professor, Law, Vanderbilt University, “Standing and covert Surveillance,” WORKING PAPER n. 15-5,
Vanderbilt University Law School, 2—18—15, p. 5.
Most of this surveillance takes place without any type of judicial authorization, or is authorized only by the Foreign Intelligence
Surveillance Court (FISC), which operates in secret. Although regulation of these practices has recently ramped up, even today the
decision about what to collect and what to target and query is largely in the hands of executive agency officials. Thus, good arguments
can be made that much, if not all, of this surveillance is unconstitutional under the Fourth Amendment, the First Amendment, separation
of powers doctrine, or some combination thereof. But these arguments may never be fully fleshed out in the courts because of the
Supreme Court’s standing doctrine.
37
Paradigm Research 2015-2016
CX—Electronic Communication Aff
Status Quo: Section 215 Reforms Inadequate
1. Section 215 is only the tip of the iceberg
Julian Assange, WikiLeaks, “Julian Assange: Despite Congressional Standoff, NSA Has Secret Authority to Continue Spying
Unabated,” interviewed by Amy Goodman, DEMOCRACY NOW, 5—27—15,
www.democracynow.org/2015/5/27/julian_assange_despite_congressional_standoff_nsa, accessed 5-28-15.
The Edward Snowden revelations documented various forms of National Security Agency spying and secret interpretations of U.S. law
that have been constructed by the Justice Department and the FISA courts. Now, some of those hinged on Section 215 of the USA
PATRIOT Act, a secret interpretation, that has been found just this month to be unlawful in the U.S. Federal Court of Appeals.
Now, that has dovetailed with the electoral process in the United States, and so there’s now increasing push to be—increasing push for
popularism. Rand Paul and Ron Wyden have tapped into that. The USA PATRIOT Act has been on rolling sunset clauses since 2001.
The sunset clause is June the 1st, and so Ron Wyden and Rand Paul engaged in a filibuster, pushing the passage of the renewal of the
PATRIOT Act off to a week where Congress had scheduled to be away all the way leading up to June 1st. So unless there’s an
emergency recall of enough of the Senate and Congress, the sunset clause will hit, and that means there will have to be a new PATRIOT
Act reintroduced. So it will have to be resuscitated as opposed to having a rollover, and that’s a more involved process. However, our
sources say that the NSA is not too concerned, that it has secret interpretations of other authorities that give it much the same power that
it would have had under the secret interpretation of 215 and other areas of the USA PATRIOT Act. What Edward Snowden revealed
about the secret interpretation of Section 215 of the PATRIOT Act was that the National Security Agency was using it to bulk-collect the
calling records, every day, of essentially every American in the United States—the majority of the big telecommunications companies.
However, that’s only a very small part of the National Security Agency’s mass interception system. On one hand, it can suck information
out of the—of Google, Facebook and so on, under the PRISM system; and on the other hand, even more data is collected as a result of
information flowing across the border of the United States or across borders of the United Kingdom, which has a sharing agreement with
the National Security Agency.
2. The USA Freedom Act is inadequate—only addresses Section 215 in any meaningful way
Mieke Eoyang, Direction, National Security Program, Third Way, “A Modest Proposal: FAA Exclusivity for Collection Involving U.S.
Technology Companies,” LAWFARE, 11—24—14, www.lawfareblog.com/modest-proposal-faa-exclusivity-collection-involving-ustechnology-companies, accessed 3-16-15.
Even if the USA Freedom Act had moved forward on the Senate floor during the lame duck session, it would not have been sufficient to
address all the concerns raised in the current electronic surveillance debates. The USA Freedom Act focuses on limiting collection of
data on Americans here in the US under Section 215 of the PATRIOT ACT, and as such, it’s a crucial reform. Under existing statutes on
electronic surveillance, Section 215 and the FISA Amendments Act (FAA), the government can compel cooperation from the companies
that hold the data under certain statutory conditions. Both of these statutes authorize collection programs that the companies are aware of
and must participate in. In these programs, the government knocks at the front door to get the data it needs. But reforming these
programs doesn’t address another range of problems---those that relate to allegations of overseas collection from US companies without
their cooperation.
3. The USA Freedom Act does little to end bulk surveillance—only the phone metadata program
Spencer Ackerman, journalist, “Fears NSA Will Seek to Undermine Surveillance Reform,” THE GUARDIAN, 6—1—15,
www.theguardian.com/us-news/2015/jun/01/nsa-surveillance-patriot-act-congress-secret-law, accessed 6-3-15.
The USA Freedom Act, a compromise bill, would not have an impact on the vast majority of NSA surveillance. It would not stop any
overseas-focused surveillance program, no matter how broad in scope, nor would it end the NSA’s dragnets of Americans’ international
communications authorized by a different law. Other bulk domestic surveillance programs, like the one the Drug Enforcement Agency
operated, would not be impacted. The rise of what activists have come to call “bulky” surveillance, like the “large collections” of
Americans’ electronic communications records the FBI gets to collect under the Patriot Act, continue unabated – or, at least, will, once
the USA Freedom Act passes and restores the Patriot Act powers that lapsed at midnight on Sunday. That collection, recently confirmed
by a largely overlooked Justice Department inspector general’s report, points to a slipperiness in shuttering surveillance programs – one
that creates opportunities for clever lawyers.
38
Paradigm Research 2015-2016
CX—Electronic Communication Aff
Status Quo: USA Freedom Act Fails
1. The USA Freedom Act bungled the metadata reforms—the NSA will continue with business-as-usual
Scott Shackford, staff, “Is the USA Freedom At the Best We Can Expect Right Now?” REASON, Hit & Run Blog, 5—20—15,
http://reason.com/blog/2015/05/20/is-the-usa-freedom-act-the-best-we-can-e, accessed 6-5-15.
While the bill has many significant flaws, the USA Freedom Act vote is also historic: it’s the first time since the 1970s that Congress has
indicated its intention to restrict the vast powers of intelligence agencies like the NSA, rather than exponentially expand them. It also
shows the power that investigative journalism and brave whistleblowing can have on even the most entrenched government interests.
Two years ago, debating these modest changes would’ve been unthinkable, and it is absolutely a vindication for Edward Snowden.
Unfortunately, the bill is also woefully inadequate and largely symbolic, and Congress would’ve been better off letting Section 215 of
the Patriot Act expire permanently. The USA Freedom Act supposedly bans bulk collection of phone records or any other private
records, and we certainly hope it actually does. But its provisions are vague and confusing, leading many legal experts to believe they
could be re-interpreted in secret—by NSA lawyers with a history of warping the common definitions of ordinary words beyond
recognition—and could lead the FISA court to continue to allow the NSA to collect large quantities of Americans’ data in secret. (The
administration will shamefully now re-start the phone program that expired on Monday for six months, as allowed under the new law's
"transition" period.)
2. The USA Freedom Act will only have small effects on surveillance
Neema Singh Guliani, Legislative Counsel, “What’s Next for Surveillance Reform After the USA Freedom Act,” American Civil
Liberties Union, Washington Markup, 6—3—15, www.aclu.org/blog/washington-markup/whats-next-surveillance-reform-after-usafreedom-act, accessed 6-5-15.
By a 67-32 margin Tuesday, Congress passed the USA Freedom Act — a significant milestone in our efforts to rein in NSA
surveillance. The bill marks the first time since passage of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act in 1978 that Congress has taken
steps to restrict — rather than expand — the government’s surveillance authority. To be clear, the bill that passed yesterday is not as
strong as we wanted. It is markedly weaker than the original version of the USA Freedom Act that the ACLU first supported in 2013,
which itself left many serious surveillance abuses untouched. And while the ACLU was neutral on the version of USA Freedom that
ultimately passed, we were a vocal critic of its shortcomings and supported a sunset of the provisions in an effort to advance more
comprehensive reform.
3. The law does not meaningfully constrain the NSA
Michael Brenner, Professor, International Affairs, University of Pittsburgh, “The NSA’s Second Coming,” HUFFINGTON POST, 6—
8—15, www.huffingtonpost.com/michael-brenner/the-nsas-second-coming_b_7535058.html, accessed 6-9-15.
Americans have acquired a fondness for worlds of make-believe. Torture was done by "a few bad apples." Or, we must await the
"verdict Belief that the United States is in grave and imminent danger from serious terrorist attack is the cornerstone premise holding up
the massive edifice of our Intelligence apparatus. To acknowledge that this rendering of reality is groundless is to cut the ground from
under the pervasive view that extraordinary measures to protect the United States' security are imperative. For the promoters of
draconian surveillance, this is tantamount to a silver bullet that stops in its tracks the momentum -- political, intellectual -- pushing
toward building the security state. As William Pitt warned us: "Necessity is the plea for every infringement of human liberty. It is the
argument of tyrants; it is the creed of slaves." The United States Freedom Act does not trouble Intelligence agency leaders. They have
widely assumed, as admitted in private statements, that the compromise provisions merely create a few procedural inconveniences that
could be circumvented or neutralized by exploiting loopholes - no more than speed bumps. None of the Agency's core activities would
be significantly affected. So there is no reason for anyone in the intelligence agencies to sweat the small stuff: a shift in the number of
days the NSA can retain the sweepings of Metadata collection; or whether the data should be held at their storage lock-up or the one
across the street protected by a bicycle lock and owned by a very accommodating neighbor? And who's checking, anyway -- the FBI?
the FCC? We have created a monster. A Great White Whale that rapaciously stalks the electronic seas devouring all within reach
regardless of species or nutritional value.
39
Paradigm Research 2015-2016
CX—Electronic Communication Aff
Status Quo: USA Freedom Act Fails [cont’d]
4. Freedom Act contains far too weak “reasonable and articulable suspicion” standards
Elizabeth Atkins, J.D. Candidate, “Spying on Americans: At What Point Does the NSA’s Collection and Searching of Metadata Violate
the Fourth Amendment?” WASHINGTON JOURNAL OF LAW, TECHNOLOGY & ARTS v. 10, Summer 2014, p. 84-86.
The Government's proposed legislation is ineffective because it fails to raise the needed threshold to probable cause and continues to
diminish citizens' privacy concerns. Representative James Sensenbrenner, Jr., the original author of the USA PATRIOT ACT and lead
author on the proposed USA FREEDOM Act, acknowledged that "the NSA was doing some things that were far beyond what the intent
of the law should have been . . . ." He criticized Senator Feinstein's proposed legislation, specifically noting that her bill "is a joke" and
her view is essentially that "if you like your NSA, you can keep it." What Congress and the President fail to mention, however, is that the
problem lies not only with mass collection of metadata, but also in the way the Government is able to access and search the metadata.
This troubling standard remains unchanged and leaves the door open to a multitude of privacy violations. President Obama's Policy
Directive is superficial because it fails to provide any substantial changes that protect privacy rights. In President Obama's speech to the
American people, he proudly claimed to end Section 215 metadata collection "as it currently exists." However, bulk collection is not the
biggest problem. The problem is not where the metadata is being stored, but how the metadata is accessed. First, President Obama
limited the NSA to searching metadata within only two hops of the selection term being used instead of three. Second, the metadata
would no longer be collected in bulk by the NSA but would remain with the phone companies. Third, the NSA would obtain the records
pursuant to individual orders from FISC. Although these recommendations appear to solve the problem of "dragnet surveillance," they
fail to provide any real safety from abuse by the NSA. The problem with President Obama's Presidential Policy Directive is that it is not
binding. Presidential Directives can be amended or withdrawn at any time by the current President. Even if Americans trust President
Obama to follow through on the policy directives he proposed, the president in 2016 could reverse those changes with the swipe of a
pen. Unless codified in a statute by Congress, any future president, at any time and for any reason, could re-instate the third hop and
bring metadata collection back under the purview of the NSA. Additionally, none of the bills Congress has offered produce any
substantial change to Section 215. None of the thirty-plus bills mention raising the standard from reasonable, articulable suspicion to
probable cause. Most of the bills proposed, including the flagship USA FREEDOM Act, herald an ending to bulk metadata collection.
However, the USA FREEDOM Act barely amends the current standard. Current law requires the government to submit a statement of
facts showing reasonable grounds to believe that the tangible things or records sought are relevant to an authorized investigation. Yet
Section 101 of the USA FREEDOM Act would require the Government to show that the tangible things sought are relevant and material
to an authorized investigation and that they pertain to (a) a foreign power or an agent of a foreign power, (b) the activities of a suspected
agent of a foreign power who is the subject of such an authorized investigation, or (c) an individual in contact with, or known to, a
suspected agent of a foreign power who is the subject of such authorized investigation. This proposed change only narrows what can be
considered an "authorized investigation." The NSA would still be able to collect and search metadata based on the lowered standard of
reasonable and articulable suspicion.
5. Limits of USA Freedom Act—702, 12333, whistleblowers
Human Rights Watch, “Strengthen the USA Freedom Act,” 5—19—15, www.hrw.org/news/2015/05/19/strengthen-usa-freedom-act,
accessed 6-1-15.
What the USA Freedom Act does not do: Does nothing to address mass surveillance under Section 702 of the FISA Amendments Act or
Executive Order 12333. The majority of the NSA dragnet surveillance of people outside the US occurs under these two legal authorities.
For example, the NSA compels Internet companies to provide access communications and personal data (PRISM) and requires telecom
companies to assist with mass fiber optic cable tapping of traffic coming into the US (Upstream) under Section 702. The USA Freedom
Act only addresses bulk records collection under the Patriot Act and certain other laws. Congress should next take up reforms to rein in
mass surveillance under these legal authorities. Does not provide needed protections for whistleblowers who might reveal similar
surveillance abuses in the future. President Obama has welcomed the current debate over privacy and surveillance in the digital age. This
debate would not be possible without the work of whistleblowers like Edward Snowden and others who came before him. Yet existing
laws and practices give would-be whistleblowers (especially those in the intelligence community) few internal ways to disclose
governmental misconduct, no recourse when existing options are inaccessible or unresponsive, and no meaningful right to challenge
official retaliation and defend themselves from criminal and civil liability.
40
Paradigm Research 2015-2016
CX—Electronic Communication Aff
Status Quo: USA Freedom Act Fails [cont’d]
6. National Security Letters make the new reforms largely meaningless
Shane Harris, journalist, “Zombie Patriot Act Will Keep U.S. Spying—Even if the Original Dies,’ DAILY BEAST, 5—31—15,
www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2015/05/31/zombie-patriot-act-will-keep-u-s-spying-even-if-the-original-dies.html, accessed 6-1-15.
Then there’s another powerful tool that the FBI and intelligence agencies have long had in their arsenal and still will—national security
letters. They make it relatively easy for investigators to gather up all kinds of communications records. This authority can be used to
collect phone, Internet, and financial records. National security letters were actually around before the Patriot Act became law in 2001,
but the legislation lowered the standard that the government must meet to obtain them. They’ll still be comparatively easy to get now
that portions of the Patriot Act are off the books.
7. The USA Freedom Act is limited—does not address Section 702, Executive Order 12333, or new surveillance
technologies
Human Rights Watch, “Strengthen the USA Freedom Act,” 5—19—15, www.hrw.org/news/2015/05/19/strengthen-usa-freedom-act,
accessed 6-1-15.
Human Rights Watch has supported the USA Freedom Act because it is a modest, if incomplete, first step down the long road to reining
in the NSA excesses. Beyond ending bulk records collection, the bill would begin to reform the secret Foreign Intelligence Surveillance
Act (FISA) Court, which oversees NSA surveillance, and would introduce new transparency measures to improve oversight. In passing
the bill, the House of Representatives also clarified that it intends the bill to be consistent with the Second Circuit’s ruling, so as to not
weaken its findings. The bill is no panacea and, as detailed below, would not ensure comprehensive reform. It still leaves open the
possibility of large-scale data collection practices in the US under the Patriot Act. It does not constrain surveillance under Section 702 of
the FISA Amendments Act nor Executive Order 12333, the primary legal authorities the government has used to justify mass
surveillance of people outside US borders. And the bill does not address many modern surveillance capabilities, from mass cable tapping
to use of malware, intercepting all mobile calls in a country, and compromising the security of mobile SIM cards and other equipment
and services.
8. The USA Freedom Act does little to limit bulk surveillance
Spencer Ackerman, journalist, “Fears NSA Will Seek to Undermine Surveillance Reform,” THE GUARDIAN, 6—1—15,
www.theguardian.com/us-news/2015/jun/01/nsa-surveillance-patriot-act-congress-secret-law, accessed 6-3-15.
The USA Freedom Act, a compromise bill, would not have an impact on the vast majority of NSA surveillance. It would not stop any
overseas-focused surveillance program, no matter how broad in scope, nor would it end the NSA’s dragnets of Americans’ international
communications authorized by a different law. Other bulk domestic surveillance programs, like the one the Drug Enforcement Agency
operated, would not be impacted. The rise of what activists have come to call “bulky” surveillance, like the “large collections” of
Americans’ electronic communications records the FBI gets to collect under the Patriot Act, continue unabated – or, at least, will, once
the USA Freedom Act passes and restores the Patriot Act powers that lapsed at midnight on Sunday.
9. The USA Freedom Act did very little to meaningfully rein in the surveillance state—only limits the small bulk
phone records program
Paul Waldman, journalist, “A Reality Check on the Future of Government Spying,” WASHINGTON POST, Plum Line, 6—3—15,
www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/plum-line/wp/2015/06/03/a-reality-check-on-the-future-of-government-spying/, accessed 6-7-15.
It’s tempting to hail the passage yesterday of the subtly-named USA Freedom Act as a victory for civil liberties in America and a step
toward a healthy recalibration of the government’s surveillance policies. But if that’s your feeling today, you might want to think twice.
Not only are the changes the Freedom Act makes to existing practices relatively minor, both parties have signed on with the dramatic
expansion of surveillance on law-abiding Americans that occurred after September 11. And both will continue to support it. The
Freedom Act does take the bulk collection of Americans’ telephone records out of the hands of the National Security Agency and leaves
those records with the phone companies; it sets up procedures for the NSA to get access to those records when it wants to. But the truth
is that this program wasn’t particularly useful for the NSA to begin with. The government has been unable to point to a single terrorist
attack that was thwarted by the use of these records. Not only that, just last month an appeals court ruled that the bulk collection program
went way beyond anything envisioned by the section of the USA Patriot Act that was used to justify it, and it was therefore illegal
41
Paradigm Research 2015-2016
CX—Electronic Communication Aff
Status Quo: USA Freedom Act Fails [cont’d]
10. The USA Freedom Act does not end backdoor searches of Americans’ Internet records
Steven Nelson, journalist, “Senate Passes Freedom Act, Ending Patriot Act Provision Lapse,” U.S. NEWS & WORLD REPORT, 6—
2—15, www.usnews.com/news/articles/2015/06/02/senate-passes-freedom-act-ending-patriot-act-provision-lapse, accessed 6-7-15.
Jameel Jaffer, American Civil Liberties Union deputy legal director, said the Freedom Act is "the most important surveillance reform bill
since 1978, and its passage is an indication that Americans are no longer willing to give the intelligence agencies a blank check.” The
ACLU was publicly neutral on the bill. “Still, no one should mistake this bill for comprehensive reform," Jaffer said in a statement. "The
bill leaves many of the government’s most intrusive and overbroad surveillance powers untouched, and it makes only very modest
adjustments to disclosure and transparency requirements.” Snowden, speaking via video feed with Amnesty International UK
interviewers shortly before the vote, said the Freedom Act was “a first step and an important step” and heralded the phone program’s
demise as a significant victory in pushing back on government claims to need enhanced powers. The bill does not include some popular
reforms, such as a ban on "backdoor" searches of American Internet records, which passed the House by a veto-proof majority last year.
11. The USA Freedom Act only affects phone records—not other mass surveillance
Scott Bomboy, staff, “USA Freedom Act Signed, So What’s Next for NSA Spying?” CONSTITUTIONAL DAILY, National
Constitution Center, 6—3—15, http://blog.constitutioncenter.org/2015/06/usa-freedom-act-signed-so-whats-next-for-nsa-spying/,
accessed 6-5-15.
Surveillance will certainly continue under other parts of the act and under other government programs designed to combat terrorism. But
the fight in Congress may just be getting started. The New York Times says that Senator Mike Lee and Senator Pat Leahy are moving on
to targeting the government program that allows e-mails older than six months to be read by investigators. Congressional reformers may
also seek to limit the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act. And there is debate in the House and Senate about other spying provisions.
“Some of us don’t think USA Freedom sufficiently ends bulk metadata collection. In fact, [the government] will still contend after the
act passes that they can bulk collect all of the websites and emails and all that content,” said Representative Thomas Massie. “Read it
closely, it’s only about your phone calls.”
12. USA Freedom Act has been watered down—will do little to end metadata collection
Scott Shackford, staff, “Is the USA Freedom At the Best We Can Expect Right Now?” REASON, Hit & Run Blog, 5—20—15,
http://reason.com/blog/2015/05/20/is-the-usa-freedom-act-the-best-we-can-e, accessed 6-5-15.
But what the USA Freedom Act actually does is fairly modest compared to the amount of surveillance authority the NSA had claimed
for itself. It will end the bulk collection of phone metadata collection under Section 215, but that's not the only avenue by which the
federal government claims authority to collect huge amounts of private information. Furthermore, right now we're seeing the third
attempt to get the act passed, and the strength of the reforms has been watered down along the way. Indeed, some of the reforms called
for in the act (storing the telecommunications data with the companies rather than the government and requiring the government to
request it) came from former NSA Director Keith Alexander. The support of the Obama Administration has itself given some pause, due
to its role in fighting lawsuits against the program and the blatant deception of current Director of Intelligence James Clapper before the
Senate about the existence of mass phone record collection.
13. Current reforms are so watered down that they are meaningless
Laura Pitter, Senior National Security Counsel, Human Rights Watch, “It’s Been a year Since Snowden, and Nothing’s Really
Changed,” FOREIGN POLICY, 6—5—14, http://foreignpolicy.com/2014/06/05/its-been-a-year-since-snowden-and-nothings-reallychanged/, accessed 3-13-15.
It’s been a year since we woke to media reports on June 5 that the National Security Agency (NSA) has been sweeping up the phone
records of everyone in the United States. The news was a shock — but as it turns out, it was also only the beginning. In the following
months, we’ve seen a mountain of other revelations: of breathtaking data hauls that collect billions of Internet communications from
around the world, gag orders that bar companies from warning their customers of privacy violations, spying on world leaders, and even
systemic efforts by the U.S. government to break and undermine commercial encryption software. What we’ve seen far too little of over
the past year is any real change. In the wake of the Edward Snowden leaks, the United States has denied some of the allegations, and
disclosed — under pressure — a tiny bit of information about some of its programs. But very little has been done to rein in the
surveillance itself. The few proposed reforms we have seen have been so watered down that none come close to adequately restraining
the government’s capacity for mass electronic surveillance.
42
Paradigm Research 2015-2016
CX—Electronic Communication Aff
Solvency: Ban Mass Surveillance
1. Congress should ban mass surveillance and launch an investigation into current abuses
Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), “Oppose Warrantless Government Spying on American Phone Calls and Emails,” 8—
5—13, www.cair.com/government-affairs/12047-oppose-warrantless-government-spying-on-american-phone-calls-and-emails.html,
accessed 5-1-15.
While some in Congress and the White House say that these spying programs are lawful under the Patriot Act and Foreign Intelligence
Surveillance Act, CAIR and the civil rights community believes that the Fourth Amendment of the U.S. Constitution is clear: The right
of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated,
and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause ... CAIR recommends Congress to amend Section 215 of the USA PATRIOT Act,
the state secrets privilege, and the FISA Amendments Act to ensure that the unwarranted surveillance of internet activity and phone
records from citizens residing in the US is, in fact, illegal and to ensure that violations would be reviewed in a public court. CAIR
recommends for the creation of an investigative committee to reveal the extent and scope of these spying programs, and for a possible
inquiry by the congressional ethics committees, depending on the results of the investigation. This should be done with the intent of
holding elected officials accountable for their involvement in furthering or enabling this unwarranted surveillance. CAIR also
recommends for this investigation to determine what criteria have been used to collect records, and to determine for how long these
records are being stored. Without information regarding these criteria that purportedly establish "foreignness," CAIR remains concerned
that these programs have been discriminating against citizens on the basis of religion and national origin. Legislative initiatives like these
are necessary to protect the fourth amendment rights of all American citizens, including members of the American Muslim community
which has been subject to unwarranted and discriminatory acts of surveillance for more than a decade.
2. The government should not be able to collect non-public personal information
Richard A. Clarke et al., President’s Review Group on Intelligence and Communications Technologies, LIBERTY AND SECURITY IN
A CHANGING WORLD, Report and Recommendations, 12—12—13, p. 108-109.
We recommend that, as a general rule, and without senior policy review, the government should not be permitted to collect and store all
mass, undigested, non-public personal information about individuals to enable future queries and data-mining for foreign intelligence
purposes. Any program involving government collection or storage of such data must be narrowly tailored to serve an important
government interest. We will turn shortly to the section 215 bulk telephony meta-data program. But to orient that discussion and to
establish governing principles, we begin with a broader question, which involves the production not only of telephone calling records,
but also of every other type of record or other tangible thing that could be obtained through a traditional subpoena, including bank
records, credit card records, medical records, travel records, Internet search records, e-mail records, educational records, library records,
and so on.
3. The PATRIOT Act should be amended to end bulk data collection
Leslie Harris, President and CEO, Center for Democracy & Technology, Testimony before the European Parliament LIBE Committee
Inquiry on Electronic Mass Surveillance of EU Citizens, 9—24—13, www.cdt.org/files/pdfs/LIBEtestimony24September.pdf, accessed
2-18-15.
First, the PATRIOT Act should be amended to make it clear that the law does not permit the NSA to collect telephone, Internet, and
other records in bulk. Instead, collection should be limited to records that pertain to terrorists, spies and the like, and to those in direct
contact with them. This reform would ensure that the innocent, everyday communications of Americans, including those with family,
friends and colleagues in Europe, are not swept up into a vast NSA database to be queried at the NSA’s discretion. Members of Congress
have introduced eight bills intended to end bulk collection; none has yet been approved by the relevant committees.
43
Paradigm Research 2015-2016
CX—Electronic Communication Aff
Solvency: Ban Mass Surveillance [cont’d]
4. We need legislation that prohibits bulk collection programs
Harley Geiger, Senior Counsel and Deputy Director, Project on Freedom, Security, and Technology, Center for Democracy and
Technology, Testimony before the Senate Selection Committee on Intelligence, 6—5—14,
www.intelligence.senate.gov/140605/geiger.pdf, accessed 2-18-15.
The driving force behind the USA FREEDOM Act has been the need to prohibit bulk collection of Americans’ sensitive personal
information. Ending “bulk collection” does not just mean ceasing nationwide untargeted surveillance dragnets, but prohibiting largescale government collection and retention of non-public records about persons who are not connected to national security threats. It
would merely perpetuate existing problems to allegedly prohibit nationwide “bulk collection” while permitting collection on the scale of
a state or city, or of millions of users of an Internet service provider, with a single FISA order. Unfortunately, the USA FREEDOM Act,
as passed by the House of Representatives, does not clearly prohibit such activity, nor does it take sufficient steps to protect the privacy
of innocent individuals that would be swept up in such broad surveillance.
5. Congress is particularly well-positioned to protect electronic and records privacy
David Cole, Professor, Law, Georgetown University, “Can Congress Protect Digital Privacy from NSA Spying?,” JUST SECURITY,
2—4—14, http://justsecurity.org/6746/congress-protect-digital-privacy-nsa-spying/, accessed 3-17-15.
I also argue that, as Justice Samuel Alito noted in United States v. Jones, Congress is particularly well situated to provide privacy
protection from advancing technology. It has frequently done so in the past, responding to Court decisions declining to protect bank,
credit card, and pen register information by enacting statutes that regulate and limit the government’s access to such records as a
statutory matter. So, too, Congress has protected video rental records, and imposed special safeguards on subpoenas directed to the press
and to innocent third parties, where the Supreme Court had not or would not recognize Fourth Amendment protection. A Congressional
response is particularly warranted here, because the administration has interpreted Section 215 in a strained manner, contrary to its plain
meaning and the intent of those who enacted it, to give the government free access to the business records of everyone, without any
showing of any particular record’s nexus to terrorist activity.
44
Paradigm Research 2015-2016
CX—Electronic Communication Aff
Solvency: Congressional Actions
1. Congress needs to act to reform the NSA programs—vital to protecting our privacy
David Cole, Professor, Law, Georgetown University, Testimony before the House Judiciary Committee, 2—4—14,
http://judiciary.house.gov/_cache/files/744cf1cd-f600-4bf1-81a0-0527125a8e21/david-cole-testimony.pdf, accessed 2-15-15.
But the revelations also demonstrate that unless the law is adapted to catch up to technological change, we are at risk of forfeiting our
privacy by default. This truth has been recognized by President Obama in his NSA speech, by his expert Review Group, and by the
Privacy and Civil Liberties Oversight Board. It’s been recognized by scholars across the country. And it’s been recognized, in different
contexts, by most members of the Supreme Court. Just as privacy laws had to adapt to the invention of the automobile, the telephone, the
beeper, the GPS, and the thermal imaging device, so, too, they need to adapt to the government’s increasing ability to use computers to
collect and analyze massive amounts of digital data about all of us. Congress has a critical role to play in adjusting the law to reflect the
challenges of technology. As Justice Samuel Alito noted in the Supreme Court’s most recent foray into this area, United States v. Jones,
132 S. Ct. 945, 964 (2012), “a legislative body is well situated to gauge changing public attitudes, to draw detailed lines, and to balance
privacy and public safety in a comprehensive way.” Unlike a court, Congress can consider the problem from a broader perspective.
Congress can respond more quickly than the courts. And Congress may have a better sense of the privacy demands of the American
people. Thus, Congress has in the past often responded to Supreme Court decisions that did not extend Fourth Amendment protection to
particular forms of investigation by imposing statutory limits that protect the American people’s privacy.
2. Congress should order that incidentally collected domestic data cannot be used by intelligence agencies without
a court order
Tyler C. Anderson, J.D. Candidate, “Toward Institutional Reform of Intelligence Surveillance: A Proposal to Amend the Foreign
Intelligence Surveillance Act,” HARVARD LAW & POLICY REVIEW v. 8, Summer 2014, p. 429-430.
Third, Congress should modify Section 1881a so that it explicitly states that any collateral data on U.S. persons collected by intelligence
agencies cannot be used for intelligence purposes without specific FISC authorization. Here, Congress could insert a new requirement
below Section 1881a(d)(1)(B) of the act, stating that any incidental data pertaining to U.S. persons and collected by intelligence agencies
cannot be used without first obtaining a FISC warrant under Section 1881b or 1881c of the act or through normal Title III electronic
surveillance procedures for criminal investigations. This proposal would remedy much of the criticism generated by the programs and
methods recently reported by The Guardian. While Congress need not adopt such a proposal wholesale, clarifying and narrowing the
types of activity that give rise to FAA surveillance would help strengthen the rule-of-law principles our system of governance embodies.
3. Congress should restrict surveillance by amending the FAA to precisely define the conduct that warrants
surveillance and expand oversight
Tyler C. Anderson, J.D. Candidate, “Toward Institutional Reform of Intelligence Surveillance: A Proposal to Amend the Foreign
Intelligence Surveillance Act,” HARVARD LAW & POLICY REVIEW v. 8, Summer 2014, p. 435-436.
Intelligence surveillance, as governed by the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Amendments Act, is in need of re-form. Congress passed
the original Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act in order to help American intelligence agencies conduct surveillance in a pre-internet,
pre-cellphone era, wanting to give the executive branch broad power to spy on non-U.S. citizens abroad, while protecting to the fullest
extent possible the privacy of U.S. persons within the United States. In the years following September 11, 2001, Congress enacted the
Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Amendments Act in order to grant executive branch agencies broader surveillance power than the
agencies had under the original FISA. First, the FAA established a uniform process for seeking judicial authorization of electronic
surveillance. Second, the FAA created a broad category of intelligence surveillance that would not be subject to ex-ante judicial scrutiny
and would only be granted limited ex-post judicial review. The near-consensus on the issue is that the FAA overly delegates broad
surveillance authority to intelligence agencies and minimizes the level of judicial and congressional oversight exercised over these
agencies. Moreover, outside the executive branch, there is no substantial political coalition opposing FISA reform efforts. Instead, the
current system is largely a product of congressional gridlock and inertia. Despite such inaction, these problems cannot be ignored.
Congress should amend the FAA to reduce the scope of surveillance authority granted to intelligence agencies. Congress should do this
by more precisely defining the conduct that would warrant intelligence surveillance targeting. Additionally, Congress should expand the
oversight of intelligence surveillance by both Congress and the courts to ensure that the government does not exceed the authority
granted under the FAA.
45
Paradigm Research 2015-2016
CX—Electronic Communication Aff
Solvency: Congressional Actions [cont’d]
4. Congress should narrow the circumstances in which FISA authorizes surveillance
Tyler C. Anderson, J.D. Candidate, “Toward Institutional Reform of Intelligence Surveillance: A Proposal to Amend the Foreign
Intelligence Surveillance Act,” HARVARD LAW & POLICY REVIEW v. 8, Summer 2014, p. 427-429.
The first step Congress should take in reforming the FAA is to narrow and clarify what would give an intelligence agency authority to
initiate electronic surveillance. Many have argued that one of the reasons the FAA has attracted so much negative attention is simply that
the general public does not understand what type of behavior the act implicates. This is not due to apathy, but rather to vagueness and
secrecy because so much of the information surrounding FISA is classified. Currently, the language of 50 U.S.C. § 1801 suggests that
the FAA is construed incredibly broadly by intelligence agencies--an agency need only reasonably suspect that a target has committed or
could commit any act "that would be a criminal violation if committed within the jurisdiction of the United States or any State" as long
as a target was reasonably suspected of being an agent of a foreign power. As the Snowden leaks demonstrate, ] this provision has in fact
been used to conduct broad-ranging surveillance. Moreover, the act gives no guidance as to what constitutes "reasonable suspicion" by
an intelligence agency. The most sweeping provision, Section 1881a, goes further by failing even to include such a requirement,
requiring only that an intelligence agency not "intentionally target a U.S. person" in order to conduct surveillance activities. By
implication, such a person may be subject to surveillance if her data is knowingly, recklessly, or negligently collected. As the American
people discovered by the disclosures of Edward Snowden, this is exactly how the NSA and the FISA Court have interpreted this
language. Congress should remedy the over-collection of data and clarify what behavior warrants surveillance by narrowing these
provisions. In order to limit this expansive agency discretion, Congress could amend the FAA's most sweeping provision, Section 1881a,
to require that intelligence agencies "reasonably suspect the surveillance targets of being agents of a foreign power" as defined in 50
U.S.C. § 1801. This requirement, as explained above, was incorporated by definition into the FAA in Sections 1881b and 1881c, but not
1881a, and could be added after Section 1881a(g)(2)(A)(v), adopting the language "targets are reasonably believed to be a foreign
power, an agent of a foreign power, or an officer or employee of a foreign power." Furthermore, if Congress were to require that
intelligence agencies swear to and demonstrate such reasonable suspicion when they apply for a FISC warrant, then much of the
criticism of the Act's legal overbreadth would be alleviated, as 1881a could then only be used to target legally suspected terrorists.
Additionally, Congress should narrow the type of activity that constitutes reasonable suspicion by an intelligence agency that a U.S.
person is an "agent of a foreign power" in Sections 1881b and 1881c, which it could accomplish by narrowing the definition of
"international terrorism." One version of this proposal has already been put forth by Seventh Circuit Judge Richard Posner. In Judge
Posner's proposal, the FAA would add an additional targeting requirement such that intelligence agencies would need to reasonably
suspect that targets are threats to national security. Specifically, he would define "threat to national security" to implicate only "threats
involving a potential for mass deaths or catastrophic damage to property or to the economy," and leave to traditional law enforcement the
surveillance of acts that include "ecoterrorism, animal-rights terrorism, and other political violence that, though criminal, does not
threaten catastrophic harm."
5. Congress should bar the NSA from obtaining information from other intelligence agencies that would be illegal
for the NSA to collect for itself
Leslie Harris, President and CEO, Center for Democracy & Technology, Testimony before the European Parliament LIBE Committee
Inquiry on Electronic Mass Surveillance of EU Citizens, 9—24—13, www.cdt.org/files/pdfs/LIBEtestimony24September.pdf, accessed
2-18-15.
Finally, conducting surveillance through the back door should be outlawed. The U.S. Congress should bar the NSA from circumventing
U.S. law by obtaining from other intelligence agencies information U.S. law bars it from collecting itself. It should also bar the NSA
from searching through data collected in the PRISM program for information about Americans unless it meets the domestic standard for
surveillance of Americans.
46
Paradigm Research 2015-2016
CX—Electronic Communication Aff
Solvency: Congressional Actions [cont’d]
6. Congress should enact uniform privacy protections
Jay Stanley and Barry Steinhardt, staff, Technology and Liberty Program, BIGGER MONSTER, WEAKER CHAINS: THE GROWTH
OF AN AMERICAN SURVEILLANCE SOCIETY, American Civil Liberties Union, 1—03, p. 15.
Although broad-based protections against government surveillance, such as the wiretap laws, are being weakened, at least they exist. But
surveillance is increasingly being carried out by the private sector – frequently at the behest of government – and the laws protecting
Americans against non-governmental privacy invasions are pitifully weak. In contrast to the rest of the developed world, the U.S. has no
strong, comprehensive law protecting privacy – only a patchwork of largely inadequate protections. For example, as a result of many
legislators’ discomfort over the disclosure of Judge Robert Bork’s video rental choices during his Supreme Court confirmation battle,
video records are now protected by a strong privacy law. Medical records are governed by a separate, far weaker law that allows for
widespread access to extremely personal information. Financial data is governed by yet another “privacy” law – Gramm-Leach – which
as we have seen really amounts to a license to share financial information. Another law protects only the privacy of children under age
13 on the Internet. And layered on top of this sectoral approach to privacy by the federal government is a geographical patchwork of
constitutional and statutory privacy protections in the states. The patchwork approach to privacy is grossly inadequate. As invasive
practices grow, Americans will face constant uncertainty about when and how these complex laws protect them, contributing to a
pervasive sense of insecurity. With the glaring exception of the United States, every advanced industrialized nation in the world has
enacted overarching privacy laws that protect citizens against private-sector abuses. When it comes to this fundamental human value, the
U.S. is an outlaw nation. For example, the European Union bars companies from evading privacy rules by transferring personal
information to other nations whose data-protection policies are “inadequate.” That is the kind of law that is usually applied to Third
World countries, but the EU counts the United States in this category. We need to develop a baseline of simple and clear privacy
protections that crosses all sectors of our lives and give it the force of law. Only then can Americans act with a confident knowledge of
when they can and cannot be monitored.
7. Our privacy laws need to be updated to reflect current technical realities
David Cole, Professor, Law, Georgetown University, Testimony before the House Judiciary Committee, 2—4—14,
http://judiciary.house.gov/_cache/files/744cf1cd-f600-4bf1-81a0-0527125a8e21/david-cole-testimony.pdf, accessed 2-15-15.
This is a very troubling development for those who believe, as the framers did, that privacy is essential to democracy. As Justice Alito
recognized in United States v. Jones, which involved the use of much less sophisticated technology -- a GPS -- to monitor the public
travel of an automobile for 28 days, our privacy has long rested as much on the practical difficulties of tracking us as on any legal
protections: In the pre-computer age, the greatest protections of privacy were neither constitutional nor statutory, but practical.
Traditional surveillance for any extended period of time was difficult and costly and therefore rarely undertaken. The surveillance at
issue in this case--constant monitoring of the location of a vehicle for four weeks--would have required a large team of agents, multiple
vehicles, and perhaps aerial assistance. Only an investigation of unusual importance could have justified such an expenditure of law
enforcement resources. Devices like the one used in the present case, however, make long-term monitoring relatively easy and cheap.
Just as the GPS makes it cheap to monitor citizens’ public travel, so the proliferation of digital information about almost every
interaction we have, coupled with advances in computer technology, make it possible to collect and aggregate massive amounts of
personally revealing data about all of us. If privacy laws are not adapted to take these developments into account, privacy as we have
long known and cherished it will not survive.
47
Paradigm Research 2015-2016
CX—Electronic Communication Aff
Solvency: Congressional Oversight
1. Effective congressional oversight requires hiring significantly more staff
Fred Branfman, journalist, “We Live Under a Total Surveillance State in America—Can We Prevent It from Evolving into a Full-Blown
Police State?” ALTERNET, 9—25—13, www.alternet.org/activism/we-live-under-total-surveillance-state-america-can-we-prevent-itevolving-full-blown-police, accessed 6-1-15.
D. Congress Must Have The Capacity To Genuinely Oversee Executive Agencies Members of the Senate and House Intelligence
Committees must assert their right to be treated as genuine representatives of the governed. To begin with, they must demand the right to
take notes on classified material the Executive shows them and to have properly cleared staff members accompany or represent them at
briefings. They must punish NSA staff members who play Orwellian word games with them, refusing to answer questions honestly
unless the exact words are used as the NSA defines them, which they keep secret. Members must also insist that they be given all
information on NSA activities. At present, the NSA withholds significant information even from Senate and House Intelligence
Committee members. Legislators must severely punish Executive Branch officials who continue to hide significant information from
them. Most importantly, however, Congress cannot exercise constitutionally-required oversight of Executive Branch activities unless
they can independently investigate them. The Intelligence Committees, like the FISA courts (please see below), must hire significantly
more staff, with the knowledge, power and mandate to oversee Executive Branch military, intelligence and police activities that
potentially threaten the democratic rights of the American people.
2. Requiring greater information sharing is necessary to check abuses by the executive branch
Paul M. Schwartz, Professor, Law, University of California, Berkeley, “Warrantless Wiretapping, FISA Reform, and the Lessons of
Public Liberty: A Comment on Holmes’s Jorde Lecture,” CALIFORNIA LAW REIVEW v. 97 n. 2, 2009, p. 427.
The institutional questions loom large, in my view, and steps are needed to improve the performance of all branches of the government.
Here, I will only sketch some of the possibilities. Regarding the executive branch, as Katyal and Caplan have argued, for example, "[i]f
we want to create the conditions for an executive that acts with greater fidelity to the law, greater attention to internal checks is likely to
be necessary."' 0 5 Part of these checks will come from greater information sharing among the branches. Here is a way of furthering
public liberty-it will ensure that many participants in democratic rule will know about executive branch activities beyond "a closed circle
of like-minded political appointees" (as Holmes puts it)."
3. Congress has a lousy track record in carrying through on oversight—needs to expand it
Paul M. Schwartz, Professor, Law, University of California, Berkeley, “Warrantless Wiretapping, FISA Reform, and the Lessons of
Public Liberty: A Comment on Holmes’s Jorde Lecture,” CALIFORNIA LAW REIVEW v. 97 n. 2, 2009, p. 427-428.
As promising as these opportunities are for congressional involvement, it is necessary to note a poor past track record for this branch of
government in carrying out oversight in a far simpler and less controversial area of telecommunications surveillance. As I have discussed
elsewhere, Congress has manifested a notable lack of interest in obtaining pen register reports from the Department of Justice as required
by statute. Pen registers are devices that record not the content of telephone conversations, but the telephone numbers of outgoing and
incoming calls. The Patriot Act of 2001 amended the Pen Register Act to more broadly include "dialing, routing, addressing, or signaling
information" ("DRAS information") in its definition of data that fall under the statute. IP addresses and email addressing data ("to" and
"from" lines on email and routing) are an example of DRAS information. The lack of pen register reports leads to a significant gap in
knowledge about law enforcement use of its authorities under the Pen Register Act, an essential part of the framework for domestic
electronic surveillance in the United States. More broadly, much of the past congressional oversight of telecommunications surveillance
law has represented a kind of "privacy theater." By this term, I mean that the law creates rituals of behavior, such as a formal
requirement that pen register reports be sent to Congress, and the payoff is the creation of a myth of oversight. It is likely, moreover, to
be far more difficult for Congress to engage in effective engagement with executive branch behavior in the foreign intelligence area.
There is also a real risk that the FAA's oversight requirements will simply contribute to a new kind of privacy theater and bolster the old,
reassuring myth that if excesses exist, Congress will respond by enacting reforms.
48
Paradigm Research 2015-2016
CX—Electronic Communication Aff
Solvency: FCC Oversight
1. Granting oversight authority to the FCC is the best way to rein in the NSA
Audra Healey, J.D. Candidate, “A Tale of Two Agencies: Exploring Oversight of the National Security Administration by the Federal
Communications Commission,” FEDERAL COMMUNICATIONS LAW JOURNAL v. 67 n. 1, 2014, p. 93-94.
According to recent disclosures, the National Security Agency (“NSA”) has been collecting information from hundreds of millions of
email accounts and phone numbers, many belonging to Americans. The NSA’s strategy is to use this information to “draw detailed maps
of a person’s life, as told by personal, professional, political, and religious connections.” Former NSA director Gen. Keith Alexander
argued that the agency’s bulk collection of email and call detail records is necessary because the government “need[s] the haystack to
find the needle.” The NSA’s extensive surveillance of U.S. citizens was brought into the spotlight by the recent disclosures of former
NSA contractor Edward Snowden. The first of Snowden’s disclosures, released by The Guardian on Wednesday, June 5, 2013, revealed
that the NSA was collecting phone call detail records from millions of U.S. consumers on a daily basis. This has prompted widespread
public concern about the extensive information collection policy of the NSA. As technology continues to develop and the Internet
continues to play a major role in modern life, governmental monitoring of Internet activity will likely become an area of increasing
concern. The best way to ensure proper oversight of this monitoring is by empowering an administrative agency: namely, the Federal
Communications Commission (the “FCC”). This Note will address what role the FCC could and should play in overseeing intelligence
activities that implicate individual privacy on the Internet and telecommunications networks. This Note argues that the FCC, as the
expert independent agency that routinely deals with the Internet and telecommunications networks, has both the tools and capacity to
provide some oversight and protection for Internet users. Part II discusses the background of each agency, beginning with the NSA, then
delves into the FCC and its efforts to keep pace with the ever-changing Internet. Part III argues that, because the existing mechanisms for
overseeing governmental, domestic surveillance programs are inadequate, and given the FCC’s long history of scrutinizing the interplay
of national security and privacy involving telecommunications, Congress should empower the FCC to address privacy concerns raised
by the NSA’s surveillance of U.S. citizens. Part IV discusses how the FCC could address NSA surveillance activities, laying out
possible, practical solutions that Congress should provide.
2. The FCC can work—does well in adapting to regulation of new technologies
Audra Healey, J.D. Candidate, “A Tale of Two Agencies: Exploring Oversight of the National Security Administration by the Federal
Communications Commission,” FEDERAL COMMUNICATIONS LAW JOURNAL v. 67 n. 1, 2014, p. 97-98.
The FCC makes a conscious effort to adapt to new technology. Established by the Communications Act of 1934, 30 the FCC regulates
interstate and international communications by radio, television, wire, satellite, and cable in all 50 states, the District of Columbia, and
U.S. territories. As the agency’s then-Chairman acknowledged in 2012, the FCC necessarily plays a role in facilitating the continuing
development of the Internet. Moreover, the FCC’s governing statutes empower the agency to investigate and regulate actual and
potential breaches in communications privacy that threaten customer proprietary network information (“CPNI”), among other types of
customer information. This authority encompasses not only traditional mediums of telecommunications, such as the Public Switched
Telephone Network, but also newer mediums, such as the Internet, to the extent that the FCC considers providers of Internet traffic to be
“telecommunications carriers.” Communications privacy plays an important role in the FCC’s formulation of policies and procedures to
promote the use and development of the Internet, and the FCC may even have substantial authority to act in this area. The agency
recognizes that the adoption of broadband is affected by consumer’s perception of their online privacy and security. Indeed, the FCC has
made a point of adapting to and fostering privacy and security on the Internet by developing industry standards to regulate
communications providers as new technology has developed. To that end, the agency puts a strong emphasis on working with industry
leaders, academics, engineers, federal partners, as well as companies that work to build and expand Internet infrastructure and services,
representatives from state and local entities, and Internet entrepreneurs and pioneers. The FCC has thus made a point to stay abreast of
new technological developments in Internet and broadband technology, while working to facilitate consumer use of and confidence in
this technology.
49
Paradigm Research 2015-2016
CX—Electronic Communication Aff
Solvency: FCC Oversight [cont’d]
3. The FCC can be tasked to engage in NSA oversight—has sufficient expertise
Audra Healey, J.D. Candidate, “A Tale of Two Agencies: Exploring Oversight of the National Security Administration by the Federal
Communications Commission,” FEDERAL COMMUNICATIONS LAW JOURNAL v. 67 n. 1, 2014, p. 106-108.
C. The FCC mission can be naturally expanded to protect privacy in relation to surveillance. The FCC has a strong privacy background
as well as a strong history of promoting openness and transparency on the Internet. First, this section shows the FCC has been extending
many of its regulations to the Internet and adapting to changes in technology as it does so. Second, the FCC has a strong history of
protecting the nation’s communications infrastructure. The FCC has experience with accounting for the globalized nature of
communications. This section next argues that the FCC’s background in these areas prepares the agency to step into a new role
overseeing the NSA collection of data. Finally, this section discusses the benefits of tasking the FCC with this important oversight role.
1. The FCC has strong a background and significant expertise that will allow the agency to provide oversight of the NSA. Since the
“advent of the Internet,” the FCC has been involved in regulating this facet of the nation’s communications infrastructure. For instance,
as early as 1980, the FCC considered the extent to which information processing (as involved in Internet services) required further or
different regulation from other communications networks. In 1980, the FCC began to recognize a distinction between basic and
enhanced services, and applied this distinction until its codification in the Telecommunications Act of 1996. Following codification, the
FCC continued its use of this framework, but expanded its scope to include elements of Internet infrastructure, such as broadband
connectivity. However, the FCC remained willing to consider applying its regulatory framework to new technologies. This flexibility has
helped the agency adapt to new and changing technology as it influences the nation’s communications infrastructure. Additionally, the
FCC acknowledges the impact of privacy on the Internet. The recognition that “[c]onsumers’ privacy needs are no less important when
consumers communicate over and use broadband Internet access than when they rely on [telephone] services,” has played a large part in
FCC policy, as the agency has long supported protecting the privacy of broadband users. The FCC further ensures that consumers have
control over how their information is used, and that they are protected from “malicious third parties.” Moreover, there is a direct link
between consumer confidence and the adoption of new technology, which the agency has taken into account as it formulates new
policies. As former Chairman Genachowski explained, in the FCC’s view, “[i]f consumers lose trust in the Internet, this will suppress
broadband adoption and online commerce and communication, and all the benefits that come with it.” Moreover, the FCC has
recognized that it can, and should, play a major role in protecting privacy and consumer confidence in the Internet, including working
with industry members to provide best practices for security and encouraging broadband adoption. The next logical step is for Congress
to authorize the FCC to further develop Internet privacy principles in the context of protecting consumers from NSA monitoring of their
Internet communications and access of the Internet providers’ infrastructure to do so.
4. The FCC is best positioned to address the challenges posed by NSA oversight
Audra Healey, J.D. Candidate, “A Tale of Two Agencies: Exploring Oversight of the National Security Administration by the Federal
Communications Commission,” FEDERAL COMMUNICATIONS LAW JOURNAL v. 67 n. 1, 2014, p. 116.
The FCC is in a position to provide oversight and transparency to the NSA Internet monitoring scandal. As an agency tasked with
regulating the technology and communications sectors, the FCC has been keeping up with the infrastructure and development of
technology vis-à-vis the Internet as it pertains to its congressional mandate and its own regulations. Moreover, there would not be an
intrusion onto national security efforts because only the volume of information collected would be disclosed. The current crisis in public
confidence shows that there is a place for the FCC to be an integral part of the oversight process. The FCC would focus the inquiry of
the congressional oversight committees and provide the FISA Court with much-needed outside perspective and technical assistance,
while simultaneously giving the public some comfort and adding transparency to the process. This inter-agency monitoring could
increase accountability and public confidence in a way that traditional oversight mechanisms cannot: thus, the FCC is in a unique
position to add value to the oversight of the NSA and Congress should pursue codifying this solution.
50
Paradigm Research 2015-2016
CX—Electronic Communication Aff
Solvency: Surveillance State Reform Act
1. Comprehensive reform is necessary to solve—“nibbling around the edges” is doomed to fail
Alex Marthews, National Chair, “Go Big or Go Home: Pass the New Surveillance State Repeal Act,” RESTORE THE FOURTH, 2015,
http://restorethe4th.com/blog/go-big-or-go-home-pass-the-new-surveillance-state-repeal-act/, accessed 4-27-15.
Nearly two years after Snowden began revealing them, Congress has done nothing to fix the US government's massively abusive
surveillance practices. They think Americans will be OK with an unconstitutional, sprawling, mass-surveillance empire intruding into
every part of our lives. We’re not. It’s time to take a stand. We’ve seen what happens when reformers try to nibble around the edges,
when we try to pre-compromise with the intelligence community. We saw a good reform bill last session, the “USA FREEDOM Act”,
get stripped of nearly everything worth doing as it passed through the process, and then it failed anyway. So this time, we’re setting out
for what we’d really like to see happen–a bill that embodies our vision for a new way of dealing with security and surveillance. Restore
The Fourth has been working quietly with a new coalition of surveillance reform groups and with representatives interested in real
reform, and today we’re helping to launch HR 1466, the Surveillance State Repeal Act. Co-sponsored by Rep. Thomas Massie (R-KY)
and Rep. Mark Pocan (D-WI), this bill strikes at the heart of the surveillance state. The SSRA: repeals the PATRIOT Act; repeals the
FISA Amendments Act; requires the destruction of information gathered under that Act; reforms the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance
Court; bans law enforcement “back doors” into our hardware and software; requires annual audits of intelligence community practices;
protects intelligence community whistleblowers; and requires a probable cause warrant for information on US persons gathered under
Executive Order 12333. It is the only comprehensive surveillance reform bill in this Congress, and it deserves maximum publicity and
support.
2. We should implement to SSRA to check NSA over-surveillance
Alex Marthews, National Chair, “Go Big or Go Home: Pass the New Surveillance State Repeal Act,” RESTORE THE FOURTH, 2015,
http://restorethe4th.com/blog/go-big-or-go-home-pass-the-new-surveillance-state-repeal-act/, accessed 4-27-15.
The SSRA... 1. Repeals the PATRIOT Act and the FISA Amendments Act. The PATRIOT Act was passed by a panicked Congress in
the weeks following the 9/11 attacks. At the time, it was a wet dream for law enforcement. Since then, it’s become clear that it doesn’t
meaningfully help with thwarting terrorist attacks. What it is very good at is legitimating activities more appropriate for the East German
secret police than for a free republic. Secret national security letters that recipients can’t talk about or challenge. Phone metadata
dragnets sweeping up calls from Pawtucket to Peoria. So-called “roving wiretaps” that deeply violate the Fourth Amendment
requirement for particularized probable cause. This was all meant to be “emergency” legislation. The emergency is long past, and it’s
time to bury the PATRIOT Act in the unhallowed ground it deserves. The FISA Amendments Act was passed after the Bush
administration’s illegal mass surveillance became public. Its purpose was to give a vague color of law to their intentional violations,
prevent their prosecution, and also give immunity to the criminals running our telecommunications companies who went along with
administration requests rather than protecting their users. It also turned the Fourth Amendment on its head, by approving warrants
connected to a “program” rather than a person. Not only would SSRA repeal the FISA Amendments Act, but it would require the
destruction of any information gathered under it. 2. Reforms the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court set up after the surveillance
scandals of the 1970s. It increases the independence of judges by extending their terms from seven to ten years and allowing them to
have multiple terms on the Court. It allows technical experts to be appointed to assist the judges in forming a more critical and
independent view of administration demands. 3. Bans the farcical practice of mandating “back doors” for government access to hardware
and software. Computer security can’t be designed to provide a “magic golden key” to the US government (while also making systems
vulnerable to foreign governments and black-hat hackers). You’re either vulnerable or you’re not. The US government should be
promoting secure cyber-infrastructure, not holding conferences on how to weaken it. 4. Improves transparency by requiring the GAO to
audit domestic surveillance annually. Famously, there’s a GAO room at the NSA that is empty, because too many members of Congress
don’t want to appear unpatriotic by calling on GAO to investigate a surveillance agency. Required annual audits would overcome that
problem. 5. Sets out whistleblower procedures for employees of or contractors to intelligence agencies, requires the Comptroller General
to investigate and report on their complaints, and prohibits retaliation against them. 6. For the first time, meaningfully limits collection
under Executive Order 12333, requiring (for US persons) a valid warrant based on probable cause. In short, this is a blockbuster bill. If
passed, it would undo much of the enormous damage done to the Bill of Rights after the September 11 attacks. It would return us to a
path we should never have left, where we investigate Americans only when we have reason to. At the same time, we believe it will
increase our actual security. We have been trying too much to control our own citizens and the world by surveilling them into sullen and
resentful silence; we make a desolation, and call it peace. If instead we practice justice, promote peace, and let people pursue their ideas
and aspirations freely, we will be far more secure in the long run.
51
Paradigm Research 2015-2016
CX—Electronic Communication Aff
Solvency: Surveillance State Reform Act [cont’d]
3. The plan ends NSA efforts to undercut Internet security
Scott Shane and Nicole Perlroth, journalists, “Legislation Seeks to Bar N.S.A. Tactic in Encryption,” NEW YORK TIMES, 9—6—13,
www.nytimes.com/2013/09/07/us/politics/legislation-seeks-to-bar-nsa-tactic-in-encryption.html, accessed 3-20-15.
After disclosures about the National Security Agency’s stealth campaign to counter Internet privacy protections, a congressman has
proposed legislation that would prohibit the agency from installing “back doors” into encryption, the electronic scrambling that protects
e-mail, online transactions and other communications. Representative Rush D. Holt, a New Jersey Democrat who is also a physicist, said
Friday that he believed the N.S.A. was overreaching and could hurt American interests, including the reputations of American
companies whose products the agency may have altered or influenced. “We pay them to spy,” Mr. Holt said. “But if in the process they
degrade the security of the encryption we all use, it’s a net national disservice.” Mr. Holt, whose Surveillance State Repeal Act would
eliminate much of the escalation in the government’s spying powers undertaken after the 2001 terrorist attacks, was responding to news
reports about N.S.A. documents showing that the agency has spent billions of dollars over the last decade in an effort to defeat or bypass
encryption. The reports, by The New York Times, ProPublica and The Guardian, were posted online on Thursday. The agency has
encouraged or coerced companies to install back doors in encryption software and hardware, worked to weaken international standards
for encryption and employed custom-built supercomputers to break codes or find mathematical vulnerabilities to exploit, according to
the documents, disclosed by Edward J. Snowden, the former N.S.A. contractor. The documents show that N.S.A. cryptographers have
made major progress in breaking the encryption in common use for everyday transactions on the Web, like Secure Sockets Layer, or
SSL, as well as the virtual private networks, or VPNs, that many businesses use for confidential communications among employees.
Intelligence officials say that many of their most important targets, including terrorist groups, use the same Webmail and other Internet
services that many Americans use, so it is crucial to be able to penetrate the encryption that protects them. In an intense competition with
other sophisticated cyberespionage services, including those of China and Russia, the N.S.A. cannot rule large parts of the Internet off
limits, the officials argue. A statement from the director of national intelligence, James R. Clapper Jr., criticized the reports, saying that it
was “not news” that the N.S.A. works to break encryption, and that the articles would damage American intelligence collection. The
reports, the statement said, “reveal specific and classified details about how we conduct this critical intelligence activity.” “Anything that
yesterday’s disclosures add to the ongoing public debate,” it continued, “is outweighed by the road map they give to our adversaries
about the specific techniques we are using to try to intercept their communications in our attempts to keep America and our allies safe
and to provide our leaders with the information they need to make difficult and critical national security decisions.” But if intelligence
officials felt a sense of betrayal by the disclosures, Internet security experts felt a similar letdown — at the N.S.A. actions. “There’s
widespread disappointment,” said Dan Kaminsky, a prominent security researcher. “This has been the stuff of wild-eyed accusations for
years. A lot of people are heartbroken to find out it’s not just wild-eyed accusations.” Sascha Meinrath, the director of the Open
Technology Institute, a research group in Washington, said the reports were “a startling indication that the U.S. has been a remarkably
irresponsible steward of the Internet,” which he said the N.S.A. was trying to turn into “a massive platform for detailed, intrusive and
unrestrained surveillance.”
4. We need to extend whistleblower protections to rein in the national surveillance state
Rush Holt, U.S. Representative, “Here’s What Real Reform of the NSA Looks Like,” interviewed by Timothy B. Lee, WASHINGTON
POST, 8—2—13, www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/the-switch/wp/2013/08/02/heres-what-real-reform-of-the-nsa-looks-like, accessed 427-15.
Your proposal also would extend whistleblower protections to national security cases, right? Yes, the legislation provides whistleblower
protection for people who work in the intelligence agencies. Right now, they have no whistleblower protection comparable to what
exists in other agencies. Especially in the [intelligence] agencies we need that. In agencies that are dominated by secrecy and deception,
Congress simply won't know and surely the public won't know either what is being done in their name. If there had been whistleblower
protection, I'm quite sure that Snowden would not have done what he did. Yet we could have, as the president has said, a national debate
about what needs to be done in spying on Americans and others. My bill essentially extends to employees of the intelligence community
the kinds of protections that exist in other agencies. They would be able to go to Congress or to designated officials like inspectors
general without having to fear workplace retribution. Think of the case of Thomas Drake. He uncovered what I think would have to be
called waste and perhaps fraud [at the NSA], and he took that up the chain, and he was severely disciplined for it. It hurt him
professionally, and as we know, the way the story played out, the court chastised the NSA for the treatment. It just shows that you can't
take this up the chain in the agency as a whistleblower and expect fair treatment.
52
Paradigm Research 2015-2016
CX—Electronic Communication Aff
Solvency: Surveillance State Reform Act [cont’d]
5. The plan is necessary—we need root-and-branch reform, which is vital to restoring U.S. tech leadership
Sascha Meinrath, Director, X-Lab, “Opinion: Meaningful Surveillance Reform Must Prioritize Civil Liberties,” CHRISTIAN SCIENCE
MONITOR, 3—24—15, www.csmonitor.com/World/Passcode/Passcode-Voices/2015/0324/Opinion-Meaningful-surveillance-reformmust-prioritize-civil-liberties, accessed 4-27-15.
Now is the time for meaningful surveillance reform. Across the political spectrum, from the progressive left to libertarian right, there is
widespread agreement that mass surveillance has exceeded the bounds of legality, morality, and efficacy. Today, the key ingredients for
a successful surveillance reform agenda can be found in the boldly titled Surveillance State Repeal Act. Among its bold provisions, it
repeals the Patriot Act and the excesses of the 2008 amendment to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act. It would also restore our
civil liberties by clearing out legislation that even the Patriot Act’s main author, Rep. Jim Sensenbrenner (R) of Wisconsin, has stated is
extremely troubling. The Surveillance State Repeal Act begins with the right questions: What parts of these laws, which have proven to
be the catalysts for widespread civil liberties violations, should we even keep? What kinds of surveillance actually work? While many
have made light of Benjamin Franklin’s quote, “Those who would give up essential liberty, to purchase a little temporary safety, deserve
neither liberty nor safety,” few have trivialized the conditions undergirding his missive – namely, that interpretations of law were often
“‘of an extraordinary nature,’ without informing us wherein that extraordinary nature consisted,” and rejected participatory democracy
for “disagreeing with new discovered meanings, and forced constructions of a clause in the proprietary [secret] commission.” The
parallels to the current surveillance state that the proposed repeal act aims to address couldn’t be clearer. Previous reform efforts have
floundered because they compromised – attempting to lessen the diminution of our freedoms, rather than prioritizing our inherent and
inalienable right to “the preservation of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.” Surveillance reform needs grassroots support – same
as the millions of people who killed the Stop Online Piracy Act in 2012 by overloading congressional phone lines – in order to pass, and
Americans of all stripes are only mobilized by unambiguous and forceful legislation to protect their rights. The Surveillance repeal act is
clear, concise, and accessible (the latest version is less than 10 pages long), and rolls back some of the worst constitutional abuses with a
hard reset of the US government’s surveillance powers. The proposal enables a much-needed debate about how to effectively stop
terrorism, ensure national security, and preserve the civil liberties that are the heart of American democracy. As Alexis de Tocqueville
wrote over 150 years ago, “What good does it do me, after all, if an ever-watchful authority keeps an eye out to ensure that my pleasures
will be tranquil and races ahead of me to ward off all danger, sparing me the need even to think about such things, if that authority, even
as it removes the smallest thorns from my path, is also absolute master of my liberty.” Even while the repeal act is being debated,
surveillance reformers have the opportunity to strictly limit the scope of the Patriot Act by refusing "clean" reauthorization of Section
215 of the bill, which has been interpreted to authorize the National Security Agency’s mass surveillance of telephone records, and, as
Sen. Ron Wyden (D) of Oregon recently revealed, even more surveillance than is publicly known. FreedomWorks policy analyst Jason
Pye argues that sunsetting 215 is also crucial for the US tech industry, which is being shut out of business abroad in light of weak
protections for data stored in the US. Informed decisions would be greatly aided by the public release of the mandatory Department of
Justice report on how Section 215 is being used, which, despite a mandate to create twice-yearly reports, the last public release was nine
years ago. As government surveillance expert and watchdog, Marcy Wheeler, points out, we shouldn’t reauthorize an invasive
surveillance law if even the most minimal oversight procedures aren’t currently being followed. Legislative fixes are essential, but
insufficient to rein in mass surveillance. To restore civil liberties we need to address the use of Executive Order 12333, which has been
interpreted by the intelligence community to authorize many of their programs. The good news is that the Obama administration, with
the flick of a pen, has the authority to unilaterally revoke this facet surveillance regime; we just need a bold administration that leads by
example. The problems of our current mass surveillance regime extend into the judiciary as well – with the rubber-stamping of key
activities by secret courts initially intended to oversee the intelligence community. As recently declassified documents have shown, the
secret FISA Court has issued rulings that are almost always in favor of the intelligence community, even while acknowledging that that
same intelligence community has been systematically misleading the FISA Court. And since the FISA Court issues rulings in secret –
the kind of activity rightfully condemned when used by regimes like Iran and North Korea –we often don’t learn about the myriad
abuses that are occurring (and certainly, even today, only know a subset of the abuses that may be ongoing). While a “collect-it-all”
mentality may seem wise upon first blush, as Pat Eddington at the Cato Institute has noted, retrospective analyses have repeatedly
confirmed that the Intelligence Community missed known connections that predicted terrorist attacks within the US. In essence,
systematically violating our civil liberties in the name of security has undermined the former without accomplishing the latter. The
Internet is global, and as a global leader, the US helps set the standards for acceptable behavior. Mass domestic and foreign spying
legitimates the same behavior by other regimes while simultaneously creating a perverse incentive to create a more fractured global
communications system. In the long run, international rules and agreements are needed to prevent a 21st century cybersiege where the
information and communications of US citizens is actively vacuumed up by dozens of nations all around the globe. It’s time for the US
to start acting like the ethical Internet steward that it once was. The Surveillance State Repeal Act makes a giant step toward protecting
our civil liberties and restoring global trust.
53
Paradigm Research 2015-2016
CX—Electronic Communication Aff
Solvency: Surveillance State Reform Act [cont’d]
6. The SSRA rolls back domestic surveillance and provides meaningful protections to whistleblowers
RT, staff, “Bipartisan Bill Would Repeal Patriot Act, Cut Down American Surveillance,” 3—25—15, http://rt.com/usa/243745-billrepeal-patriot-act-surveillance/, accessed 4-27-15.
The bipartisan Surveillance State Repeal Act, if passed, would repeal dragnet surveillance of Americans’ personal communications,
overhaul the federal domestic surveillance program, and provide protections for whistleblowers. House lawmakers Mark Pocan (D-Wis.)
and Thomas Massie (R-Ky.) are co-sponsoring bill H.R.1466, which was introduced on Tuesday and would repeal the 2001 Patriot Act,
limit powers of the FISA Amendments Act, and prohibit retaliation against federal national security whistleblowers, according to The
Hill. “The Patriot Act contains many provisions that violate the Fourth Amendment and have led to a dramatic expansion of our
domestic surveillance state,” said Rep. Massie in a statement. "Our Founding Fathers fought and died to stop the kind of warrantless
spying and searches that the Patriot Act and the FISA Amendments Act authorize. It is long past time to repeal the Patriot Act and
reassert the constitutional rights of all Americans.” Specifically, the bill would revoke all the powers of the Patriot Act, and instruct the
Director of National Intelligence and the Attorney General to destroy any information collected under the FISA Amendments Act
concerning any US person not under investigation. It would repeal provisions of the FISA Amendments Act to ensure surveillance of
email data only occurs with a valid warrant based on probable cause. The bill would also prohibit the government from mandating that
manufacturers build mechanisms allowing the government to bypass encryption in order to conduct surveillance. Specifically, the bill
would revoke all the powers of the Patriot Act, and instruct the Director of National Intelligence and the Attorney General to destroy any
information collected under the FISA Amendments Act concerning any US person not under investigation. It would repeal provisions of
the FISA Amendments Act to ensure surveillance of email data only occurs with a valid warrant based on probable cause. The bill would
also prohibit the government from mandating that manufacturers build mechanisms allowing the government to bypass encryption in
order to conduct surveillance. Additionally, the bill would protect a federal whistleblower’s efforts to expose mismanagement, waste,
fraud, abuse, or criminal behavior. It would also make retaliation against anyone interfering with those efforts – such as threatening them
with punishment or termination – illegal. “Really, what we need are new whistleblower protections so that the next Edward Snowden
doesn’t have to go to Russia or Hong Kong or whatever the case may be just for disclosing this,” Massie said. There have been previous
attempts to limit dragnet surveillance under the Patriot Act since former National Security Agency analyst Edward Snowden leaked
information regarding the programs in 2013, but the Senate bill introduced in 2013 never reached the floor for a vote. “The warrantless
collection of millions of personal communications from innocent Americans is a direct violation of our constitutional right to privacy,”
said Rep. Pocan in a statement. “Revelations about the NSA’s programs reveal the extraordinary extent to which the program has
invaded Americans’ privacy. I reject the notion that we must sacrifice liberty for security – we can live in a secure nation which also
upholds a strong commitment to civil liberties. This legislation ends the NSA’s dragnet surveillance practices, while putting provisions
in place to protect the privacy of American citizens through real and lasting change.”
7. The SSRA is critical to effective oversight
Rush Holt, U.S. Representative, “Here’s What Real Reform of the NSA Looks Like,” interviewed by Timothy B. Lee, WASHINGTON
POST, 8—2—13, www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/the-switch/wp/2013/08/02/heres-what-real-reform-of-the-nsa-looks-like, accessed 427-15.
What can be done to make the intelligence community more transparent and accountable? Part of the problem is that the NSA has been
using these [laws] as excuses for doing a lot of things. And the FISA court has been insufficient in its review. That's why I think they
should be repealed. Can the NSA, can the CIA, can other intelligence agencies do things that are not in the national interest? You bet
they can. They have from time to time over decades. Congress has to do a better job of oversight. There's no question that it's made hard
when the intelligence agencies obfuscate and cherry-pick what they tell Congress. No one likes to be criticized, and therefore no agency
likes Congressional oversight. But many agencies understand that for this government with balance of powers to work, they have to
cooperate in the oversight. You've heard no doubt members of Congress who have served on the Intelligence Committees say they have
to play a form of 20 questions with intelligence witnesses. For many of the witnesses, their idea of being straightforward and honest is
giving the narrowest possible specific answer to a question, not really providing the information Congress actually needs. They play a
little game to see if members of Congress will ask these specific questions, to which they'll give an answer that's relevant. If a member
doesn't ask that specific question, the intelligence officials will leave the meeting room smiling to themselves about protecting the
secrecy of their agency. It's a game that doesn't serve the oversight process, it's a game that doesn't serve America well.
54
Paradigm Research 2015-2016
CX—Electronic Communication Aff
Solvency: Surveillance State Reform Act [cont’d]
8. The SSRA imposes massive The SSRA solves any circumvention issues—forces transparency, implements
strong oversight, and forces the surveillance establishment to justify their programs
Shahid Buttar, Director, Civil Rights Enforcement and Executive Director, Bill of Rights Defense committee, , “Back to Square One on
Spying,” Green Shadow Cabinet, 3—26—15, http://greenshadowcabinet.us/statements/back-square-one-spying, accessed 4-27-15.
Eager to reset the debate and anchor it in long overdue transparency, a bipartisan block of representatives have introduced a bill to
restore civil liberties, privacy, and freedom of thought. The Surveillance State Repeal Act, HR 1466, would do this by repealing the twin
pillars of the NSA dragnet: the PATRIOT Act (not only the three expiring provisions) and the 2008 FISA amendments. On multiple
occasions, executive officials have lied under oath to congressional oversight committees about the scope of domestic surveillance. Yet
the very same officials still appear in oversight hearings as if they maintained any credibility. It took whistleblowers resigning their
careers to prove that senior government officials’ blithe assurances to Congress were in fact self-serving lies. Some members of
Congress paid attention: the authors of the PATRIOT Act moved to curtail their own legislative opus, and have encouraged their
colleagues not to reauthorize the expiring provisions unless they are first curtailed. HR 1466 (the SSRA) represents a profound challenge
by members of Congress from across the political spectrum fed up with the national security establishment and its continuing assault on
our Constitution. By repealing the twin pillars of the surveillance dragnet, the SSRA would essentially shift the burden of proof, forcing
intelligence agencies like the NSA and FBI to justify the expansion of their powers from a constitutional baseline, rather then the
illegitimate status quo. Most policymakers forget the 9/11 commission’s most crucial finding: the intelligence community's failures that
enabled the 9/11 attacks were not failures of limited data collection, but rather failures of data sharing & analysis. Over the last 15 years,
Congress has allowed the agencies to expand their collection capacities, solving an imaginary problem while creating a host of real
threats to US national security far worse than any act of rogue violence: the specter of state omniscience, immune from oversight and
accountability, and thus vulnerable to politicization. This was among the fears of which President Eisenhower warned us in his last
speech as President. Meanwhile, the SSRA would preserve what the PATRIOT Act’s authors have said they meant to authorize: targeted
investigations of particular people suspected by authorities to present potential threats. HR 1466 would also advance transparency, both
by protecting conscientious whistleblowers from the corrupt retaliation of agencies and careerists, and by giving judges on the secret
FISA court access to technical expertise they have been denied. Finally, the bill would directly address disturbing government duplicity,
prohibiting agencies from hacking encryption hardware and software, and from using an executive order authorizing foreign surveillance
as a basis to monitor Americans. Mass surveillance has never been popular in America. Hundreds of cities and multiple states have
raised their voices seeking a restoration of constitutional limits on an increasingly imperial federal executive. Nor is mass surveillance
constitutional. A 1979 case contorted by agency lawyers into providing a legal basis for surveillance stands for nothing of the sort: Smith
v Maryland was a case addressing targeted surveillance of a particular person, based on reasonable suspicion, limited to a particular
time. Intelligence agencies today monitor every American, without any basis for suspicion, all the time. Members of Congress who
remember their oaths of office should support the SSRA to force a long overdue transparent debate. And Americans who value privacy,
checks & balances, or freedom of thought should take a moment to educate Members of Congress who might not.
9. The SSRA solves both overreaching domestic surveillance and security backdoors without undermining our
counterterror efforts
Mark Kibbe, President and CEO, “Letter in Support of the Surveillance State Repeal Act,” FREEDOMWORKS, 3—24—15,
www.freedomworks.org/content/letter-support-surveillance-state-repeal-act, accessed 4-27-15.
The Surveillance State Repeal Act would repeal the misguided USA PATRIOT Act and the FISA Amendments Act of 2008. The
PATRIOT Act, passed in the panicked aftermath of the tragic September 11th attacks, gives the federal government an unprecedented
amount of power to monitor the private communications of U.S. citizens without a warrant. The FISA Amendments Act of 2008
expanded the wiretapping program to grant the government more power. Both laws clearly violate our 4th Amendment right against
unreasonable searches. The Surveillance State Repeal Act would prohibit the government from collecting information on U.S. citizens
obtained through private communications without a warrant. It would mandate that the Government Accountability Office (GAO)
regularly monitor domestic surveillance programs for compliance with the law and issue an annual report. A section of the bill explicitly
forbids the government from mandating that electronic manufacturers install “back door” spy software into their products. This is a
legitimate concern due to a recently released security report finding government spying software on hard drives in personal computers in
the United States. It’s important to note that the Surveillance State Repeal Act saves anti-terrorism tools that are useful to law
enforcement. It retains the ability for government surveillance capabilities against targeted individuals, regardless of the type of
communications methods or devices being used. It would also protect intelligence collection practices involving foreign targets for the
purpose of investigating weapons of mass destruction.
55
Paradigm Research 2015-2016
CX—Electronic Communication Aff
Solvency: Surveillance State Reform Act [cont’d]
10. The current reforms are laughable—former NSA director agrees
Dan Froomkin, journalist, “Hayden Mocks Extent of Post-Snowden Reform: ‘And This Is It After Two years? Cool!” THE
INTERCEPT, 6—17—15, https://firstlook.org/theintercept/2015/06/17/hayden-mocks-extent-post-snowden-surveillance-reform-2years-cool/, accessed 6-29-15.
Former National Security Agency director Michael Hayden on Monday marveled at the puny nature of the surveillance reforms put in
place two years after NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden revealed a vast expansion of intrusive U.S. government surveillance at home
and abroad. Hayden mocked the loss of the one program that was reined in — the NSA’s bulk collection of metadata information about
domestic phone calls — calling it “that little 215 program.” And he said if someone had told him two years ago that the only effect of the
Snowden revelations would be losing it, his reaction would have been: “Cool!” Here is the video and the full text of his remarks: If
somebody would come up to me and say “Look, Hayden, here’s the thing: This Snowden thing is going to be a nightmare for you guys
for about two years. And when we get all done with it, what you’re going to be required to do is that little 215 program about American
telephony metadata — and by the way, you can still have access to it, but you got to go to the court and get access to it from the
companies, rather than keep it to yourself” — I go: “And this is it after two years? Cool!” Hayden was speaking at the annual meeting of
the Wall Street Journal CFO Network, an event hosted “by the Journal’s senior editors” for “an invitation-only group of more than 100
chief financial officers of the world’s largest companies.” Asked if he thought Snowden was a foreign agent, Hayden said: “I’ve got my
suspicions,” although he acknowledged, “I’ve got no evidence.” Some opponents of massive government surveillance hailed the
passage, earlier this month, of the USA Freedom Act. And it did, in fact, mark the first time that Congress has limited the executive
branch’s surveillance authority over four decades of explosive growth. But some observers noted that it was a very small step at best.
The program was just one out of the multitude Snowden revealed — and was so blatantly out of line that its end was virtually a foregone
conclusion as soon as it was exposed. Seemingly irreconcilable media coverage reflected the reality that the reform bill was both
important and, from the NSA’s perspective, trivial. Hayden’s remarks were the most blunt yet emphasizing that latter point.
56
Paradigm Research 2015-2016
CX—Electronic Communication Aff
Democracy Adv: Internal Link—General
1. Granting expansive surveillance powers in the president would simply cripple our democracy
Bruce Fein, constitutional expert, “Presidential Authority to Gather Foreign Intelligence,” PRESIDENTIAL STUDIES QUARTERLY v.
37 n. 1, 3—07, p. 35.
The nation might be marginally safer from foreign terrorists if the Constitution-crowned the president with absolute power to spy on
American citizens at any time or place on his say-so alone. But it would cripple democracy. The people would be frightened from
criticizing the government or undertaking anything unorthodox or nonconformist. The president would assemble a vast pool of political
intelligence to intimidate or destroy his opponents. With little or no public questioning or challenge, presidential hubris would
inescapably give birth to foreign follies. The Founding Fathers had a better idea in sticking with checks and balances, the worst
architecture for maintaining a strong and flourishing democracy except for all others that have been attempted or conceived.
2. The surveillance programs threaten the foundation of our democracy—chill the practice of journalism and law
G. Alex Sinha, fellow, Human Rights Watch, WITH LIBERTY TO MONITOR ALL: HOW LARGE-SCALE US SURVEILLANCE IS
HARMING JOURNALISM, LAW AND AMERICAN DEMOCRACY, Human Rights Watch & the ACLU, 7—14, p. 1.
For much of its history, the United States has held itself out as a model of freedom, democracy, and open, accountable government.
Freedoms of expression and association, as well as rights to a fair trial, are protected by the Constitution, and US officials speak with
pride of the freedom of the media to report on matters of public concern and hold government to account for its actions. Yet, as this
report documents, today those freedoms are very much under threat due to the government’s own policies concerning secrecy, leak
prevention, and officials’ contact with the media, combined with large-scale surveillance programs. If the US fails to address these
concerns promptly and effectively, it could do serious, long-term damage to the fabric of democracy in the country. Specifically, this
report documents the effects of large-scale electronic surveillance on the practice of journalism and law, professions that enjoy special
legal protections because they are integral to the safeguarding of rights and transparency in a democracy. To document these effects, we
interviewed 92 people, including 46 journalists and 42 lawyers, about their concerns and the ways in which their behavior has changed
in light of revelations of large-scale surveillance. We also spoke to current and former senior government officials who have knowledge
of the surveillance programs to understand their perspective, seek additional information, and take their concerns into account in our
analysis. Whether reporting valuable information to the public, representing another’s legal interests, or voluntarily associating with
others in order to advocate for changes in policy, it is often crucial to keep certain information private from the government. In the face
of a massively powerful surveillance apparatus maintained by the US government, however, that privacy is becoming increasingly
scarce and difficult to ensure. As a result, journalists and their sources, as well as lawyers and their clients, are changing their behavior in
ways that undermine basic rights and corrode democratic processes.
3. ‘Total surveillance’ threatens democracy and liberty
Danielle Keats Citron and David Gray, University of Maryland School of Law, “Addressing the Harm of Total Surveillance: A Reply to
Professor Neil Richards,” HARVARD LAW REVIEW FORUM v. 126, 2013, p. 268-269.
Rather than assigning primary edged perils of broader types of surveillance, the law’s focus should be on the dangers of totalizing
surveillance. Information privacy scholars and surveillance studies theorists alike have long adhered to this approach, and for good
reason. Technologies like Virtual Alabama and the fusion-center network amass, link, analyze, and share mass quantities of information
about individuals, much of which is quotidian. What is troubling about these technologies is not what information they gather, but rather
the broad, indiscriminate, and continuous nature of the surveillance they facilitate. Video cameras may be trained on street corners,
drugstore aisles, or a school’s bathroom entrances. The information they gather likely does not implicate intellectual activities. They
nonetheless create and sustain the kind of surveil-lance state that is anathema to liberty and democratic culture. Fusion centers rely upon
data-broker dossiers, much of which has nothing to do with intellectual endeavors. There is no doubt, however, that continuously
streaming all of this information into the information-sharing environment facilitates the sort of broad and indiscriminate surveillance
that is characteristic of a surveillance state.
57
Paradigm Research 2015-2016
CX—Electronic Communication Aff
Democracy Adv: Internal Link—General [cont’d]
4. Even if the intent is not totalitarian, the program itself enables it
Jonathan Schell, fellow, The Nation Institute, “Edward Snowden and Chelsea Manning, the New Dissidents?” THE NATION, 9—4—
13, www.thenation.com/article/176032/edward-snowden-and-chelsea-manning-new-dissidents, accessed 2-22-15.
And certainly, the four Poles, of all people, are as fully aware as any sensible person of the abyss of difference that separates the Obama
administration from, say, the regime of Joseph Stalin, slayer of tens of millions of his own people. And yet it is chillingly true at the
same time that the US government has gone further than any previous government—not excluding Stalin’s—in setting up machinery that
satisfies certain tendencies that are in the genetic code of totalitarianism. One is the ambition to invade personal privacy without check or
possibility of individual protection. This was impossible in the era of mere phone wiretapping, before the recent explosion of electronic
communications—before the cellphones that disclose the whereabouts of their owners, the personal computers with their masses of
personal data and easily penetrated defenses, the e-mails that flow through readily tapped cables and servers, the biometrics, the streetcorner surveillance cameras. But now, to borrow the name of an intelligence program from the Bush years, “Total Information
Awareness” is technologically within reach. The Bush and Obama administrations have taken giant strides in this direction. That China
and Russia—and Britain, and many other countries—have done the same is hardly comforting to the humble individual under the eye of
the universal spying apparatus. A second totalitarian tendency has been the ambition to control the entire globe—a goal built into fascist
as well as communist ideologies of the early twentieth century. In Hannah Arendt’s words, “Evidence that totalitarian governments
aspire to conquer the globe and bring all countries on earth under their domination can be found repeatedly in Nazi and Bolshevik
literature.” Neither achieved it, or even came close. But now, in the limited arena of information, a sort of shadow or rudiment of this
ambition is near realization by the “sole superpower,” the United States. Much attention has been paid to Americans’ loss of privacy
rights, but relatively overlooked in the debate over the government’s surveillance activities (at least in the United States) has been that all
foreign communications—including those occurring in the lands of close allies, such as Germany—are fair game and are being swept
into the US data banks. The extent of the US global reach over information was mirrored in Snowden’s fate. Astonishingly, almost no
fully democratic country would have him. (The conspicuous exception was Bolivia, whose president suffered the indignity of a forced
diversion and landing of his plane when he was suspected of carrying Snowden to safety.) Almost all others, including Poland, bowed to
US pressure, actual or potential, to refuse Snowden protection. The Polish letter writers were scandalized by this spectacle. “The fact that
only dictatorial governments agreed to give him shelter shames the democratic states,” they wrote. “Our democracies discredit
themselves with their indifference and cowardice in this matter.” What happened to Snowden in Moscow diagramed the new global
reality. He wanted to leave Russia, but the State Department, in an act of highly dubious legality, stripped him of his passport, leaving
him—for purposes of travel, at least—stateless. Suddenly, he was welcome nowhere in the great wide world, which shrank down to a
single point: the transit lounge at Sheremetyevo. Then, having by its own action trapped him in Russia, the administration mocked and
reviled him for remaining in an authoritarian country. Only in unfree countries was Edward Snowden welcome. What we are pleased to
call the “free world” had become a giant prison for a hero of freedom.
5. Domestic spying is antithetical to basic democratic principles
Zach Beauchamp, “A Guide to Thinking about NSA Surveillance and Democracy,” THINK PROGRESS, 8—6—13,
http://thinkprogress.org/security/2013/08/06/2423191/surveillance-democracy-nsa/, accessed 2-22-15.
The issue’s actually more basic that Rosen makes it to be. Spying itself is intrinsically at odds with democratic governance and yet
simultaneously something virtually all of us believe the state should be doing, at least to a certain degree. Understanding how to square
that theoretical circle clarifies how we should think about the relationship between democracy and the NSA. Democracies, like plants,
thrive on sunlight. The heart of a democracy, the idea of government by the consent of the governed, requires that the governed know
enough about how they are being governed in order to give real consent. If the government wouldn’t tell me, say, what it was doing with
the economy, it’d be hard to argue that I was consenting in any real sense to the economic policies of the current government. Spying is
by its very nature antithetical to this basic democratic principle. The CIA, NSA, DIA, and all the other sneaky government organizations
whose acronym ends in “A” need to do their work in secret for it to be effective at all. An operation to, say, sabotage Iran’s nuclear
program with a computer virus is not the sort of thing that can be announced publicly before launch. So long as we think that some kind
of international spying and covert operations is critical to national security (which, even if the specific Iran example isn’t, it in principle
almost certainly is), then it seems like we’re consigned to a future in which a significant part of the government is tasked with doing
things that can’t in principle be democratically authorized by American citizens.
58
Paradigm Research 2015-2016
CX—Electronic Communication Aff
Democracy Adv: Internal Link—General [cont’d]
6. Mass surveillance threatens our democratic form of government—chills dissent
Kate Martin, Center for National Security Studies, Testimony before the House Judiciary Committee, 7—17—13, lexis.
As others have detailed, there are serious questions whether these bulk collection programs are within the intended statutory
authorizations, e.g., the domestic telephony meta-data program under sec. 215. There are serious constitutional concerns about the
breadth of and lack of individualized suspicion or particularity in these programs. And there are serious questions whether the secrecy
built into the programs is constitutional and whether it is consistent with effective oversight or a working system of checks and balances.
In examining these authorities and programs, it is important to review not only whether private information about Americans held in
government databases is adequately protected from rogue employees or contractors stealing or misusing the information. While
safeguards are needed against that kind of privacy abuse, the more important danger is that there are inadequate safeguards against
government violations of the law or against deliberate misuse of the information to target the government’s political opponents, chill
dissent or unconstitutionally profile minority communities. As the original Framers recognized, all governments may succumb to the
temptations of power. In my lifetime Senator McCarthy smeared civil servants, the FBI tried to blackmail Dr. Martin Luther King in
order to weaken the civil rights movement, President Nixon created an enemies list of his political opponents, and the Justice
Department wrote a secret legal opinion that the President could break the law in secret if he deemed it necessary for national security.
59
Paradigm Research 2015-2016
CX—Electronic Communication Aff
Democracy Adv: Internal Link—Modeling
1. U.S. programs are modeled—threatens democratic governance
Eileen Donahoe, Visiting Scholar, Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies, Stanford University and former U.S. Ambassador
to the U.N. Human Rights Council, “Why the NSA Undermines National Security,” REUTERS, 3—6—14,
http://blogs.reuters.com/great-debate/2014/03/06/why-nsa-surveillance-undermines-national-security/, accessed 3-14-15.
The U.S. model of mass surveillance will be followed by others and could unintentionally invert the democratic relationship between
citizens and their governments. Under the cover of preventing terrorism, authoritarian governments may now increase surveillance of
political opponents. Governments that collect and monitor digital information to intimidate or squelch political opposition and dissent
can more justifiably claim they are acting with legitimacy. For human rights defenders and democracy activists worldwide, the potential
consequences of the widespread use by governments of mass surveillance techniques are dark and clear. Superior information is
powerful, but sometimes it comes at greater cost than previously recognized. When trust and credibility are eroded, the opportunity for
collaboration and partnership with other nations on difficult global issues collapses. The ramifications of this loss of trust have not been
adequately factored into our national security calculus.
2. Our surveillance systems invite abuse by other countries
Bruce Schneier, journalist and author, “How the NSA Threatens National Security,” THE ATLANTIC, 1—6—14,
www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2014/01/how-the-nsa-threatens-national-security/282822/#about-the-authors, accessed 2-1915.
And finally, these systems are susceptible to abuse. This is not just a hypothetical problem. Recent history illustrates many episodes
where this information was, or would have been, abused: Hoover and his FBI spying, McCarthy, Martin Luther King Jr. and the civil
rights movement, anti-war Vietnam protesters, and—more recently—the Occupy movement. Outside the U.S., there are even more
extreme examples. Building the surveillance state makes it too easy for people and organizations to slip over the line into abuse. It's not
just domestic abuse we have to worry about; it's the rest of the world, too. The more we choose to eavesdrop on the Internet and other
communications technologies, the less we are secure from eavesdropping by others. Our choice isn't between a digital world where the
NSA can eavesdrop and one where the NSA is prevented from eavesdropping; it's between a digital world that is vulnerable to all
attackers, and one that is secure for all users.
60
Paradigm Research 2015-2016
CX—Electronic Communication Aff
Democracy Adv: Internal Link—NSA
1. We need to increase accountability in our NSA programs—is vital to democracy
Kevin Bankston, Policy Director, Open Technology Institute, New America Foundation, Center for Democracy and Technology,
Testimony before the Senate Judiciary Committee, Subcommittee on Privacy, Technology and the Law, 11—13—13,
www.judiciary.senate.gov/imo/media/doc/11-13-13BankstonTestimony.pdf, accessed 3-10-15.
Democracy requires accountability, and accountability requires transparency. As Congress recognized when it imposed detailed
reporting requirements regarding law enforcement wiretaps, public understanding of how the government uses its surveillance powers is
a critical check on abuse. The need for such a check is even greater in the context of national security investigations, where the
vagueness and breadth the government’s mandate, the greater level of secrecy, and the lack of traditional checks and balances like
individualized and particularized probable cause-based warrants and adversarial proceedings in open courts, all heighten the risk of
overreach and abuse. Detailed government reporting on how national security surveillance authorities are being used is critical to
maintaining accountability. However, neither the rudimentary reporting that is currently required by law, which is basically a tally of the
number of different types of orders issued, nor the additional annual reporting promised in August by the Director of National
Intelligence, is sufficient. That is because neither the statutorily required reporting nor the DNI’s voluntary reporting give any indication
of how many people are actually having their data provided to or obtained by the government under any particular legal authority.
Indeed, the limited additional reporting proposed by the DNI—which would only indicate how many individuals have had their data
“targeted” by the government—would be affirmatively misleading. For example, the DNI’s proposed reporting for 2012 would only
have indicated that around 300 individuals had their data “targeted” under Section 215 of the PATRIOT Act. Yet we now know that the
government has used Section 215 of the PATRIOT Act to obtain the phone records of everyone in the country. Such falsely reassuring
reporting would do more harm than good.
2. NSA activities threaten our democratic system of government
Jameel Jaffer, Deputy Legal Director, ACLU Foundation and Laura W. Murphy, Director, Washington Legislative Office, ACLU,
Testimony before the House Judiciary Committee, 7—17—13, http://www.fed-soc.org/publications/detail/jameel-jaffer-and-lauramurphy-testimony-before-the-house-committee-on-the-judiciary-oversight-hearing-on-the-administrations-use-of-fisa-authorities,
accessed 2-22-15.
To say that the NSA‘s activities present a grave danger to American democracy is no overstatement. Thirty-seven years ago, after
conducting a comprehensive investigation into the intelligence abuses of the previous decades, the Church Committee warned that
inadequate regulations on government surveillance ―threaten[ed] to undermine our democratic society and fundamentally alter its
nature.‖ This warning should have even more resonance today, because in recent decades the NSA‘s resources have grown, statutory and
constitutional limitations have been steadily eroded, and the technology of surveillance has become exponentially more powerful.
Because the problem Congress confronts today has many roots, there is no single solution to it. It is crucial, however, that Congress take
certain steps immediately. It should amend relevant provisions of FISA to prohibit suspicionless, ―dragnet‖ monitoring or tracking of
Americans‘ communications. It should require the publication of past and future FISC opinions insofar as they evaluate the meaning,
scope, or constitutionality of the foreign-intelligence laws. It should ensure that the public has access to basic information, including
statistical information, about the government‘s use of new surveillance authorities. It should also hold additional hearings to consider
further amendments to FISA—including amendments to make FISC proceedings more transparent.
3. The NSA program is a massive threat to core democratic principles
John Prados, senior fellow, National Security Archive, “Demystifying the NSA Surveillance Program,” HISTORY NEWS NETWORK,
7—15—13, http://hnn.us/article/152605, accessed 2-22-15.
A key purpose of law is to prevent the state from trampling the rights of citizens. Here the state has the capability to spy and the citizen
has no protection. That Big Brother is watching does not make it right—or legal. The assumption that government will eavesdrop
anyway is simply an excuse to avoid the debate which has become so crucial. The fact is that the Fourth Amendment to the Constitution
ensures the privacy of the individual in person, property, and effects. The cellphone/notebook/laptop/pc and their contents are personal
effects. The surveillance program which targets externals and leads to the surveillance of effects is a plain violation of the Constitution
no matter what the excuse. The existence of case law that holds a person has no reasonable expectation of privacy in communications
externals—or as quaintly phrased in the Patriot Act, “business records”—merely reflects the history that relevant cases were decided
before eavesdropping techniques became as sophisticated as they now are. Individuals cannot even be recognized as standing before the
courts to bring suit against these practices, and Government is the only party in actions at the FISC, whose proceedings and decisions are
secret. Scarier still, the accumulated NSA database and more intrusive “take” will be used as tools of investigations aimed at ordinary
people. The NSA database amounts to a buzz saw hanging over the heads of citizens. This entire framework is a violation of democratic
principles. It needs to become part of the debate.
61
Paradigm Research 2015-2016
CX—Electronic Communication Aff
Democracy Adv: Impact Ext
1. Democracy is good--decreases war, prolif, famine, terrorism, bolsters U.S. interests
Morton H. Halperin, senior advisor, Open Society Institute, "Unconventional Wisdom," FOREIGN POLICY, January/February 2011,
www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2011/01/02/unconventional_wisdom?page=0,11, accessed 6-7-15.
For there is one thing the neocons get right: As I argue in The Democracy Advantage, democratic governments are more likely than
autocratic regimes to engage in conduct that advances U.S. interests and avoids situations that pose a threat to peace and security.
Democratic states are more likely to develop and to avoid famines and economic collapse. They are also less likely to become failed
states or suffer a civil war. Democratic states are also more likely to cooperate in dealing with security issues, such as terrorism and
proliferation of weapons of mass destruction. As the bloody aftermath of the Iraq invasion painfully shows, democracy cannot be
imposed from the outside by force or coercion. It must come from the people of a nation working to get on the path of democracy and
then adopting the policies necessary to remain on that path. But we should be careful about overlearning the lessons of Iraq. In fact, the
outside world can make an enormous difference in whether such efforts succeed. There are numerous examples-starting with Spain and
Portugal and spreading to Eastern Europe, Latin America, and Asia-in which the struggle to establish democracy and advance human
rights received critical support from multilateral bodies, including the United Nations, as well as from regional organizations, democratic
governments, and private groups. It is very much in America's interest to provide such assistance now to new democracies, such as
Indonesia, Liberia, and Nepal, and to stand with those advocating democracy in countries such as Belarus, Burma, and China. It will still
be true that the United States will sometimes need to work with a nondemocratic regime to secure an immediate objective, such as use of
a military base to support the U.S. mission in Afghanistan, or in the case of Russia, to sign an arms-control treaty. None of that,
however, should come at the expense of speaking out in support of those struggling for their rights. Nor should we doubt that America
would be more secure if they succeed.
2. Democracy locks in U.S. leadership--multiple reasons
Paul D. Miller, Assistant Professor, International Security Affairs, National Defense University, "American Grand Strategy and the
Democratic Peace," SURVIVAL v. 54 n. 2, April-May 2012, p. 60.
Promoting democracy also fits naturally with other long-standing components of US grand strategy. Washington has, for example, long
sought to prevent the rise of a hostile hegemon in strategically important areas of the world – especially Europe or East Asia – by
maintaining a favourable balance of power through military dominance and a network of allies. Preventing hegemony has rightly
animated US policy for generations, from its tack-and-weave between Britain and France from 1776 to 1815 to its involvement in both
World Wars and the Cold War. A commitment to democracy is, in a sense, the corollary to resistance to hegemony, as democratic
systems are defined by a diffusion of power among many actors, thus limiting the chances for tyranny. The same holds internationally:
the United States should work to keep power diffused among many sovereign states and international organisations to prevent the rise of
a hostile, coercive hegemon. Regimes committed to those ideals at home are more likely to apply them abroad, while autocracies are
more likely to seek to expand their power at others’ expense, both domestically and internationally. The growth of democracy abroad
alters the balance of power in the United States’ favour
3. Democracy is the best form of government--protects liberty, checks corruption
Francis Fukuyama, Professor, International Political Economy, School of Advanced International Studies, Johns Hopkins University and
Michael McFaul, senior fellow, Hoover Institution, "Should Democracy Be Promoted or Demoted?" Stanley Foundation, 6--07, p. 4.
First and foremost, democracy is the best system of government. Winston Churchill was right: democracy is a terrible system of
government, but still better than all of the others that have been tried. Democracy provides the best institutional form for holding rulers
accountable to their people. If leaders must compete for popular support to obtain and retain power, then they will be more responsive to
the preferences of the people, in contrast to rulers who do not govern on the basis of popular support. The institutions of democracy also
prevent abusive rule, constrain bad rule, and provide a mechanism for removing corrupt or ineffective rule. Furthermore, democracy
provides the setting for political competition, which in turn is a driver for better governance. Like markets, political competition between
contending leaders, ideas, and organizations produces better leaders, ideas, and organizations (which is the premise of the Bridging the
Foreign Policy Divide project). At a minimum, democracy provides a mechanism for removing bad rulers in a way that autocracy does
not. The absence of political competition in autocracies produces complacency, corruption, and has no mechanism for producing new
leaders.
62
Paradigm Research 2015-2016
CX—Electronic Communication Aff
Internet Adv: Brinks
1. The entire future of Internet governance hangs in the balance
Laura K. Donohue, Professor, Law, Georgetown University, “High Technology, Consumer Privacy, and U.S. National Security,”
BUSINESS LAW REVIEW (forthcoming), 2015, p. 11,
http://scholarship.law.georgetown.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=2469&context=facpub, accessed 5-9-15.
In the wake of the Snowden documents, ICANN and Brazil have formed an alliance, condemning U.S. actions. Concern about the latest
revelations spurred a major conference in April 2014, the Global Multistakeholder Conference on the Future of Internet Governance.
The purpose of the meeting, which was held in Sao Paulo, was “to produce universal internet principles and an institutional framework
for multi-stakeholder Internet governance.” It is not clear how the newest shifts will be resolved—either temporarily or in the future. But
significant questions have been raised: How should the Internet governance be structured to ensure legitimacy and compliance? Who
gets to make the decision about what such governance looks like? Which bodies have the authority to establish future rules and
procedures? How are such bodies constituted and who selects their membership? These questions are fundamentally at odds with the
decentralization tendencies in the Internet—tendencies that have been exaggerated post-Snowden as a result of regional efforts to expand
the local sphere of influence and to protect consumer and state privacy from U.S. surveillance. The U.S. government’s failure to address
the situation domestically has undermined the tech industry. Despite calls from the companies for legislative reform to address the
breadth of the NSA programs, there has been no significant shift that would allow companies to approach their customers to say, with
truth, that the situation has changed. Resultantly, American companies are losing not just customers, but also the opportunity to submit
proposals for contracts for which they previously would have been allowed to compete. The future of Internet governance hangs in the
balance.
2. There is a growing push for national regulation of the Internet—we need to combat it
James L. Gattuso, Senior Research Fellow, SAVING INTERNET FREEDOM, Special Report n. 168, Heritage Foundation, 6—3—15,
p. 2.
But these changes are not universally welcomed. The disruptive force of the Internet is a threat to those who have enjoyed unchallenged
political power and economic rents from the status quo ante. This has led to attempts by governments around the world to limit its use,
and forestall the changes that it makes possible. The trend is disturbing. In its 2014 survey of the state of Internet freedom around the
globe, Freedom House records the fourth straight year of declining freedom on the Net. From 2013 to 2014, Freedom House found 41
countries passing or proposing online-speech restrictions and arrests related to online political speech in 38 countries. Moreover, it
reports continued widespread blocking and filtering of online content by governments, as well as government-sponsored cyberattacks
against other countries’ governments and businesses. Infringements on the Internet are not limited to the world’s dictatorships. The
European Union, for example, recently required search engines, upon request, to remove links to categories of personal information,
such as prior bankruptcies, which courts deem no longer relevant or lack a compelling public interest meriting disclosure—in effect
forcing search engines, such as Google, to censor content.
3. The door is open to global regulation—U.S. stepping down from ICANN leadership role
James L. Gattuso, Senior Research Fellow, SAVING INTERNET FREEDOM, Special Report n. 168, Heritage Foundation, 6—3—15,
p. 2.
Global Internet governance. Many nations, such as China and Russia, have made no secret of their desire to limit speech on the Internet.
Even some democratic nations have supported limiting freedoms online. With the U.S. government’s decision to end its oversight of the
Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN), the private, nonprofit organization that manages name and number
assignments on the Internet, these countries see a chance to fill the vacuum, and to use ICANN’s Internet governance role to limit
expression on the Web.
63
Paradigm Research 2015-2016
CX—Electronic Communication Aff
Internet Adv: Internal Link—Topshelf
1. The surveillance program imposes enormous costs—undermines our economy, internet freedom, diplomacy,
and cybersecurity
Danielle Kehl et al., policy analyst, “Surveillance Costs: The NSA’s Impact on the Economy, Internet Freedom & Cybersecurity,”
POLICY PAPER, Open Technology Institute, New America, 7—14, p. 2.
While intelligence officials have vigorously defended the merits of the NSA programs, they have offered little hard evidence to prove
their value—and some of the initial analysis actually suggests that the benefits of these programs are dubious. Three different studies—
from the President’s Review Group on Intelligence and Communications Technologies, the Privacy and Civil Liberties Oversight Board,
and the New America Foundation’s International Security Program—question the value of bulk collection programs in stopping terrorist
plots and enhancing national security. Meanwhile, there has been little sustained discussion of the costs of the NSA programs beyond
their impact on privacy and liberty, and in particular, how they affect the U.S. economy, American foreign policy, and the security of the
Internet as a whole. This paper attempts to quantify and categorize the costs of the NSA surveillance programs since the initial leaks
were reported in June 2013. Our findings indicate that the NSA’s actions have already begun to, and will continue to, cause significant
damage to the interests of the United States and the global Internet community. Specifically, we have observed the costs of NSA
surveillance in the following four areas: • Direct Economic Costs to U.S. Businesses: American companies have reported declining sales
overseas and lost business opportunities, especially as foreign companies turn claims of products that can protect users from NSA spying
into a competitive advantage. The cloud computing industry is particularly vulnerable and could lose billions of dollars in the next three
to five years as a result of NSA surveillance. • Potential Costs to U.S. Businesses and to the Openness of the Internet from the Rise of
Data Localization and Data Protection Proposals: New proposals from foreign governments looking to implement data localization
requirements or much stronger data protection laws could compound economic losses in the long term. These proposals could also force
changes to the architecture of the global network itself, threatening free expression and privacy if they are implemented. • Costs to U.S.
Foreign Policy: Loss of credibility for the U.S. Internet Freedom agenda, as well as damage to broader bilateral and multilateral
relations, threaten U.S. foreign policy interests. Revelations about the extent of NSA surveillance have already colored a number of
critical interactions with nations such as Germany and Brazil in the past year. • Costs to Cybersecurity: The NSA has done serious
damage to Internet security through its weakening of key encryption standards, insertion of surveillance backdoors into widely-used
hardware and software products, stockpiling rather than responsibly disclosing information about software security vulnerabilities, and a
variety of offensive hacking operations undermining the overall security of the global Internet.
2. NSA programs are dangerous—undermine creativity and innovation, democracy, and counterterrorism
cooperation
Stephen Schulhofer, Professor, Law, New York University, “Making Sense of the NSA Metadata Collection Program (Part II),” JUST
SECURITY, 11—8—13, http://justsecurity.org/2985/making-sense-nsa-metadata-collection-program-part-ii/, accessed 2-27-15.
In this post I turn a spotlight on the first of those two crucial points. The fact is that despite its undeniable value (its potential to catch the
elusive terrorist who might otherwise evade law enforcement attention), the NSA program has costly side effects. Three in particular
stand out – metadata surveillance will stultify the vibrancy and creativity that drive America’s cultural and economic success; it will
undermine freedom of the press and democratic deliberation; and – paradoxically – it will even weaken the effectiveness of the
counterterrorism effort itself. The drawbacks are so acute that no thoughtful supporter of a strong counterterrorism machinery should rest
content with the observation that metadata collection can pay off in various actual or hypothetical scenarios. Whether our top priority is
the defense of civil liberties or prevention of the next attack, in either case it is imperative to seek out alternatives that promise similar
advantages without the NSA program’s dangerous consequences. In a subsequent installment of this comment, I will focus on concrete
ways that viable threshold requirements for data acquisition, together with stronger mechanisms of accountability, transparency and
independent oversight, can preserve virtually all of the NSA program’s value at considerably lower cost to our democracy and to law
enforcement itself.
64
Paradigm Research 2015-2016
CX—Electronic Communication Aff
Internet Adv: Internal Link—China
1. China is using “sovereignty” justifications to confound U.S. efforts to promote an open Internet
Amy Chang, Research Associate, Center for a New American Security, “How the ‘Internet with Chinese Characteristics’ Is Rupturing
the Web,” HUFFINGTON POST, 2—14—15, www.huffingtonpost.com/amy-chang-/china-internet-sovereignty_b_6325192.html,
accessed 3-2-15.
China is openly undermining the United States' vision of a free and open Internet. Motivated by maintaining the fragile balance between
information control, social and political stability, and continued modernization and economic growth for an online population of over
600 million, the Chinese government is attempting to alter how nations understand their role in Internet governance through a concept
called "Internet sovereignty." Internet sovereignty refers to the idea that a country has the right to control Internet activity within its own
borders, and it is what China refers to as a natural extension of a nation-state's authority to handle its own domestic and foreign affairs.
For the United States and other Western nations, however, Internet governance is delegated to an inclusive and distributed set of
stakeholders including government, civil society, the private sector, academia, and national and international organizations (also known
as the multi-stakeholder model of Internet governance). Lu Wei, the head of the State Internet Information Office and the director of a
powerful cybersecurity strategy group comprised of China's top leaders, is the administrative ringleader of the Chinese Internet. With a
long background working in China's propaganda apparatus, Lu has been behind China's recent campaigns promoting its conception of
Internet sovereignty abroad, including a trip to Washington D.C. and Silicon Valley in the first week of December.
2. The NSA problems are adding momentum to Chinese efforts
Amy Chang, Research Associate, Center for a New American Security, “How the ‘Internet with Chinese Characteristics’ Is Rupturing
the Web,” HUFFINGTON POST, 2—14—15, www.huffingtonpost.com/amy-chang-/china-internet-sovereignty_b_6325192.html,
accessed 3-2-15.
China has engaged the international community on this front, wishing to signal to other countries that it is a responsible and cooperative
actor on technology issues. Understanding that international norms and law have yet to codify Internet governance and cyber activity,
China has invested significant effort to set the course for international norms in Internet governance. China's push for Internet
sovereignty gained momentum abroad after Edward Snowden released information about U.S. National Security Agency surveillance
programs. Capitalizing on the anti-U.S. sentiment in other authoritarian countries like Russia, Iran, and Saudi Arabia, China wooed
developing countries with growing online populations to consider the benefits of control of the Internet.
65
Paradigm Research 2015-2016
CX—Electronic Communication Aff
Internet Adv: Internal Link—China [cont’d]
3. The surveillance programs are driving countries into the arms of Russia and China—they gut our Internet
freedom efforts
Danielle Kehl et al., policy analyst, “Surveillance Costs: The NSA’s Impact on the Economy, Internet Freedom & Cybersecurity,”
POLICY PAPER, Open Technology Institute, New America, 7—14, p. 21-22.
However, the Internet governance conversation took a dramatic turn after the Snowden disclosures. The annual meeting of the Freedom
Online Coalition occurred in Tunis in June 2013, just a few weeks after the initial leaks. Unsurprisingly, surveillance dominated the
conference even though the agenda covered a wide range of topics from Internet access and affordability to cybersecurity. Throughout
the two-day event, representatives from civil society used the platform to confront and criticize governments about their monitoring
practices. NSA surveillance would continue to be the focus of international convenings on Internet Freedom and Internet governance for
months to come, making civil society representatives and foreign governments far less willing to embrace the United States’ Internet
Freedom agenda or to accept its defense of the multi-stakeholder model of Internet governance as a anything other than self-serving.
“One can come up with all kinds of excuses for why US surveillance is not hypocrisy. For example, one might argue that US policies are
more benevolent than those of many other regimes… And one might recognize that in several cases, some branches of government don’t
know what other branches are doing… and therefore US policy is not so much hypocritical as it is inadvertently contradictory,” wrote
Eli Dourado, a researcher from the Mercatus Center at George Mason University in August 2013. “But the fact is that the NSA is
galvanizing opposition to America’s internet freedom agenda.” The scandal revived proposals from both Russia and Brazil for global
management of technical standards and domain names, whether through the ITU or other avenues. Even developing countries, many of
whom have traditionally aligned with the U.S. and prioritize access and affordability as top issues, “don’t want US assistance because
they assume the equipment comes with a backdoor for the NSA. They are walking straight into the arms of Russia, China, and the ITU.”
Consequently, NSA surveillance has shifted the dynamics of the Internet governance debate in a potentially destabilizing manner. The
Snowden revelations “have also been well-received by those who seek to discredit existing approaches to Internet governance,” wrote
the Center for Democracy & Technology’s Matthew Shears. “There has been a long-running antipathy among a number of stakeholders
to the United States government’s perceived control of the Internet and the dominance of US Internet companies. There has also been a
long-running antipathy, particularly among some governments, to the distributed and open management of the Internet.” Shears points
out that evidence of the NSA’s wide-ranging capabilities has fueled general concerns about the current Internet governance system,
bolstering the arguments of those calling for a new government-centric governance order. At the UN Human Rights Council in
September 2013, the representative from Pakistan—speaking on behalf of Cuba, Venezuela, Zimbabwe, Uganda, Ecuador, Russia,
Indonesia, Bolivia, Iran, and China—explicitly linked the revelations about surveillance programs to the need for reforming Internet
governance processes and institutions to give governments a larger role. Surveillance issues continued to dominate the conversation at
the 2013 Internet Governance Forum in Bali as well, where “debates on child protection, education and infrastructure were
overshadowed by widespread concerns from delegates who said the public’s trust in the internet was being undermined by reports of US
and British government surveillance.”
66
Paradigm Research 2015-2016
CX—Electronic Communication Aff
Internet Adv: Internal Link—General
1. The NSA programs are undermining the effectiveness of the U.S.’s global internet policy
Kim Zetter, journalist, “Personal Privacy Is Only One of the Costs of NSA Surveillance,” WIRED, 7—29—14,
www.wired.com/2014/07/the-big-costs-of-nsa-surveillance-that-no-ones-talking-about/, accessed 2-19-15.
Finally, the NSA’s spying activities have greatly undermined the government’s policies in support of internet freedom around the world
and its work in advocating for freedom of expression and combating censorship and oppression. “As the birthplace for so many of these
technologies, including the internet itself, we have a responsibility to see them used for good,” then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton
said in a 2010 speech launching a campaign in support of internet freedom. But while “the US government promotes free expression
abroad and aims to prevent repressive governments from monitoring and censoring their citizens,” the New American report notes, it is
“simultaneously supporting domestic laws that authorize surveillance and bulk data collection.” The widespread collection of data,
which has a chilling effect on freedom of expression, is precisely the kind of activity for which the U.S. condemns other countries. This
hypocrisy has opened a door for repressive regimes to question the US role in internet governance bodies and has allowed them to argue
in favor of their own governments having greater control over the internet. At the UN Human Rights Council in September 2013, the
report notes, a representative from Pakistan—speaking on behalf of Cuba, Iran, China and other countries—said the surveillance
programs highlighted the need for their nations to have a greater role in governing the internet.
2. The programs threaten our Internet freedom agenda
Danielle Kehl and Kevin Bankston, Open Technology Institute, “A Year After Snowden, the Real Costs of NSA Surveillance,” CNN,
6—4—14, www.cnn.com/2014/06/04/opinion/kehl-bankston-nsa-surveillance/, accessed 2-20-15.
NSA's surveillance programs have also impacted U.S. foreign policy goals and hurt our relations with strategic allies, as we've found in
preparing for an upcoming report on the topic. The credibility of the Internet Freedom agenda, a major initiative launched by Secretary
of State Hillary Clinton in 2010, has been sapped. Russia and China, which have sought to exert greater control over the Internet for
many years, are growing more skeptical of the American role in governance of the Internet. German Chancellor Angela Merkel was
enraged to discover that the NSA had listened to calls on her personal cell phone, creating tension between the United States and
Germany as the two must work together on issues such as the Ukraine crisis. Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff became the first world
leader to turn down a state dinner with the President of the United States.
3. NSA surveillance has undermined our ability to head off national Internet regulation—is in a holding pattern
now
Brett D. Schaefer, Senior Research Fellow, “Internet Governance: Past, Present, Future,” SAVING INTERNET FREEDOM, Special
Report n. 168, Heritage Foundation, 6—3—15, p. 12.
Unfortunately, the leaking of National Security Agency (NSA) surveillance in 2013 eroded the support that the U.S. had in these
debates, despite the fact that NSA surveillance has nothing to do with the NTIA’s oversight of ICANN, and spurred renewed efforts to
end U.S. oversight of ICANN. The NTIA announcement of March 2014 temporarily blunted these calls. NETmundial’s Global
Multistakeholder Meeting on the Future of Internet Governance in 2014 in Brazil, at which many countries were believed to be poised to
call for U.N. oversight of the Internet, instead ended up endorsing the bottom-up, multi-stakeholder-driven model for Internet
governance that the U.S. supports. Similarly, the 2014 ITU Plenipotentiary Conference in Busan, South Korea, could have been a more
lopsided replay of the WCIT, but ended up not adopting measures to extend ITU authority to cover the Internet, with a large number of
countries endorsing the multistakeholder model for Internet governance. In essence, the debate is on hold until everyone can digest the
results of the IANA stewardship and accountability transition proposals currently being developed by ICANN and the multi-stakeholder
community. Once finalized, these proposals will be reviewed and approved by the multi-stakeholder community, the ICANN board of
directors, and the NTIA.
67
Paradigm Research 2015-2016
CX—Electronic Communication Aff
Internet Adv: Internal Link—General [cont’d]
4. Our surveillance programs undermine our capacity to promote international internet freedom
Human Rights Watch, “Human Rights Watch Comments for the Review Group on Intelligence and Communications Technologies,”
10—11—13, www.hrw.org/news/2013/10/11/human-rights-watch-comments-review-group-intelligence-and-communicationstechnologie, accessed 2-18-15.
The impact surveillance programs have on fundamental human rights and on Internet governance policies globally should be of concern
to the Review Group and fall within the Review Group’s mandate. A. Internet Freedom and Human Rights Since at least 2010, the
Obama administration has made Internet freedom a signature foreign policy priority. The US has been instrumental in attracting allies to
take part in the Freedom Online Coalition of governments and promoting human rights online at key international venues like the UN
Human Rights Council and the Internet Governance Forum. In 2013 alone, the State Department and USAID awarded $25 million to
“groups working to advance Internet freedom -- supporting counter-censorship and secure communications technology, digital safety
training, and policy and research programs for people facing Internet repression.” Today, however, the US government’s ability to
promote Internet freedom at the global level has been deeply undermined by revelations about US surveillance programs. By ignoring
the privacy interests of non-US persons, in both law and rhetoric, the US has alienated key allies and undermined its moral standing on
Internet freedom, making diplomatic efforts to challenge abuses to the right to privacy and freedom of expression abroad less effective.
68
Paradigm Research 2015-2016
CX—Electronic Communication Aff
Internet Adv: Internal Link—Hypocrisy
1. Current surveillance hurts our diplomacy—opens us to accusations of hypocrisy
Richard Fontaine, Senior Fellow, “Bringing Liberty Online: Reenergizing the Internet Freedom Agenda in a Post-Snowden Era,”
POLICY BRIEF, Center for a New American Security, 9—14, p. 5.
While continuing to execute the Internet freedom agenda, U.S. officials have attempted to reconcile their government’s surveillance
practices with its expressed desire for greater online freedom. This is challenging, to say the least. U.S. officials draw a critical
distinction between monitoring communications for purposes of protecting national security and surveillance aimed at repressing
political speech and activity. While this distinction is intuitive to many Americans, it is likely to be lost on many others, particularly
where autocratic regimes consider domestic political dissent to be a national security threat. At its bluntest, the American position is that
it is legitimate, for example, for the U.S. government, but not for the Chinese government, to surveil Chinese citizens. This is and will
remain a tough sell.
2. The programs compromise U.S. efforts to promote an open internet—charges of hypocrisy
Danielle Kehl et al., policy analyst, “Surveillance Costs: The NSA’s Impact on the Economy, Internet Freedom & Cybersecurity,”
POLICY PAPER, Open Technology Institute, New America, 7—14, p. 21.
Although there were questions from the beginning about whether the United States would hold itself to the same high standards
domestically that it holds others to internationally, the American government has successfully built up a policy and programming agenda
in the past few years based on promoting an open Internet. These efforts include raising concerns over Internet repression in bilateral
dialogues with countries such as Vietnam and China, supporting initiatives including the Freedom Online Coalition, and providing over
$120 million in funding for “groups working to advance Internet freedom – supporting counter-censorship and secure communications
technology, digital safety training, and policy and research programs for people facing Internet repression.” However, the legitimacy of
these efforts has been thrown into question since the NSA disclosures began. “Trust has been the principal casualty in this unfortunate
affair,” wrote Ben FitzGerald and Richard Butler in December 2013. “The American public, our nation’s allies, leading businesses and
Internet users around the world are losing faith in the U.S. government’s role as the leading proponent of a free, open and integrated
global Internet.”
3. Broader Western hypocrisy in Internet counter-terror fuels authoritarian regulations
Evgeny Morozov, Fellow, New America Foundation and Visiting Scholar, Stanford University, THE NET DELUSION: THE DARK
SIDE OF INTERNET FREEDOM, 2011, New York: Public Affairs, p. 224.
As long as Western governments regulate the Internet out of concerns for terrorism or crime, as they currently aspire to, they also
legitimize similar efforts—but this time done primarily for political reasons—undertaken by authoritarian governments. Even worse, in
areas like cybercrime, the military and intelligence communities on both sides of the Atlantic would actually be quite happy to see
Russian and Chinese governments establish stronger control over their respective national Internets. The West’s own desire to have
those governments do something about uncontrollable, even if hardly devastating, cyber-attacks that are regularly unleashed by their
hacker populations trumps the impetus to promote abstract goods like Internet freedom simply because the security of America’s own
trade secrets always comes before the security of foreigners’ social networking profiles.
69
Paradigm Research 2015-2016
CX—Electronic Communication Aff
Internet Adv: Internal Link—Global Governance / ITU
1. Surveillance policies undermine our ability to maintain a multistakeholder Internet governance model
Richard A. Clarke et al., President’s Review Group on Intelligence and Communications Technologies, LIBERTY AND SECURITY IN
A CHANGING WORLD, Report and Recommendations, 12—12—13, p. 214-216.
The United States has strongly supported an inclusive multi-stakeholder model of Internet governance in order to maintain and expand a
globally interoperable, open, and secure Internet architecture to which all people have access. This multi-stakeholder approach
incorporates input from industry, governments, civil society, academic institutions, technical experts, and others. This approach has
emphasized the primacy of interoperable and secure technical standards, selected with the help of technical experts. A competing model,
favored by Russia and a number of other countries, would place Internet governance under the auspices of the United Nations and the
International Telecommunications Union (ITU). This model would enhance the influence of governments at the expense of other
stakeholders in Internet governance decisions, and it could legitimize greater state control over Internet content and communications. In
particular, this model could support greater use of “localization” requirements, such as national laws requiring servers to be physically
located within a country or limits on transferring data across borders. The press revelations about US surveillance have emboldened
supporters of localization requirements for Internet communications. Brazil, Indonesia, and Vietnam have proposed requiring e-mails
and other Internet communications to be stored locally, in the particular country. Although generally favoring the multi-stakeholder
approach to many Internet governance issues, the EU has also shifted in the direction of localization requirements. In the second half of
2013, the EU Parliament voted in favor of a proposal to limit international data flows; this provision would prohibit responding to lawful
government requests, including from the US courts and government, until release of such records were approved by a European data
protection authority. Public debate has suggested a possible mix of motives supporting such localization requirements, including (1)
concern about how records about their citizens will be treated in the US; (2) support for local cloud providers and other information
technology companies with the effect of reducing the market share of US providers; and (3) use of the localization proposals as a way to
highlight concerns about US intelligence practices and create leverage for possible changes in US policy. Whatever the mix of motives,
press reports about US surveillance have posed new challenges for the longstanding US policy favoring the multi-stakeholder approach
to Internet governance as well as US opposition to localization requirements.
2. Governments are increasingly turning to legal regimes to restrict Internet freedom
Vauhini Vara, journalist, “The World Cracks Down on the Internet,” NEW YORKER, 12—4—14,
www.newyorker.com/tech/elements/world-cracks-internet, accessed 6-1-15.
What’s behind the decline in Internet freedom throughout the world? There could be several reasons for it, but the most obvious one is
also somewhat mundane: especially in countries where people are just beginning to go online in large numbers, governments that restrict
freedom offline—particularly authoritarian regimes—are only beginning to do the same online, too. What’s more, governments that had
been using strategies like blocking certain Web sites to try to control the Internet are now realizing that those approaches don’t actually
do much to keep their citizens from seeing content that the governments would prefer to keep hidden. So they’re turning to their legal
systems, enacting new laws that restrict how people can use the Internet and other technologies. “There is definitely a sense that the
Internet offered this real alternative to traditional media—and then government started playing catch-up a little bit,” Earp told me. “If a
regime has developed laws and practices over time that limit what the traditional media can do, there’s that moment of recognition:
‘How can we apply what we learned in the traditional media world online?’ ”
70
Paradigm Research 2015-2016
CX—Electronic Communication Aff
Internet Adv: Internal Link—Global Governance / ITU [cont’d]
3. Spying opens the door for stronger international controls of the Internet
Steffan Rhys, journalist, “Edward Snowden Leaks ‘Could Put Internet Freedoms at Risk’,” WALES ONLINE, 11—20—13, lexis.
The internet's freedoms could be at risk as governments seek to exploit the Edward Snowden leaks to increase their power and influence,
a Conservative MP has warned. Alun Cairns (Vale of Glamorgan) said some nations were questioning the US government's relationship
with the inter-net and intending to change it in the wake of intelligence exposed by the former National Security Agency contractor. But
Mr Cairns said the internet's contents, innovation and investment could be at risk as some countries, which would envy the US's
reputation for protecting human rights and freedom of expression, sought greater control. He explained the internet's numbering and
naming system is operated by the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (Icann) under a US government contract,
which some nations were seeking to change. Mr Cairns told a Westminster Hall debate on governance of the internet: "While the internet
is renowned for being a worldwide network free from central control and co-ordination, there is a technical need for some key parts of
the internet to be globally coordinated and this co-ordination role is undertaken by Iana (Internet Assigned Numbers Authority). "The
Icann performs the Iana functions under the US government contract and I think that is particularly relevant. "It is this relationship with
the US government that some organisations and some nations are concerned about and are seeking to change. "The fallout from the
Edward Snowden revelations was a genuine concern to some at the IGF (Internet Governance Forum) but I would suggest is being used
as an opportunity to gain stronger control of the internet by others. "What I'm saying is that some governments are calling for changes to
the way in which the internet is governed, potentially risking the freedoms it has brought about and using information shared by Edward
Snowden as the reason, or should I say the excuse, to do so. "I believe that the internet must remain open, where the oversight arises
from the joint action of international organisations, industry and civil society. "But I am concerned that other nations are calling for
control, which could limit its contents and as a result the innovation and ingenuity and investment."
71
Paradigm Research 2015-2016
CX—Electronic Communication Aff
Internet Adv: Internal Link—Localization
1. Surveillance programs are spurring data localization initiatives—risks balkanization
Richard Fontaine, Senior Fellow, “Bringing Liberty Online: Reenergizing the Internet Freedom Agenda in a Post-Snowden Era,”
POLICY BRIEF, Center for a New American Security, 9—14, p. 4.
The reactions to the Snowden disclosures threatened to go beyond verbal denunciations, diplomatic protests and critical press. The most
serious commercial fallout came in the rising support for data localization requirements. Russia in July 2014 approved legislation that
requires data operators to store the personal data of its citizens within the country’s borders. Indonesia, Brazil and Vietnam have also
called for their citizens’ data held by companies such as Facebook to be stored domestically. Data localization has been debated in the
European Parliament and elsewhere on the continent as well. Apart from the chilling effect on innovation and the loss of business to
America companies, Internet freedom itself could become a casualty of such mandates. If a user’s data must be held within the borders
of a repressive country, its government will have new opportunities to censor, monitor and disrupt online information flows. Such
moves, combined with increasing questions about the multi-stakeholder approach to Internet governance (and possible support for a
government-driven approach), together give rise to concerns about the potential “Balkanization” of the Internet, in which a constellation
of national-level systems could take the place of the current global online infrastructure. As former NSA general counsel Stewart Baker
warned, “The Snowden disclosures are being used to renationalize the Internet and roll back changes that have weakened government
control of information.” This is evident in other proposed steps as well. Brazil and the European Union have announced plans for an
undersea cable that would route data transmissions directly between Europe and Latin America and bypass the United States. The
European Union threatened to suspend the Safe Harbor data-sharing agreement with the United States and promulgated new rules for it
that EU officials said stemmed directly from worries after the Snowden disclosures.
2. U.S. surveillance drives localization---will backfire, increases international repression
Anupam Chander, Professor, Law, University of California-Davis and Uyen P. Le, Fellow, California International Law Center,
“Breaking the Web: Data Localization vs. the Global Internet,” UC DAVIS LEGAL STUDIES RESEARCH PAPER SERIES n. 378,
4—14, p. 3.
Efforts to keep data within national borders have gained traction in the wake of revelations of widespread electronic spying by United
States intelligence agencies. Governments across the world, indignant at the recent disclosures, have cited foreign surveillance as an
argument to prevent data from leaving their borders, allegedly into foreign hands. Putting data in other nations jeopardizes the security
and privacy of such information, the argument goes. We define “data localization” measures as those that specifically encumber the
transfer of data across national borders. These measures take a wide variety of forms—from rules preventing information from being
sent outside the country, to rules requiring prior consent of the data subject before information is transmitted across national borders, to
rules requiring copies of information to be stored domestically, to even a tax on the export of data. We argue here that data localization
will backfire, that it in fact undermines privacy and security, while still leaving data vulnerable to foreign surveillance. Even more
important, data localization increases the ability of governments to surveil and even oppress their own populations.
72
Paradigm Research 2015-2016
CX—Electronic Communication Aff
Internet Adv: Internal Link—Rallying Point
1. Our ability to promote an open Internet hangs in the balance—compromised by the NSA programs
Richard Fontaine, Senior Fellow, “Bringing Liberty Online: Reenergizing the Internet Freedom Agenda in a Post-Snowden Era,”
POLICY BRIEF, Center for a New American Security, 9—14, p. 1.
The 2013 revelations of mass surveillance by the U.S. government transformed the global debate about Internet freedom. Where once
Washington routinely chided foreign governments and their corporate collaborators for engaging in online censorship, monitoring and
other forms of Internet repression, the tables have turned. Edward Snowden, a former National Security Agency (NSA) contractor,
leaked thousands of documents revealing America’s most secret electronic surveillance programs, unleashing a tidal wave of criticism
and charges of hypocrisy, many directed at some of the very U.S. officials who have championed online freedom. America’s Internet
freedom agenda – the effort to preserve and extend the free flow of information online – hangs in the balance. Already a contested space,
the Internet after the Snowden revelations has become even more politically charged, with deep international divisions about its
governance and heated battles over its use as a tool of political change. With 2.8 billion Internet users today, and several billion more
expected over the next decade, the contest over online freedom grows more important by the day. As an ever-greater proportion of
human activity is mediated through Internet-based technologies, the extent of online rights and restrictions takes on an increasingly vital
role in political, economic and social life.
2. The surveillance program revelations sparked a firestorm—have become a rallying point for closed Internet
forces
Richard Fontaine, Senior Fellow, “Bringing Liberty Online: Reenergizing the Internet Freedom Agenda in a Post-Snowden Era,”
POLICY BRIEF, Center for a New American Security, 9—14, p. 3.
The dramatic revelations about NSA spying that began to emerge in June 2013 provoked a storm of international reaction. Political
leaders expressed outrage at American surveillance practices and threatened a raft of retaliatory measures. President Dilma Rousseff of
Brazil cancelled a planned state visit to the United States and the Brazilian government later organized an international meeting
(NetMundial) to discuss the future of Internet governance. German Chancellor Angela Merkel was deeply affronted by the alleged
monitoring of her personal cellphone. Chinese and other officials charged America with blatant hypocrisy. The fallout affected the
private sector as well; where previously the focus of many observers had been on the aid given by U.S. companies to foreign
governments engaged in Internet repression, the gaze shifted to the role American corporations play – wittingly or not – in enabling U.S.
surveillance. Countries that had been the target of American reproaches rebuked the U.S. government for what they saw as hypocrisy.
The United Nations and other international venues became platforms for international criticism of the United States. Germany and Brazil
together sponsored a resolution adopted by the U.N. General Assembly in late 2013 backing a “right to privacy” in the digital age. In
June 2014, the U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights issued a report that endorsed digital privacy as a human right and criticized
mass surveillance as “a dangerous habit rather than an exceptional measure.” Some European officials began to question the existing
Internet governance model itself. In a statement, the European Commission said, “Recent revelations of large-scale surveillance have
called into question the stewardship of the US when it comes to Internet Governance. So given the US-centric model of Internet
Governance currently in place, it is necessary to broker a smooth transition to a more global model.”
73
Paradigm Research 2015-2016
CX—Electronic Communication Aff
Internet Adv: Internal Link—U.S. Leadership
1. Dragnet surveillance programs undermine the U.S.’s internet leadership
Human Rights Watch, “Human Rights Watch Comments for the Review Group on Intelligence and Communications Technologies,”
10—11—13, www.hrw.org/news/2013/10/11/human-rights-watch-comments-review-group-intelligence-and-communicationstechnologie, accessed 2-18-15.
The United States has been a leader in promoting Internet freedom around the world and its Internet industry has become an engine of
growth in today’s globally connected economy. However, US credibility has been deeply undermined by recent revelations about the
vast extent of its secret dragnet surveillance programs that have violated human rights, and that bear serious implications for global
internet governance and economic competitiveness. The summer of 2013 has been marked by a familiar pattern: a press disclosure
suggests previously unknown government surveillance or data collection programs. This is followed by assurances from the Obama
administration that the National Security Agency’s surveillance programs are targeted, proportional, and subject to oversight. Documents
then emerge that undermine this narrative. The pattern then repeats itself, undermining public trust in government’s commitment to
human rights.
2. Surveillance hurts our ability to push a globally open internet—empowers regimes like Iran and China
Kenneth Roth, Executive Director, Human Rights Watch, “The NSA’s Global Threat to Free Speech,” NEW YORK REVIEW OF
BOOKS, 11—18—13, www.hrw.org/news/2013/11/18/nsa-s-global-threat-free-speech, accessed 2-19-15.
Current proposals to change the way the Internet is regulated could, if implemented, also facilitate efforts by foreign governments to
gather information on their own citizens’ electronic activities. The Internet is governed mainly through informal cooperative
arrangements among numerous public and private entities, but a US-based organization, the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names
and Numbers, or ICANN, is responsible for, among other things, coordinating the assignment of unique identifiers that allow computers
around the world to find and recognize each other. A private board of directors runs ICANN, but the US Commerce Department has a
large part in its management. It may seem anomalous that the US government would have such influence over a global network like the
Internet, and now that the United States has proven such an unreliable guardian of our privacy, there have been renewed calls to replace
the current system with a UN agency such as the International Telecommunications Union. But few believe that such a system would
protect free speech on the Internet because it would likely defer to governments that want to prioritize national sovereignty over the free
flow of information and ideas. Greater national control would make it easier for governments to wall off national Internets, as China has
tried to do with its Great Firewall and Iran has threatened to do with a “national information network,” enabling censorship and
undermining the powerful potential of cyberspace to connect people around the world. The NSA’s electronic spying has also done much
to discredit the US government’s reputation as an outspoken champion of Internet freedom. Most notably under the leadership of former
Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, the US has regularly criticized countries for detaining dissident bloggers or users of social media. But
today, although the United States continues to respect freedom of expression on and off line, that virtue is easily overshadowed by
Washington’s indifference to Internet privacy. And even America’s reputation for respecting free speech is undermined when the Obama
administration tries to extradite and prosecute Edward Snowden for an alleged security breach that many see as legitimate
whistleblowing.
74
Paradigm Research 2015-2016
CX—Electronic Communication Aff
Internet Adv: Impact—Multiwarrant / Topshelf
1. An open Internet is key to global innovation and freedom
Julius Genachowski, Chair, Federal Communications Commission and Lee C. Bollinger, President, Columbia University, “The Plot to
Block Internet Freedom,” FOREIGN POLICY, 3—16—13, http://foreignpolicy.com/2013/04/16/the-plot-to-block-internet-freedom/,
accessed 3-11-15.
The Internet has created an extraordinary new democratic forum for people around the world to express their opinions. It is
revolutionizing global access to information: Today, more than 1 billion people worldwide have access to the Internet, and at current
growth rates, 5 billion people — about 70 percent of the world’s population — will be connected in five years. But this growth trajectory
is not inevitable, and threats are mounting to the global spread of an open and truly "worldwide" web. The expansion of the open Internet
must be allowed to continue: The mobile and social media revolutions are critical not only for democratic institutions’ ability to solve
the collective problems of a shrinking world, but also to a dynamic and innovative global economy that depends on financial
transparency and the free flow of information. The threats to the open Internet were on stark display at last December’s World
Conference on International Telecommunications in Dubai, where the United States fought attempts by a number of countries —
including Russia, China, and Saudi Arabia — to give a U.N. organization, the International Telecommunication Union (ITU), new
regulatory authority over the Internet. Ultimately, over the objection of the United States and many others, 89 countries voted to approve
a treaty that could strengthen the power of governments to control online content and deter broadband deployment. In Dubai, two deeply
worrisome trends came to a head. First, we see that the Arab Spring and similar events have awakened nondemocratic governments to
the danger that the Internet poses to their regimes. In Dubai, they pushed for a treaty that would give the ITU’s imprimatur to
governments’ blocking or favoring of online content under the guise of preventing spam and increasing network security. Authoritarian
countries’ real goal is to legitimize content regulation, opening the door for governments to block any content they do not like, such as
political speech. Second, the basic commercial model underlying the open Internet is also under threat. In particular, some proposals,
like the one made last year by major European network operators, would change the ground rules for payments for transferring Internet
content. One species of these proposals is called "sender pays" or "sending party pays." Since the beginning of the Internet, content
creators — individuals, news outlets, search engines, social media sites — have been able to make their content available to Internet
users without paying a fee to Internet service providers. A sender-pays rule would change that, empowering governments to require
Internet content creators to pay a fee to connect with an end user in that country. Sender pays may look merely like a commercial issue, a
different way to divide the pie. And proponents of sender pays and similar changes claim they would benefit Internet deployment and
Internet users. But the opposite is true: If a country imposed a payment requirement, content creators would be less likely to serve that
country. The loss of content would make the Internet less attractive and would lessen demand for the deployment of Internet
infrastructure in that country. Repeat the process in a few more countries, and the growth of global connectivity — as well as its
attendant benefits for democracy — would slow dramatically. So too would the benefits accruing to the global economy. Without
continuing improvements in transparency and information sharing, the innovation that springs from new commercial ideas and creative
breakthroughs is sure to be severely inhibited. To their credit, American Internet service providers have joined with the broader U.S.
technology industry, civil society, and others in opposing these changes. Together, we were able to win the battle in Dubai over sender
pays, but we have not yet won the war. Issues affecting global Internet openness, broadband deployment, and free speech will return in
upcoming international forums, including an important meeting in Geneva in May, the World Telecommunication/ICT Policy Forum.
The massive investment in wired and wireless broadband infrastructure in the United States demonstrates that preserving an open
Internet is completely compatible with broadband deployment. According to a recent UBS report, annual wireless capital investment in
the United States increased 40 percent from 2009 to 2012, while investment in the rest of the world has barely inched upward. And
according to the Information Technology and Innovation Foundation, more fiber-optic cable was laid in the United States in 2011 and
2012 than in any year since 2000, and 15 percent more than in Europe. All Internet users lose something when some countries are cut off
from the World Wide Web. Each person who is unable to connect to the Internet diminishes our own access to information. We become
less able to understand the world and formulate policies to respond to our shrinking planet. Conversely, we gain a richer understanding
of global events as more people connect around the world, and those societies nurturing nascent democracy movements become more
familiar with America’s traditions of free speech and pluralism. That’s why we believe that the Internet should remain free of
gatekeepers and that no entity — public or private — should be able to pick and choose the information web users can receive. That is a
principle the United States adopted in the Federal Communications Commission’s 2010 Open Internet Order. And it’s why we are
deeply concerned about arguments by some in the United States that broadband providers should be able to block, edit, or favor Internet
traffic that travels over their networks, or adopt economic models similar to international sender pays. We must preserve the Internet as
the most open and robust platform for the free exchange of information ever devised. Keeping the Internet open is perhaps the most
important free speech issue of our time.
75
Paradigm Research 2015-2016
CX—Electronic Communication Aff
Internet Adv: Impact—Multiwarrant / Topshelf [cont’d]
2. Internet openness is critical—key to diplomacy, economic growth
Shanthi Kalathil, “Internet Freedom: A Background Paper,” TOWARD A SINGLE GLOBAL DIGITAL ECONOMY, 10—10, p. 67.
As use of the Internet has grown exponentially around the world, so too have concerns about its defining attribute as a free and open
means of communication. Around the world, countries, companies and citizens are grappling with thorny issues of free expression,
censorship and trust. With starkly different visions for the Internet developing, this era presents challenges—and also opportunities—for
those who wish to ensure the Internet remains a backbone of liberty and economic growth. U.S. officials have made clear their vision for
the Internet’s future. President Obama, in a speech before the UN General Assembly, said that the U.S. is committed to promoting new
communication tools, “so that people are empowered to connect with one another and, in repressive societies, to do so with security. We
will support a free and open Internet, so individuals have the information to make up their own minds.” His words were reinforced by
FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski: “It is essential that we preserve the open Internet and stand firmly behind the right of all people to
connect with one another and to exchange ideas freely and without fear.” Indeed, a free, widely accessible Internet stands at the heart of
both global communication and global commerce. Internet freedom enables dialogue and direct diplomacy between people and
civilizations, facilitating the exchange of ideas and culture while bolstering trade and economic growth. Conversely, censorship and
other blockages stifle both expression and innovation. When arbitrary rules privilege some and not others, the investment climate
suffers. Nor can access be expanded if end users have no trust in the network.
76
Paradigm Research 2015-2016
CX—Electronic Communication Aff
Internet Adv: Impact—China Stability
1. Internet freedom will stabilize China—benefits of transparency
Katherine Tsai, attorney, “How to Create International Law: The Case of Internet Freedom in China,” DUKE JOURNAL OF
COMPARATIVE & INTERNATIONAL LAW v. 21, Winter 2011, p. 425.
On the other hand, China could benefit domestically from permitting internet freedom. Internet freedom could strengthen its government
by providing greater transparency to its citizens and thereby increasing standards of government accountability. A policy of internet
freedom could encourage media companies such as Google and Time Warner to expand their operations in China, thereby creating jobs
for Chinese citizens. The increased presence of foreign companies could develop the skill and knowledge base of Chinese employees,
and consequently foster greater innovation and entrepreneurship in China. By allowing internet freedom, China would signal to its
domestic constituents and to the international community that it is committed to technological innovation and a legal environment that
welcomes foreign technology and telecommunications companies.
2. A free Internet enables democratic dissent in China
Patrick Ford, J.D. Candidate, “Freedom of Expression through Technological Networks: Accessing the Internet as a Fundamental
Human Right,” WISCONSIN INTERNATIONAL LAW JOURNAL v. 32, Spring 2014, p. 151-152.
In addition to the Middle East and Africa, Chinese citizens have also used social media and other technology to speak out against the
government. At half a billion, China has the largest number of Internet users in the world. Even though China has the largest number of
Internet users, this number only amounts to 40% of China's total population, and is very low by the standards of developed economies.
Nonetheless, it is growing fast, increasing by more than fifty million users in 2011. While China has the largest number of Internet users,
Internet censorship in China is among the most stringent in the world. Nonetheless, there have been some instances where Chinese
citizens have used the Internet, social media, and other digital technology to alter the political process and promote change.
77
Paradigm Research 2015-2016
CX—Electronic Communication Aff
Internet Adv: Impact—Democracy
1. The Internet can promote democratization—social mobilization
Richard Fontaine, Senior Fellow and Will Rogers, Research Associate, INTERNET FREEDOM: A FOREIGN POLICY IMPERATIVE
IN THE DIGITAL AGE, Center for a New American Security, 6—11, p. 16.
New media might also affect intergroup relations, by generating new connections among individuals, spreading information and bringing
together people and groups. (Some have worried about the opposite effect – the tendency of the Internet to polarize individuals and
groups around particular ideological tendencies.) This may occur not only within countries, but also among them; the protests in Tunisia
sparked a clear rise in political consciousness and activism across the Arab world – much of it facilitated by Internet-based
communications and satellite television. It may also take place over a long period of time; Clay Shirky, an expert at New York
University, argues that a “densifying of the public sphere” may need to occur before an uprising turns into a revolution. New
communications technologies could also affect collective action, by helping change opinion and making it easier for individuals and
groups to organize protests in repressive countries. Unconnected individuals dissatisfied with the prevailing politics may realize that
others share their views, which might form the basis for collective action. Relatively small groups, elites or other motivated dissidents
might use the Internet to communicate or organize protests. Even if the number of committed online activists is small, they might
nevertheless disseminate information to the general population or inspire more widespread protests. Again, it is important to distinguish
such action from group “slacktivism;” as the successful protests in Egypt showed, the regime only began to teeter when thousands of
citizens physically occupied Tahrir Square. Though initial protests may have been organized via Facebook, the Mubarak government
would still be in power if the protests had been confined only to cyberspace.
2. The Internet needs to remain open—government control allows the crushing of dissent
Richard Fontaine, Senior Fellow and Will Rogers, Research Associate, INTERNET FREEDOM: A FOREIGN POLICY IMPERATIVE
IN THE DIGITAL AGE, Center for a New American Security, 6—11, p. 16.
These new technologies clearly affect regime policies as well. Governments have employed a huge array of techniques aimed at
controlling the Internet and ensuring that their political opponents cannot use it freely. This goes well beyond censorship, which garners
the bulk of popular attention. Autocracies also regularly monitor dissident communications; mobilize regime defenders; spread
propaganda and false information designed to disrupt protests and outside groups; infiltrate social movements; and disable dissident
websites, communications tools and databases. These and other practices can also induce self-censorship and other forms of self-restraint
by publishers, activists, online commentators and opposition politicians. Autocrats can also turn dissidents’ use of the Internet against
them. In Iran, for example, users of social media – which linked their accounts to those of other protestors – inadvertently created a
virtual catalogue of political opponents that enabled the government to identify and persecute individuals. The regime established a
website that published photos of protestors and used crowd sourcing to identify the individuals’ names
3. The Internet can promote democratization—rallies outside interest and support
Richard Fontaine, Senior Fellow and Will Rogers, Research Associate, INTERNET FREEDOM: A FOREIGN POLICY IMPERATIVE
IN THE DIGITAL AGE, Center for a New American Security, 6—11, p. 17.
Beyond these effects, new media can affect external attention, by transmitting images and information to the outside world, beyond the
control of government-run media and regime censorship and spin. Such attention can mobilize sympathy for protestors or hostility
toward repressive regimes, as occurred when the video of Neda Agha-Soltan moved from YouTube to mainstream media. Digital videos
and information may also have a rebound effect; information transmitted out of Egypt and Libya by social networking and videohosting
sites during the protests in those countries made its way back in via widely watched satellite broadcasts. This effect could be particularly
pronounced in countries like Yemen, where Internet penetration is low but Al Jazeera is widely viewed. Similarly, print journalists have
found sources and stories through social media and have used the same media to push their articles out to the world.
78
Paradigm Research 2015-2016
CX—Electronic Communication Aff
Internet Adv: Impact—Economy (General)
1. A free Internet is critical to the economy
Edward J. Black, President & CEO, Computer & communications Industry Association, Testimony before the Senate Judiciary
Committee, 12—11—13, www.judiciary.senate.gov/imo/media/doc/12-11-13BlackTestimony.pdf, accessed 3-10-15.
The members of the committee are no doubt familiar with the great commercial benefits the open Internet provides. It allows small-andmedium-size businesses to access markets and customers well beyond their reach in the brick and mortar world, lowers costs along the
entirety of global supply chains, increases efficiency in business from the Fortune 500 down to the smallest mom-and-pop shop, and is
the catalyst for the online services marketplace, one of the greatest economic drivers in the country today. As an example of the immense
economic benefit of the Internet, the Boston Consulting Group conducted a study in 2012 analysing the economic promise of the Internet
economy. The study predicts that the Internet economy in the G- 20 will reach $4.2 trillion by 2016. Another study, conducted by the
McKinsey Global Institute, estimates that 21% of GDP growth over the past 5 years is attributable to the Internet and that 2.6 jobs are
created for every job lost. And, perhaps more telling, the same study estimates that 75% of the economic value of the Internet accrues to
traditional sectors of the economy in the form of greater efficiency and expanded market access. The U.S. government has even taken
notice. A recent comprehensive report from the U.S. International Trade Commission (ITC) noted, “digital trade continues to grow both
in the U.S. economy and globally” and that a “further increase in digital trade is probable, with the U.S. in the lead.” In fact, the report
also shows, U.S. digital exports have exceeded imports and that surplus has continually widened since 2007. As traditional
manufacturing and lower-skill service sector jobs migrate overseas, the Internet, and the innovative ecosystem that it has spawned, is
becoming increasingly important to our global economic competitiveness. As a result, the economic security risks posed by NSA
surveillance, and the international political reaction to it, should not be subjugated to traditional national security arguments, as our
global competitiveness is essential to long-term American security. It is no accident that the official National Security Strategy of the
United States includes increasing exports as a major component of our national defense strategy.
2. Internet restrictions hurt growth—impose costs, undercuts the economy-boosting free flow of ideas
Philip L. Verveer, Coordinator for International Communications and Information Policy, U.S. State Department, STATES NEWS
SERVICE, 5—12—12, Gale Group.
This is why the economics case for Internet Freedom--the case appealing to more immediate self-interest--is very important. And, as I
am about to describe, that case is not as well developed as the rights-based case. The economic case for Internet Freedom is grounded on
at least two propositions. The first is that interfering with the use of the Internet as a commercial channel inevitably will impose costs.
We might think of this as the transactional case. This raises the question of whether it is possible to interfere with the Internet as a
transmitter of political and related ideas while maintaining it at full, or at least acceptable, efficiency for economic purposes. The second
proposition is more fundamental. It is based on the intuition that serious reductions in the free flow of ideas will harm a society's ability
to engage in innovation and thus ultimately will handicap economic growth. We might think of this as the cultural/psychological case in
the sense the effects of censorship and repression on culture and behavior. Secretary Clinton addressed both of these matters in her
second Internet Freedom speech: Walls that divide the internet, that block political content, or ban broad categories of expression, or
allow certain forms of peaceful assembly but prohibit others, or intimidate people from expressing their ideas are far easier to erect than
to maintain. Not just because people using human ingenuity find ways around them and through them but because there isn't an
economic internet and a social internet and a political internet: there's just the internet. And maintaining barriers that attempt to change
this reality entails a variety of costs--moral, political, and economic. Countries may be able to absorb these costs for a time, but we
believe they are unsustainable in the long run. There are opportunity costs for trying to be open for business but closed for free
expression--costs to a nation's education system, its political stability, its social mobility, and its economic potential.
3. A free Internet is vital to capturing its economic benefits
Richard Fontaine, Senior Fellow and Will Rogers, Research Associate, INTERNET FREEDOM: A FOREIGN POLICY IMPERATIVE
IN THE DIGITAL AGE, Center for a New American Security, 6—11, p. 17.
The economic impact of the Internet might affect the degree of democratization in a country. The Internet has increased labor
productivity and corresponding economic growth, which may help middle classes emerge in developing countries. Because new middle
classes tend to agitate for democratic rights, new technologies could indirectly promote democratization. In 2011, Clinton referenced a
related dynamic, the “dictator’s dilemma,” stating that autocrats “will have to choose between letting the walls fall or paying the price to
keep them standing … by resorting to greater oppression and enduring the escalating opportunity cost of missing out on the ideas that
have been blocked and people who have been disappeared.” In other words, an autocrat can either repress the Internet or enjoy its full
economic benefits, but not both.
79
Paradigm Research 2015-2016
CX—Electronic Communication Aff
Internet Adv: Impact—Economy (Innovation)
1. An open Internet is key to economic growth—innovation
Philip L. Verveer, Coordinator for International Communications and Information Policy, U.S. State Department, STATES NEWS
SERVICE, 5—12—12, Gale Group.
This obviously is related to the far larger matter of the prerequisites for economic growth. As it happens, we have a reasonably clear
sense of what they are. Sustained economic growth requires a stable level of security where citizens have protection from violence from
both internal and external sources. So a state is necessary, but so are appropriate and effective institutions. The state must be what
Professors Acemoglu and Robinson in their recent book Why Nations Fail call inclusive and non-extractive. Opportunities to amass
wealth must be widely available rather than limited to a small, politically powerful segment of the population. And those with governing
authority must not make excessive extractions of the society's wealth. They must not be rent seekers, pursuing the accumulation of
wealth for themselves, their families, and their retainers, a phenomenon that continues to be all too prevalent in our world. The ideal,
then, involves the creation of a legal and regulatory milieu that is conducive to investment. This prototypically consists of a stable,
reliable rule of law that, among other things, assures that contractual commitments are honored. The ideal also involves an autonomous
judiciary for purposes of arbitration of disputes and to oversee those matters that warrant the imposition of social controls. We need
these institutional arrangements for purposes of economic growth, but there remains the interesting possibility that Internet Freedom has
a critical connection to innovation--a connection that involves respect for and encouragement of personal autonomy. At the risk of
intruding on the prerogatives of the tenured, I would like to propose one approach to the question based on an historical analogy. This
follows the suggestion of Thomas Spavins, a valued colleague who has been providing his expert advice on all things related to the
Internet. Economic historians have addressed the question of why over the last five centuries Western Europe has experienced a great
increase in wealth. One of the most prominent academicians, Joel Mokyr of Northwestern University, has produced very important
insights. Professor Mokyr identifies several relevant factors. One is especially intriguing for present purposes. It involves the freedom of
individuals to pursue their ideas as they wished, free from the strictures of authority. To quote Professor Mokyr, it is: the Enlightenment
notion of freedom of expression. In our age, we think of technological change as natural and obvious; indeed, we consider its absence a
source of concern. Not so in the past: inventors were seen as disrespectful, rebelling against the existing order, threatening the stability of
the regime and the Church, and jeopardizing employment. In the eighteenth century, this notion slowly began to give way to tolerance,
to the belief that those with odd notions should be allowed to subject them to a market test. ... Words like "heretic" to describe innovators
began to disappear. This insight, it seems to me, provides an entirely plausible basis for the belief that Internet Freedom leads to
innovation and economic growth. Or, stated differently, that the absence of Internet Freedom diminishes a society's economic growth. In
any event, scholars would perform a material service to all of us interested in information and communications technologies if they
would take up the study of Internet Freedom, either in the manner of Professor Mokyr or otherwise.
2. A free internet is vital to innovation and economic growth
Richard A. Clarke et al., President’s Review Group on Intelligence and Communications Technologies, LIBERTY AND SECURITY IN
A CHANGING WORLD, Report and Recommendations, 12—12—13, p. 12.
Promoting Prosperity, Security, and Openness in a Networked World. The United States must adopt and sustain policies that support
technological innovation and collaboration both at home and abroad. Such policies are central to economic growth, which is promoted in
turn by economic freedom and spurring entrepreneurship. For this reason, the United States must continue to establish and strengthen
international norms of Internet freedom and security.
80
Paradigm Research 2015-2016
CX—Electronic Communication Aff
Internet Adv: Impact—Economy (Innovation) [cont’d]
3. A strong Internet is key to the economy—innovation, new products, manufacturing
Joshua Meltzer, fellow, Global Economy and Development, Brookings Institution, “The Internet, Cross-Border Data Flows and
International Trade,” ISSUES IN TECHNOLOGY INNOVATION n. 22, 2—13, p. 2.
Over 2.3 billion people have access to the Internet and this figure is expected to grow to five billion by 2020. The Internet’s economic
power and potential are massive in several respects. First, the Internet allows for the aggregation and globalization of markets, providing
new opportunities for business and consumers. Second, the Internet is a key driver of innovation and productivity growth because it
reduces transaction costs and enables businesses to better utilize existing resources. In addition, individuals can acquire new skills via
the Internet, thus improving human capital. The Internet has also underpinned the development of some of the most innovative
companies in the world and, in some cases, entirely new business models which bring users and information together. Social networking
sites such as Facebook and Google+ host user-generated content and promote social and commercial connections. Companies such as
Amazon, Apple and eBay have successfully used the Internet to generate e-commerce and mobile application platforms that connect
buyers and sellers across the U.S. and globally. And growth in mobile devices such as tablets and smart phones has underpinned growth
in mobile software delivered online and mobile web traffic. In fact, mobile data traffic is forecast to grow 18 times between 2011 and
2016. Traditional manufacturing and services companies are also benefiting from Internet-enabled applications and commerce. For
instance, the Internet has enabled entrepreneurs and businesses to access services and customers globally at lower costs. And cloud
computing is utilizing the Internet and the ability to move data across borders to change the way computers are used, reducing costs
while providing access to a full range of computer services.
81
Paradigm Research 2015-2016
CX—Electronic Communication Aff
Internet Adv: Impact—Economy (Jobs)
1. An effective Internet is a huge promoter of job growth
Robert M. McDowell, Commissioner, Federal Communications Commission, “The U.N. Threat to Internet Freedom,” WALL STREET
JOURNAL, 2—21—12, p. A19.
Net access, especially through mobile devices, is improving the human condition more quickly -- and more fundamentally -- than any
other technology in history. Nowhere is this more true than in the developing world, where unfettered Internet technologies are
expanding economies and raising living standards. Farmers who live far from markets are now able to find buyers for their crops through
their Internet-connected mobile devices without assuming the risks and expenses of traveling with their goods. Worried parents are able
to go online to locate medicine for their sick children. And proponents of political freedom are better able to share information and
organize support to break down the walls of tyranny. The Internet has also been a net job creator. A recent McKinsey study found that
for every job disrupted by Internet connectivity, 2.6 new jobs are created. It is no coincidence that these wonderful developments
blossomed as the Internet migrated further away from government control.
2. A strong Internet is critical to job creation
Joshua Meltzer, fellow, Global Economy and Development, Brookings Institution, “The Internet, Cross-Border Data Flows and
International Trade,” ISSUES IN TECHNOLOGY INNOVATION n. 22, 2—13, p. 3.
To date, the United States has been, and remains, the focal point of the Internet and the burgeoning area of Internet policy. The U.S.
captures the most value from the Internet, receiving more than 30 percent of global Internet revenues. However, most developed
countries have reaped significant benefits from the Internet. A McKinsey Global Institute study estimated that the Internet contributed
over 10 percent to GDP growth in the last five years to the world’s top ten economies and for every job lost as a result of the Internet, 2.6
jobs have been created. The Internet is also an increasingly significant driver of job creation and economic growth in the developing
world. According to a World Bank report, providing Internet access to rural communities in developing countries provides important
access to new services such as real time information on the price of agriculture products, giving small businesses greater control over
their sales. Indeed, there is evidence that every ten percentage-point increase in the penetration of broadband services leads to a 1.3
percent increase in economic growth. But this contribution of the Internet to GDP is less than for developed countries, suggesting
significant scope for growth.
82
Paradigm Research 2015-2016
CX—Electronic Communication Aff
Internet Adv: Impact—Economy (Tech Sector)
1. High tech is key to the U.S. economy, drives innovation
Laura K. Donohue, Professor, Law, Georgetown University, “High Technology, Consumer Privacy, and U.S. National Security,”
BUSINESS LAW REVIEW (forthcoming), 2015, p. 15,
http://scholarship.law.georgetown.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=2469&context=facpub, accessed 5-9-15.
A strong economy also ensures that citizens have their needs met, with sufficient income levels for housing, food, clothing, and
education. This, in turn, generates social and political stability, which allows for the development of communities, which creates greater
cohesion among citizens. It also contributes to the evolution of democratic deliberations, reinforcing the rule of law. Economic security
allows for growth and innovation, which is fed by education and opportunity. Innovation, in turn, allows the country to continue to adapt
to the evolving environment and international context. There are further considerations. But these suffice to illustrate the importance of
economic strength to U.S. national security writ large. High technology is central to the U.S. economy. A recent study by the Bay Area
Economic Council Institute sought to ascertain how important the high tech industry is just for the U.S. labor market. It found that not
only are high-tech jobs critical for generating employment in other sectors, but that growth in the high-tech sector has increasingly been
happening in areas of great economic and geographic diversity, suggesting that the high-tech industry is not limited to one ethic, social,
or economic strata. High-technology has been one of the fastest-growing sectors: between 2004 and 2012, the employment growth in
high-tech outpaced private sector growth by a ratio of 3:1. Jobs in Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM)
outpaced job gains across all occupations by a ratio of 27:1. Employment predictions put the demand for high-tech workers to increase
16.2% 2011 to 2020, with STEM employment increasing 13.3% during the same period. The study found that the generation of jobs in
high-technology had far-reaching effects. In addition to the income gains generated by innovation, productivity and a global
marketplace, high-technology industrial growth generated other types of jobs. Health care, education, law, restaurants, hotels and
personal services, as well as goods-producing construction sectors grew in tandem with high tech, largely because of a local multiplier
effect: “For each job created in the local high-tech sector,” the study concluded, “approximately 4.3 jobs are created in the local nontradable sector in the long run.” Even as early as 2002, the National Science Foundation found that the global market for hightechnology goods is growing at a swifter rate than for other manufactured goods. More than this, “high-technology industries are driving
economic growth around the world.”
2. These industries are vital to innovation
Mark Murro et al., senior fellow, AMERICAN’S ADVANCED INDUTRIES: WHAT THEY ARE, WHERE THEY ARE, AND WHY
THEY MATTER, Brookings Institution, 2—15, p. 15-16.
Represents a key site of innovative activity. Related to their orientation toward key national challenges is the fact that advanced
industries are the nation’s principle locus of industrial innovation. Innovation matters to nations, states, regions, companies, and families
because it represents the only viable avenue for high-wage economies to increase productivity and continue to improve their citizens’
standard of living in the long run. Advanced industries matter inordinately because, by definition, they draw together society’s
innovation resources. In particular, they are the primary site of the R&D spending that drives product and process innovation in the
economy. As such, the sector is the nation’s top source of the innovation that drives increased productivity, which in turn generates
increased profits and market share for firms, growth for industries, and broad economic benefits for households, regions, and the nation.
The sector’s significance as a source of innovation is likely undercounted. Considering that three-fourths of U.S. firms perform no R&D,
economist David Audretsch asks, “Where do innovative firms with little or no R&D get the knowledge inputs?” The answer is from
“spillovers” from the most R&D-intensive firms such as those in the advanced industries sector. Because innovative companies cannot
capture all of the knowledge generated from their R&D investments, other firms that employ similar processes or create complementary
products often acquire the new knowledge through imitation, use, worker turnover, or other ways. So advanced industry innovation
investments, activities, and advances “spill over” to other areas. They radiate. And in some cases, such as with IT products and services,
advanced industry technologies have emerged as “general purpose technologies” that have enabled truly significant productivity
advances throughout the economy. Consider, for example, the IT ecosystem. Although iconic firms such as IBM, AT&T, Microsoft, and
Google created the IT ecosystem, thousands of other firms and entrepreneurs in nearly every other industry have reaped the bulk of the
economic rewards. Altogether, the application of IT advancements in the United States has been responsible for more than 30 percent of
labor productivity growth economy-wide over the past decade. Information technology is not the only general purpose technology
generating a sizable impact. Others include the genomic revolution, the arrival of advanced material science, and emerging new
developments in advanced robotics and machine learning. For example, McKinsey & Co. estimates that the economic impact of gene
sequencing in health care, agriculture, and biofuels will equal more than $1 trillion during the next decade. In the coming decades, new
general purpose technologies introduced by the advanced industries sector, such as nanotechnology and advanced energy storage, may
emerge as major sources of economic growth.
83
Paradigm Research 2015-2016
CX—Electronic Communication Aff
Internet Adv: Impact—Economy (Tech Sector) [cont’d]
3. Tech innovation and competitiveness are key to the economy
Mark Murro et al., senior fellow, AMERICAN’S ADVANCED INDUTRIES: WHAT THEY ARE, WHERE THEY ARE, AND WHY
THEY MATTER, Brookings Institution, 2—15, p. 14-15.
But the advanced industries sector also represents a compelling economic fact. As the leading location of technological development and
its application in the United States, the sector plays a pivotal role in generating prosperity across the nation. Specifically, the advanced
industries sector: ● Encompasses many of the nation’s most crucial industries. Advanced industries are in many respects their nations’
linchpin industries—the industries that, in developed economies, establish technological advantage and embody national
competitiveness. Sizable in their own right, these industries frequently make disproportionate contributions to GDP through aboveaverage productivity, which is a leading predictor of worker wages. Likewise, because of the complexity of their products and services,
these industries support long chains of raw materials providers, specialized parts suppliers, and assorted service providers. Although it is
certainly true that supply chains are increasingly global, trade data suggest that the United States retains many of their highest-value
portions. Economic literature also suggests that advanced industries have high employment and output multipliers—measures of the
ancillary economic activity one job spurs elsewhere in the economy—given the above-average wages they pay and their strong links to
other sectors of the economy, both for inputs and through their broader impacts. Yet the sector’s significance goes far beyond its size.
Advanced industries possess outsized economic importance for the nation and its regions. Nearly every advanced industry resides in the
traded sector—the sector that competes internationally, sells abroad at least partially, and returns sales revenue to America. Traded
sector industries are essential to a nation’s prosperity. As innovation experts Stephen Ezell and Robert Atkinson write, “It’s simply
impossible to have a vibrant national economy without a globally competitive traded sector.” For a nation that has been running
significant trade deficits for years, including in “advanced technology products,” advanced industries will be instrumental in reducing
them. Beyond matters of productivity and trade, the advanced industries sector looms large in supporting such national and global
objectives as national security, energy independence, food sustainability, health, and rising standards of living. The aerospace,
electronics, and communications industries play a significant role in delivering the goods and services that help nations respond to
threats such as terrorism, environmental disasters, and pandemics. The electric power, oil and gas, and scientific research industries are
helping the world maintain access to—and store—low-cost, secure sources of energy, including clean energy. (Witness the progress that
“cleantech” advanced industries have made in reducing the cost of photovoltaics and boosting the energy density of storage devices.) As
the world’s population grows, biotechnology industries are enabling the world to feed its population through innovations in plant
genomics, high-yield seeds, and improved crop and water management. Likewise, medical, pharmaceutical, genomic, electronic, and
“big-data” advanced industries are all working to advance the health of the nation and world through the development of remote
monitoring, new prevention and treatments, and personalized medicines. Consumer-oriented advanced industries such as electronics,
computers, motor vehicles, and appliances, for their part, have materially improved household standards of living by expanding
purchasing options, bringing time- and money-saving capabilities to the average person, and driving prices down and quality up. In
short, U.S. advanced industries are engaged in delivering highly important goods and services that respond directly to the nation’s most
pressing challenges.
4. IT is vital to the overall economy
Mark Murro et al., senior fellow, AMERICAN’S ADVANCED INDUTRIES: WHAT THEY ARE, WHERE THEY ARE, AND WHY
THEY MATTER, Brookings Institution, 2—15, p. 16.
No technology better epitomizes how advanced industries support U.S. economic growth through innovation and its wide adoption than
information technology (IT). Prior to the mid-1990s productivity growth from IT remained almost exclusively within those firms
producing software and hardware (all in advanced industries). Yet in the decade following 1995, productivity gains from IT came
predominately from firms outside of the IT sector, particularly in high-value advanced industries such as management and R&D
consulting, medical devices, and precision instrument manufacturing. These firms began leveraging IT to improve operations and to
grow. During this period, IT was responsible for two-thirds of U.S. productivity growth, despite the IT sector only employing 2.5 percent
of the workforce directly. Research by Jorgenson, Ho, and Samuels shows that total factor productivity increased sharply in sectors that
used IT extensively during the 1990s and fell in those that did not. During the years 1995–2000 sectors using IT registered 10 times
higher total factor productivity than other sectors. Since then, the retail, wholesale, and hospitality sectors have begun to invest heavily
in IT, and IT was responsible for more than one-third of total labor productivity growth between 2002 and 2012. The further
dissemination of IT into large and conspicuously lagging sectors—namely health care and education—promises even greater
productivity gains. The 30-year trajectory of IT illustrates a critical economic point: U.S. economic growth is contingent on waves of
game-changing technologies that are typically introduced by a subset of advanced industry firms, then adopted by whole industries, and
finally diffused into every corner of the economy.
84
Paradigm Research 2015-2016
CX—Electronic Communication Aff
Internet Adv: Impact—Human Rights
1. Use of the Internet is the cornerstone of our human rights
Philip L. Verveer, Coordinator for International Communications and Information Policy, U.S. State Department, STATES NEWS
SERVICE, 5—12—12, Gale Group.
Everyone has the right to freedom of opinion and expression; this right includes freedom to hold opinions without interference and to
seek, receive and impart information and ideas through any media and regardless of frontiers. The right "to seek, receive and impart
information and ideas through any media and regardless of frontiers" is the embodiment of the rights-based case for Internet Freedom,
articulated some two decades before the concepts that, reduced to practice, became the Internet. The Uniform Declaration is just that, a
declaration. While it enjoys great moral authority, it is not binding, in the sense of international law. But the International Covenant on
Civil and Political Rights, derived from the Universal Declaration, is. Adopted by the General Assembly in 1966, but also signed and
ratified by most nations, with some notable exceptions, it is a binding, multilateral treaty. Article 19.2 mirrors the Universal Declaration
in holding that: Everyone shall have the right to freedom of expression; this right shall include freedom to seek, receive and impart
information and ideas of all kinds, regardless of frontiers, either orally or in print, in the form of art, or through any other media of his
choice. From a juridical perspective, then, there is a compelling case for Internet Freedom grounded in human rights. The problem, of
course, is that it is not enough to persuade countries that have strong reasons to interfere with Internet Freedom.
2. Internet restrictions violate international human rights law
Patrick Ford, J.D. Candidate, “Freedom of Expression through Technological Networks: Accessing the Internet as a Fundamental
Human Right,” WISCONSIN INTERNATIONAL LAW JOURNAL v. 32, Spring 2014, p. 169-170.
Technological networks such as the Internet and its media, have redefined the ways that people are able to receive and impart
information and express their opinions. Furthermore, the ordinary meaning of the language in Article 19 of the Universal Declaration, as
well as the other conventions on human rights, demonstrates that people have a fundamental right to accessing the technological
networks such as the Internet and its media. Other international materials further bolster this conclusion. As a result, state action that
restricts or blocks its citizens' access to technological networks-like the Internet-constitutes a human rights violation unless it is
prescribed by law, pursues some legitimate aim, and is necessary for achieving that aim. Courts that hear such cases must be careful that
laws, which have a legitimate purpose and seem necessary for achieving that purpose, are not a pretext for blocking or censoring the
Inter-net. Furthermore, until the ICJ is able to hear cases brought by individuals against states which are not parties to the other
conventions on human rights, those individuals will be hard pressed to find a remedy.
3. We have an international right to Internet access—has become fundamental to our lives
Nicola Lucchi, Associate Professor, Jonkoping International Business School, “Internet Content and Human Rights,” VANDERBILT
JOURNAL OF ENTERTAINMENT AND TECHNOLOGY LAW, Summer 2014, p. 810-811.
Extensive information and communication-technology infrastructure and widespread flows of information have be-come fundamental
and distinctive features of our lives. This increasingly pervasive, variegated, and constantly changing interaction between
communication technologies and society brings with it a broad range of legal and ethical dilemmas, especially those pertaining to
protection and promotion of the freedom of expression. Electronic communication tools hold the potential to positively or negatively
affect the rights of the individual. The Internet has become an essential instrument and can now be viewed as a condition necessary for
the proper enjoyment of a series of rights, including the rights to access information and to communicate. As a consequence, any
regulatory and policy measures that affect the digital-information infrastructure and its content should be consistent with the basic rights
and liberties of human beings. This Article will investigate the challenges and opportunities for freedom of speech and human rights on
the Internet. In particular, it examines how Internet content governance is posing provocative and fascinating regulatory issues directly
related to the growing possibilities offered by computer-mediated communication. This debate is not simply "technical," but also
political, legal, and social since it involves sustainable, value-oriented solutions, and, perhaps more importantly, the awareness of the
human-rights dimension of Internet governance. Emphasis will rest on how developments in Internet regulation and Internet
technologies can pose risks for human rights, particularly in relation to freedoms of expression, association, information,
communication, and privacy.
85
Paradigm Research 2015-2016
CX—Electronic Communication Aff
Internet Adv: Impact—Innovation / Leadership
1. The rollback of Internet freedom threatens U.S. leadership
James Poulos, journalist, “There’s a Global War for Internet Freedom. And the U.S. Is Losing,” THE WEEK, 3—9—15,
http://theweek.com/articles/542945/theres-global-war-internet-freedom-losing, accessed 6-1-15.
The spread of the illiberal internet into the democratic world dramatically underscores that online freedom is under global attack from
two directions. Not only is security of the body used as a rationale to foreclose liberty; security of the psyche, the heart, and the soul are
as well. The measures used to enforce such total security are not at all restricted to the logic of speech restrictions that the West
developed in such close contiguity with the rule of law. They are not only divorced completely from the West's secular conceptual
framework of reasonableness; they are also unhinged from the West's religious conceptual framework of forbearance. As such, they
present Americans, and all humans, with a true catastrophe. It is not the end of the world, of course, if some people wind up doomed to
live more narrowed, confined lives than others. But the global undoing of freedom online actually constitutes a geostrategic challenge to
the U.S. that Americans almost certainly lack the will and the resources to combat, reverse, and defeat. Not only is there no popular
movement to use federal power to "take back the internet" across the planet. There is no popular capability to crowd-source that level of
undertaking. Instead, there is a vague, stupid, nervous sense that we are somehow inured to the transformation of digital life into an
environment deeply alien and inimical to the civilization that produced our own. Humanity faces the daunting prospect of a colossal,
epochal break — the ideological severance of the cyberworld from the physical world, the better to use the former to reshape the latter in
a universal image of servility or worse. Americans complain about their tech titans, whose proudly flaunted wealth seems so unfairly
unearned. The reality is, they are becoming the only people who can save us from an internet worse than no internet at all.
2. Tech innovation depends on an open internet
Dean C. Garfield, President & CEO, Information Technology Industry Council (ITI), Testimony before the Senate Select Committee on
Intelligence, 6—5—14, www.itic.org/dotAsset/9c88f111-2149-434f-a250-7700ede27dd8.pdf, accessed 2-18-15.
I am proud to represent a sector that is changing the world for good—in every meaning of that word. Technological capabilities and
innovations have changed the way we live, work, and play. We can wear a watch that is both a phone and a biometric device that can
monitor our heart rate. We can drive cars that can slow down on their own to avoid accidents. We have access to three-dimensional
printers that one day will produce organs and limbs to expedite transplants. And many of us can work from wherever we happen to be
thanks to a device in our hands and the availability of important data to our fingertips. Technological capabilities and continuous
innovation rely on an ecosystem that is global in nature. An Internet governance model that is open, integrated, and borderless has made
all this possible. The tech sector is committed to sustaining this model because it has served this nation and our world well. The
revelations about data collection by the National Security Agency (NSA) are having a significant economic impact on our sector.
Further, this also has the potential for seriously damaging long-term implications on the global economy for innovation and Internet
governance.
86
Paradigm Research 2015-2016
CX—Electronic Communication Aff
Internet Adv: Impact—Rights
1. The Internet is vital to our future freedoms—we need to preserve it
Philip L. Verveer, Coordinator for International Communications and Information Policy, U.S. State Department, STATES NEWS
SERVICE, 5—12—12, Gale Group.
These developments continue to produce changes so fundamental in economics, politics, culture, and social relationships that we cannot
hope to understand them in any comprehensive way. As Hegel said, "The owl of Minerva flies only at dusk," and we are much closer to
sunrise than to sunset. But we do know some things. One of them--a very important thing about which we can feel very secure--is that
the Internet is a great enabler of human expression, association, and assembly; and another thing--about which we can feel equally
confident--is that the Internet is a great enabler of increases in material well being. One of the most important responsibilities
confronting us today is assuring that these Internet-related opportunities are not impaired. This is a responsibility not just to ourselves
and our descendants, but to people like Joel whose life's work helped to provide the opportunities.
2. The internet promotes rights—facilitates cross-cultural communication
Patrick Ford, J.D. Candidate, “Freedom of Expression through Technological Networks: Accessing the Internet as a Fundamental
Human Right,” WISCONSIN INTERNATIONAL LAW JOURNAL v. 32, Spring 2014, p. 143.
As technology has evolved, access to digital information and communication technologies has greatly increased. Currently, ordinary
citizens in underdeveloped nations have greater access to information online than President Bill Clinton had in the mid-1990s. Over the
last few years, one digital technology in particular has had a profound impact on politics and civil society: the Internet, with its extensive
blogging websites and its proliferating array of social-media tools such as Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube. Because of the number of
people now using social media and blogging websites, and the revolutionary way it allows these people to communicate with each other,
"these electronic tools have provided new, breathtakingly dynamic, and radically decentralized means for people and organizations to
communicate and cooperate with one another for political and civic ends." In particular this technology has allowed citizens of the world
expand their political, social, and economic freedom.
3. An open internet promotes individual freedom and human development
Nicola Lucchi, Associate Professor, Jonkoping International Business School, “Internet Content and Human Rights,” VANDERBILT
JOURNAL OF ENTERTAINMENT AND TECHNOLOGY LAW, Summer 2014, p. 813-814.
Technological developments in communication have brought revolutionary opportunities and changes to how people obtain, process,
and exchange information. In this framework, one of the contemporary and emerging challenges for the legal and regulatory regime is
shaping a modern interpretation of freedom of thought and expression. The rapidly evolving media revolution has generated a number of
new regulatory initiatives designed to reduce systemic risks associated with this means of communication "ranging from risks to
children, to privacy, to intellectual property rights, to national security, which might more indirectly, and often unintentionally, enhance
or curtail freedom of expression." As Yochai Benkler so eloquently expressed in The Wealth of Networks, [a] series of changes in the
technologies, economic organization, and social practices of production in this environment has created new opportunities for how we
make and exchange information, knowledge, and culture ... . This new freedom holds great practical promise: as a dimension of
individual freedom; as a platform for better democratic participation; as a medium to foster a more critical and self-reflective culture;
and, in an increasingly information-dependent global economy, as a mechanism to achieve improvements in human development
everywhere.
87
Paradigm Research 2015-2016
CX—Electronic Communication Aff
Internet Adv: Impact—Trade
1. Internet restrictions undermine global trade flows
Joshua Meltzer, fellow, Global Economy and Development, Brookings Institution, “The Internet, Cross-Border Data Flows and
International Trade,” ISSUES IN TECHNOLOGY INNOVATION n. 22, 2—13, p. 1.
The Internet is becoming a key platform for commerce that is increasingly happening between buyers and sellers located in different
countries, thereby driving international trade. Additionally, as the Internet enables cross-border data flows this is also underpinning
global economic integration and international trade. For instance, cross-border data flows are now intrinsic to commerce, from Internetbased communications like email and platforms such as eBay and Facebook that bring buyers and sellers together, from the financial
transaction to purchase the product in other countries to the downloading of the goods and services. Despite the growing significance of
the Internet for international trade, governments are restricting the Internet in ways that reduce the ability of businesses and
entrepreneurs to use the Internet as a place for international commerce and limits the access of consumers to goods and services. Some
of these restrictions are being used to achieve legitimate goals such as preventing cybercrime or restricting access to morally offensive
content, but may be applied more broadly than necessary to achieve those objectives. In other cases, Internet restrictions are targeting
foreign businesses and the sale of goods and services online in order to benefit local ones. Such Internet restrictions are discriminatory
and harm international trade.
2. Openness is important to maintaining the economic and trade benefits of the Internet
Harold Feld, Senior Vice President, Public Knowledge, Testimony before the House Committee on Energy & Commerce and House
Committee on Foreign Affairs, 2—5—13, http://docs.house.gov/meetings/IF/IF16/20130205/100221/HHRG-113-IF16-Wstate-FeldH20130205.pdf, accessed 3-2-15.
On the economic side, the Internet and information technology industries continue to be the thriving sector in a slumping global
economy. According to OECD (Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development) calculations, in 2009 some 12% of the value
added of the nonfinancial business sector in the United States could be attributed to Internet-related activities. At present, the Internet
contributes more of a percentage to America's GDP than traditional industry sectors like information and technical services,
construction, education, agriculture, and arts, entertainment, and recreation. And it comprises about 5.5 percent or $252 billion of all
retail. U.S. economic growth and international trade are dependent upon bringing the world around to our vision of democracy, rule of
law, and trade to other nations. Any U.S. trade representative can argue the benefits of free trade to their counterpart in another country,
but open access to American products, exports, and consumers online can spread the opportunity of international trade to even the
smallest town or village with a broadband connection. American businesses will lose these opportunities for trade and economic
expansion if we do not share our vision and success with open Internet communication with the developing world.
88
Paradigm Research 2015-2016
CX—Electronic Communication Aff
Internet Adv: Solvency—Domestic Reform Key
1. Domestic laws strongly affect the efficacy of our international efforts to promote an open Internet
David A. Gross, former Coordinator of International Communications and Information Policy, U.S. Department of State, Testimony
before the House Committee on Energy & Commerce and House Committee on Foreign Affairs, 2—5—13,
http://docs.house.gov/meetings/IF/IF16/20130205/100221/HHRG-113-IF16-Wstate-GrossD-20130205.pdf, accessed 3-2-15.
Looking ahead, we must recognize the obvious – Internet policy issues affect virtually everyone in the world, and U.S. leadership
depends on the power of its forward looking arguments, not just on the historical fact that the United States gave the world a
transformational technology. Although establishing a global Internet policy that ensures that individuals, the private sector, and
governments work together appropriately to create a safe, secure and sustainable Internet for everyone will be long, complex and
challenging, we are fortunate that the United States has a well-established road map to follow. We can continue to lead the world toward
greater prosperity and the socially transformational benefits long associated with the Internet. But when we discuss domestically laws
and regulations that affect the Internet it is important to recognize that other countries will look carefully at our decisions. We should be
prepared for other governments to act based upon what we do – rather than what we say – when making decisions both for their own
countries as well as internationally
2. Surveillance reform is vital to ensuring that the global internet remains free and open
Kenneth Roth, Executive Director, Human Rights Watch, “The NSA’s Global Threat to Free Speech,” NEW YORK REVIEW OF
BOOKS, 11—18—13, www.hrw.org/news/2013/11/18/nsa-s-global-threat-free-speech, accessed 2-19-15.
With the NSA’s motto seemingly “If it can be accessed, take it,” one is left with the impression that the US government never undertook
a basic analysis of the costs and benefits of NSA surveillance. On the cost side must be weighed not simply the invasion of our privacy
but also the harm it does to the unimpeded flow of information over the Internet. Americans may undervalue privacy, but they do tend to
understand the importance of free expression. On the benefits side, the NSA has failed to show that the mass scooping up of our
electronic communications has meaningfully augmented the targeted electronic surveillance—focused on particular individuals who can
be shown to pose a threat—that should be part of any counterterrorism effort. The US government has been at pains to come up with any
terrorist plot that would not have been halted but for its mass collection of our communications. In September I asked the White House
counsel, Kathryn Ruemmler, about this lack of demonstrable benefit. She fell back on the argument that one must consider the
information gained by the surveillance as part of a “mosaic” of information collected by other means. But that was the same rationale—
the same word—used by the Bush administration to justify detaining people for interrogation who seemed to have no relevant
information to offer. Obama has stopped some of the worst Bush counterterrorism practices. He now needs to go beyond the cheap
reassurances he offered us after the first Snowden revelations and rein in the NSA. If the United States wants to preserve the Internet as a
vital and free network for connecting people the world over, it will need to reform its own surveillance policies to respect the privacy not
only of Americans but also of everyone else.
3. We need to address surveillance—undermines Internet freedom and risks the collapse of our tech companies
Evgeny Morozov, journalist, “Who’s the True Enemy of Internet Freedom—China, Russia, or the US?” GUARDIAN, 1—3—15,
www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2015/jan/04/internet-freedom-china-russia-us-google-microsoft-digital-sovereignty, accessed 6-115.
However, Russia, China and Brazil are simply responding to the extremely aggressive tactics adopted by none other than the US. In
typical fashion, though, America is completely oblivious to its own actions, believing that there is such a thing as a neutral, cosmopolitan
internet and that any efforts to move away from it would result in its “Balkanisation”. But for many countries, this is not Balkanisation at
all, merely de-Americanisation. US companies have been playing an ambiguous role in this project. On the one hand, they build efficient
and highly functional infrastructure that locks in other countries, creating long-term dependencies that are very messy and costly to
undo. They are the true vehicles for whatever is left of America’s global modernisation agenda. On the other hand, the companies cannot
be seen as mere proxies for the American empire. Especially after the Edward Snowden revelations clearly demonstrated the cosy
alliances between America’s business and state interests, these companies need to constantly assert their independence – occasionally by
taking their own government to court – even if, in reality, most of their interests perfectly align with those of Washington. This explains
why Silicon Valley has been so vocal in demanding that the Obama administration do something about internet privacy and surveillance:
if internet companies were seen as compromised parties here, their business would collapse. Just look at the misfortunes of Verizon in
2014: uncertain of the extent of data-sharing between Verizon and the NSA, the German government ditched its contract with the US
company in favour of Deutsche Telekom. A German government spokesman said at the time: “The federal government wants to win
back more technological sovereignty, and therefore prefers to work with German companies.”
89
Paradigm Research 2015-2016
CX—Electronic Communication Aff
Internet Adv: Solvency—Transparency
1. Transparency over the NSA programs is vital to restoring international trust
Kevin Bankston, Policy Director, Open Technology Institute, New America Foundation, Center for Democracy and Technology,
Testimony before the Senate Judiciary Committee, Subcommittee on Privacy, Technology and the Law, 11—13—13,
www.judiciary.senate.gov/imo/media/doc/11-13-13BankstonTestimony.pdf, accessed 3-10-15.
Particularly in the wake of recent revelations about the nature of the National Security Agency’s surveillance programs, we believe that
this level of transparency about what the companies do—and don’t do—when the government demands their users’ data is critically
important for three reasons I’ll discuss today: First, the American people have a clear right and need to know this information, so that
they may have a more informed public debate about the appropriateness of the government’s use of its surveillance authorities, and so as
to better ensure that those authorities are not misused or abused. Second, the companies have a clear First Amendment right to share this
information, and the government’s attempt to gag them and prevent them from sharing even this most basic data is clearly
unconstitutional. Third, greater transparency is urgently necessary to restore the international community’s trust in the US Internet
industry and the US government, in the face of widespread concern from foreign governments and Internet users about the privacy and
security of data that is transmitted to or through the United States. We must take this opportunity to demonstrate that Americans’
constitutional rights and everyone’s human rights are being respected. And if the numbers show otherwise, we must take this opportunity
to reform our surveillance laws to better protect our rights as well as our national security.
2. Transparency is critical to rebuilding trust
Danielle Kehl et al., policy analyst, “Surveillance Costs: The NSA’s Impact on the Economy, Internet Freedom & Cybersecurity,”
POLICY PAPER, Open Technology Institute, New America, 7—14, p. 37.
Increased transparency about how the NSA is using its authorities, and how U.S. companies do—or do not—respond when the NSA
demands their data is critical to rebuilding the trust that has been lost in the wake of the Snowden disclosures. In July 2013, a coalition of
large Internet companies and advocacy groups provided a blueprint for the necessary transparency reforms, in a letter to the Obama
Administration and Congress calling for “greater transparency around national security-related requests by the US government to
Internet, telephone, and web-based service providers for information about their users and subscribers.” Major companies including
Facebook, Google, and Microsoft—joined by organizations such as the Center for Democracy and Technology, New America’s Open
Technology Institute, and the American Civil Liberties Union—demanded that the companies be allowed to publish aggregate numbers
about the specific types of government requests they receive, the types of data requested, and the number of people affected. They also
urged the government to issue its own transparency reports to provide greater clarity about the scope of the NSA’s surveillance
programs. “This information about how and how often the government is using these legal authorities is important to the American
people, who are entitled to have an informed public debate about the appropriateness of those authorities and their use, and to
international users of US-based service providers who are concerned about the privacy and security of their communications,” the letter
stated.
90
Paradigm Research 2015-2016
CX—Electronic Communication Aff
Internet Adv: Solvency—Transparency [cont’d]
3. Increased transparency is necessary to restoring trust in U.S. tech companies—this is critical to the future of
the Internet
Kevin Bankston, Policy Director, Open Technology Institute, New America Foundation, Center for Democracy and Technology,
Testimony before the Senate Judiciary Committee, Subcommittee on Privacy, Technology and the Law, 11—13—13,
www.judiciary.senate.gov/imo/media/doc/11-13-13BankstonTestimony.pdf, accessed 3-10-15.
In addition to the companies having a First Amendment right to speak, and we the people having a right to hear what those willing
speakers have to say, we also all have a shared interest in restoring the trust in the US Internet industry that has been lost as a result of
the NSA’s surveillance programs, the secrecy surrounding them, and the reporting (and in some cases misreporting) of the nature and
scope of those programs. The international outcry over the NSA’s activities is substantial, and has doubtlessly impacted the
competiveness of US Internet companies that serve international users. A study by the Information Technology & Innovation Foundation
in the beginning of August—when much about the NSA’s activities was still unreported—predicted that the US cloud computing
industry stands to lose $22 to $35 billion over the next three years in response to the NSA scandal. Forrester Research, building on the
work of ITIF, concluded that the damage could be much greater, as high as $180 billion, or a quarter of all information technology
service provider revenues in the same timeframe. Internet industry leaders like Mark Zuckerberg of Facebook are warning that
international users of US services are losing trust in US Internet companies, and US telecommunications providers like AT&T are
already seeing the NSA scandal interfere with their international business dealings. Meanwhile, some European policymakers are
threatening to revoke the “safe harbor” agreement that allows US companies to process the personal data of European users, while a
number of international leaders are discussing how to avoid the use of American services and to provide for—or require—the
localization of Internet data and services. Congress needs to act quickly to remedy this growing trust gap that threatens the future of our
Internet economy, and to allow the affected companies themselves to directly speak to and rebuild trust with their users about how they
respond to the US government’s demands for user data. Such transparency, in addition to serving the economic interest of the United
States and helping to protect the constitutional rights of American companies and the American people, also and importantly helps to
promote and preserve the human rights of all people who use the Internet. As an international leader in the promotion of “Internet
Freedom” as a human rights imperative, the US must also be a leader when it comes to transparency around Internet surveillance—and,
to the extent that transparency reveals abuse, a leader in surveillance reform.
91
Paradigm Research 2015-2016
CX—Electronic Communication Aff
Internet Adv: Solvency—Answers to “Irreversible”
1. The damage is not irreversible, but the status quo will only benefit Chinese tech companies
Danielle Kehl et al., policy analyst, “Surveillance Costs: The NSA’s Impact on the Economy, Internet Freedom & Cybersecurity,”
POLICY PAPER, Open Technology Institute, New America, 7—14, p. 11.
Outside of the cloud computing industry, it is still too early to tell which of these shifts may be temporary and which will have a more
lasting impact. Despite an interest in finding alternatives, foreign companies and governments are also discovering the challenges of
avoiding U.S. businesses altogether—either because of path dependence, because switching costs are too high, or because there simply
are not enough alternative providers in certain markets that offer comparable products at the same prices. This is particularly true for
large government deals and enterprise solutions, markets that many American businesses dominate, because of the amount of time,
money, and effort it would take to move away from U.S. companies. Some have cynically argued that the biggest “winners” in the long
run will be Chinese companies like Huawei, which are also vulnerable to state eavesdropping but may be cheaper than the American
alternatives.
2. We need to act now to limit the backlash to U.S. tech companies
Danielle Kehl et al., policy analyst, “Surveillance Costs: The NSA’s Impact on the Economy, Internet Freedom & Cybersecurity,”
POLICY PAPER, Open Technology Institute, New America, 7—14, p. 11.
The pressure is increasing on American companies to respond to the revelations in order to mitigate potential backlash and prevent
foreign companies from poaching their business. According to the R Street Institute study, “It appears the NSA’s aggressive surveillance
has created an overall fear among U.S. companies that there is ‘guilt by association’ from which they need to proactively distance
themselves.” Some companies have tried to regain trust by publicly stating that they are not part of PRISM or other NSA programs,
issuing disclaimers along the lines of those published by Amazon and Salesforce in June 2013. Others that have been directly linked to
the NSA programs have publicly criticized the American government and called for greater transparency in order to rebuild user
confidence and counteract potential economic harms. To that end, nine major American companies—AOL, Apple, Dropbox, Facebook,
Google, LinkedIn, Microsoft, Twitter, and Yahoo—joined together in the “Reform Government Surveillance” campaign in January
2014, where they launched a website and wrote an open letter to government leaders laying out principles for surveillance reform,
including an end to bulk collection and opposition to data localization requirements. Since the launch, the coalition has urged reform on
Capitol Hill through outreach and letters to Congress, supported the February 2014 “The Day We Fight Back” activist campaign, and
hired a lobbyist to bolster their efforts to curb the NSA’s reach. This unlikely, public partnership of some of Internet’s biggest rivals
speaks to the seriousness of the threats to their collective business interests. Indeed, according to an April 2014 Harris poll
commissioned by a data security company, nearly half of the 2,000 respondents (47 percent) have changed their online behavior since
the NSA leaks, paying closer attention not only to the sites they visit but also to what they say and do on the Internet. In particular, 26
percent indicated that they are now doing less online shopping and banking since learning the extent of government surveillance
programs. Clearly, there are significant financial incentives for companies to distance themselves from the programs, and as a result,
they are expending capital—actual and political—to do so.
3. We have not yet crossed the brink in terms of balkanization / data localization
Richard Fontaine, Senior Fellow, “Bringing Liberty Online: Reenergizing the Internet Freedom Agenda in a Post-Snowden Era,”
POLICY BRIEF, Center for a New American Security, 9—14, p. 4.
A cautionary note is in order when interpreting the reactions to the Snowden affair. Some developments – such as data localization
requirements and worries about a splintering Internet – predated the revelations and have been accelerated rather than prompted by them.
Autocratic governments also drew lessons from the technology-fueled Arab Spring, resulting in actions aimed at limiting Internet
freedom. Other white-hot responses cooled when rhetoric turned to action. Brazil’s new “Marco Civil” Internet law, approved in April
2014, left out a number of the strongest responses that had been widely debated in the run-up to its adoption. The EU did not go through
with its threatened Safe Harbor data-exchange boycott. And for all of the worries about laws that would require the local storage of
users’ data, few countries have actually passed them. Nevertheless, the potential for such fallout remains.
92
Paradigm Research 2015-2016
CX—Electronic Communication Aff
Allied Cooperation Add-On: 2AC
A. Mass surveillance undermines cooperation with our allies
Eileen Donahoe, Visiting Scholar, Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies, Stanford University and former U.S. Ambassador
to the U.N. Human Rights Council, “Why the NSA Undermines National Security,” REUTERS, 3—6—14,
http://blogs.reuters.com/great-debate/2014/03/06/why-nsa-surveillance-undermines-national-security/, accessed 3-14-15.
Some have argued, though, that there is a big difference between the U.S. government engaging in mass-surveillance activities and
authoritarian governments doing so. That “big difference” is supposed to be democratic checks and balances, transparency and
adherence to the rule of law. Current NSA programs, however, do not operate within these constraints. With global standards for digital
surveillance now being set, our political leaders must remember that U.S. security depends upon much more than unimpeded
surveillance capabilities. As German Chancellor Angela Merkel, one of President Barack Obama’s most trusted international partners,
has wisely reminded us, just because we can do something does not mean that we should do it. National security policies that fail to
calculate the real costs of arbitrary mass surveillance threaten to make us less secure. Without trusted and trusting partners, U.S. priority
initiatives in complex global negotiations will be non-starters. The president, his advisers and our political leaders should reassess the
costs of the NSA’s spy programs on our national security, our freedom and our democracy. By evaluating these programs through a
smart-power lens, we will be in a stronger position to regain the global trust and credibility so central to our national security.
B. Strong allied relations are key to U.S. leadership
Joseph S. Nye Jr., Professor, JFK School of Government, Harvard University, “American Power in the 21st Century Will Be Defined by
the ‘Rise of the Rest’,” WASHINGTON POST, 6—28—13, http://articles.washingtonpost.com/2013-0628/opinions/40255646_1_american-power-u-s-economy-united-states, accessed 3-24-15.
In the last century, the United States rose from the status of second-tier power to being the world’s sole superpower. Some worry that the
United States will be eclipsed in this century by China, but that is not the problem. There is never just one possible outcome. Instead,
there are always a range of possibilities, particularly regarding political change in China. Aside from the political uncertainties, China’s
size and high rate of economic growth will almost certainly increase its strength in relation to the United States. But even when China
becomes the world’s largest economy, it will lag decades behind the United States in per-capita income, which is a better measure of an
economy’s sophistication. Moreover, given our energy resources, the U.S. economy will be less vulnerable than the Chinese economy to
external shocks. Growth will bring China closer to the United States in power resources, but as Singapore’s former prime minister Lee
Kwan Yew has noted, that does not necessarily mean that China will surpass the United States as the world’s most powerful country.
Even if China suffers no major domestic political setbacks, projections based on growth in gross domestic product alone ignore U.S.
military and “soft power” advantages as well as China’s geopolitical disadvantages in the Asian balance of power. The U.S. culture of
openness and innovation will keep this country central in an information age in which networks supplement, if not fully replace,
hierarchical power. The United States is well positioned to benefit from such networks and alliances if our leaders follow smart
strategies. In structural terms, it matters that the two entities with per-capita income and sophisticated economies similar to that of the
United States — Europe and Japan — are both allied with the United States. In terms of balances-of-power resources, that makes a large
difference for the net position of American power, but only if U.S. leaders maintain the alliances and institutional cooperation. In
addition, in a more positive sum view of power with, rather than over, other countries, Europe and Japan provide the largest pools of
resources for dealing with common transnational problems. On the question of absolute — rather than relative — American decline, the
United States faces serious domestic problems in debt, secondary education and political gridlock. But these issues are only part of the
picture. Of the many possible futures, stronger cases can be made for the positive over the negative. Among the negative futures, the
most plausible is one in which the United States overreacts to terrorist attacks by turning inward and closing itself off to the strength it
obtains from openness. But barring such mistaken strategies, there are, over a longer term, solutions to the major problems that
preoccupy us. Of course, for political or other reasons, such solutions may remain forever out of reach. But it is important to distinguish
between situations that have no solutions and those that, at least in principle, can be solved. Decline is a misleading metaphor and,
fortunately, President Obama has rejected the suggested strategy of “managing decline.” As a leader in research and development, higher
education and entrepreneurial activity, the United States is not in absolute decline, as happened in ancient Rome. In relative terms, there
is a reasonable probability that the United States is likely to remain more powerful than any single state in the coming decades. We do
not live in a “post-American world,” but neither do we live any longer in the “American era” of the late 20th century. In terms of
primacy, the United States will be “first” but not “sole.” No one has a crystal ball, but the National Intelligence Council (which I once
chaired) may be correct in its 2012 projection that although the unipolar moment is over, the United States probably will remain first
among equals among the other great powers in 2030 because of the multifaceted nature of its power and legacies of its leadership. The
power resources of many states and non-state actors will rise in the coming years. U.S. presidents will face an increasing number of
issues in which obtaining our preferred outcomes will require power with others as much as power over others. Our leaders’ capacity to
maintain alliances and create networks will be an important dimension of our hard and soft power. Simply put, the problem of American
power in the 21st century is not one of a poorly specified “decline” or being eclipsed by China but, rather, the “rise of the rest.” The
paradox of American power is that even the largest country will not be able to achieve the outcomes it wants without the help of others.
93
Paradigm Research 2015-2016
CX—Electronic Communication Aff
Allied Cooperation Add-On: 2AC [cont’d]
C. U.S. leadership is key to global stability and addressing a number of existential threats
Zachary Keck, assistant Editor, “America’s Relative Decline: Should We Panic?” THE DIPLOMAT, 1—24—14,
http://thediplomat.com/2014/01/americas-relative-decline-should-we-panic/, accessed 3-30-14.
Still, on balance, the U.S. has been a positive force in the world, especially for a unipolar power. Certainly, it’s hard to imagine many
other countries acting as benignly if they possessed the amount of relative power America had at the end of the Cold War. Indeed, the
British were not nearly as powerful as the U.S. in the 19th Century and they incorporated most of the globe in their colonial empire.
Even when it had to contend with another superpower, Russia occupied half a continent by brutally suppressing its populace. Had the
U.S. collapsed and the Soviet Union emerged as the Cold War victor, Western Europe would likely be speaking Russian by now. It’s
difficult to imagine China defending a rule-based, open international order if it were a unipolar power, much less making an effort to
uphold a minimum level of human rights in the world. Regardless of your opinion on U.S. global leadership over the last two decades,
however, there is good reason to fear its relative decline compared with China and other emerging nations. To begin with, hegemonic
transition periods have historically been the most destabilizing eras in history. This is not only because of the malign intentions of the
rising and established power(s). Even if all the parties have benign, peaceful intentions, the rise of new global powers necessitates
revisions to the “rules of the road.” This is nearly impossible to do in any organized fashion given the anarchic nature of the international
system, where there is no central authority that can govern interactions between states. We are already starting to see the potential
dangers of hegemonic transition periods in the Asia-Pacific (and arguably the Middle East). As China grows more economically and
militarily powerful, it has unsurprisingly sought to expand its influence in East Asia. This necessarily has to come at the expense of other
powers, which so far has primarily meant the U.S., Japan, Vietnam and the Philippines. Naturally, these powers have sought to resist
Chinese encroachments on their territory and influence, and the situation grows more tense with each passing day. Should China
eventually emerge as a global power, or should nations in other regions enjoy a similar rise as Kenny suggests, this situation will play
itself out elsewhere in the years and decades ahead. All of this highlights some of the advantages of a unipolar system. Namely, although
the U.S. has asserted military force quite frequently in the post-Cold War era, it has only fought weak powers and thus its wars have
been fairly limited in terms of the number of casualties involved. At the same time, America’s preponderance of power has prevented a
great power war, and even restrained major regional powers from coming to blows. For instance, the past 25 years haven’t seen any
conflicts on par with the Israeli-Arab or Iran-Iraq wars of the Cold War. As the unipolar era comes to a close, the possibility of great
power conflict and especially major regional wars rises dramatically. The world will also have to contend with conventionally inferior
powers like Japan acquiring nuclear weapons to protect their interests against their newly empowered rivals. But even if the transitions
caused by China’s and potentially other nations’ rises are managed successfully, there are still likely to be significant negative effects on
international relations. In today’s “globalized” world, it is commonly asserted that many of the defining challenges of our era can only
be solved through multilateral cooperation. Examples of this include climate change, health pandemics, organized crime and terrorism,
global financial crises, and the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction, among many others. A unipolar system, for all its
limitations, is uniquely suited for organizing effective global action on these transnational issues. This is because there is a clear global
leader who can take the initiative and, to some degree, compel others to fall in line. In addition, the unipole’s preponderance of power
lessens the intensity of competition among the global players involved. Thus, while there are no shortages of complaints about the
limitations of global governance today, there is no question that global governance has been many times more effective in the last 25
years than it was during the Cold War. The rise of China and potentially other powers will create a new bipolar or multipolar order. This,
in turn, will make solving these transnational issues much more difficult. Despite the optimistic rhetoric that emanates from official
U.S.-China meetings, the reality is that Sino-American competition is likely to overshadow an increasing number of global issues in the
years ahead. If other countries like India, Turkey, and Brazil also become significant global powers, this will only further dampen the
prospects for effective global governance.
94
Paradigm Research 2015-2016
CX—Electronic Communication Aff
Cybersecurity Add-On: 2AC
A. Spying threatens cybersecurity—makes companies reluctant to cooperate with the NSA, leaving our
infrastructure vulnerable
Aliya Sternstein, “Industry Backlash against Surveillance Jeopardizes Cybersecurity,” NEXTGOV, 9—5—13,
www.nextgov.com/cybersecurity/2013/09/industry-backlash-against-surveillance-jeopardizes-cybersecurity/69940/, accessed 2-22-15.
The private sector’s distrust of the National Security Agency following domestic spying revelations could undermine efforts to secure
systems running utilities and other vital U.S. industries, former federal civilian and military officials say. NSA, maker of arguably the
best encryption tools to protect data, now is attracting more attention for decrypting everyone else’s data, after disclosures by ex-NSA
contractor Edward Snowden of massive Internet surveillance. "NSA has postured itself as a neutral arbiter who could provide these
capabilities to the private sector and really didn't necessarily want much in return," said Christopher Finan, a former White House and
Pentagon official who, until July, was involved in a Defense Department cyber offense research program called Plan X. "I don’t know if
they can present themselves as the same honest broker now that we’re seeing the enormous quantities of data that they are actually
taking in." Traditionally, private industry has counted on NSA's cybersecurity expertise for incident response, even though a 2003
presidential directive assigned the Homeland Security Department the primary job of securing key U.S. sectors. Now, many of those
critical infrastructure firms might shun any government help, former officials said. Going forward, private cyber forensics firms and
nonprofit research institutes could see increased demand. "Part of the fallout from the NSA revelations is that the private sector has
somewhat less confidence in government to manage its information and its networks. I think that neither DHS nor DoD grow in stature
in the eyes of industry because government, generally, is viewed with increased scrutiny,” said Alec Ross, a former senior State
Department Internet policy adviser for the Obama administration. He added, “Ironically, any decreased confidence in government by
industry comes in no small measure because of wariness of government contractors. The fact that such a screwed up kid as Edward
Snowden was able to access extremely sensitive content does not build confidence." James Lewis, a fellow at the Center for Strategic
and International Studies who advises agencies and Congress on cybersecurity, said there definitely will be reluctance to turn to NSA for
protection -- and that is unfortunate. The degree of government involvement in regulating cybersecurity and facilitating the exchange of
information about threats will remain status quo, he said. "If anything we’re just a little further back because NSA playing a larger role is
definitely out of the question, but that doesn't mean that we’ll do something else. It just that it means that we’ll do less of what we’re
doing now."
B. Cyber attacks risks provoking a nuclear war between the U.S. and Russia
James E. Cartwright, USMC General (ret. And former Vice Chair, Joint Chiefs of Staff and Vladimir Dvorkin, Major General (ret.),
Russia’s Strategic Rocket Force, “How to Avert a Nuclear War,” NEW YORK TIMES, 4—19—15,
www.nytimes.com/2015/04/20/opinion/how-to-avert-a-nuclear-war.html, accessed 6-3-15.
We find ourselves in an increasingly risky strategic environment. The Ukrainian crisis has threatened the stability of relations between
Russia and the West, including the nuclear dimension — as became apparent last month when it was reported that Russian defense
officials had advised President Vladimir V. Putin to consider placing Russia’s nuclear arsenal on alert during last year’s crisis in Crimea.
Diplomatic efforts have done little to ease the new nuclear tension. This makes it all the more critical for Russia and the United States to
talk, to relieve the pressures to “use or lose” nuclear forces during a crisis and minimize the risk of a mistaken launch. The fact is that we
are still living with the nuclear-strike doctrine of the Cold War, which dictated three strategic options: first strike, launch on warning and
post-attack retaliation. There is no reason to believe that Russia and the United States have discarded these options, as long as the
architecture of “mutually assured destruction” remains intact. For either side, the decision to launch on warning — in an attempt to fire
one’s nuclear missiles before they are destroyed — would be made on the basis of information from early-warning satellites and ground
radar. Given the 15- to 30-minute flight times of strategic missiles, a decision to launch after an alert of an apparent attack must be made
in minutes. This is therefore the riskiest scenario, since provocations or malfunctions can trigger a global catastrophe. Since computerbased information systems have been in place, the likelihood of such errors has been minimized. But the emergence of cyberwarfare
threats has increased the potential for false alerts in early-warning systems. The possibility of an error cannot be ruled out. American
officials have usually played down the launch-on-warning option. They have argued instead for the advantages of post-attack retaliation,
which would allow more time to analyze the situation and make an intelligent decision. Neither the Soviet Union nor Russia ever stated
explicitly that it would pursue a similar strategy, but an emphasis on mobile missile launchers and strategic submarines continues to
imply a similar reliance on an ability to absorb an attack and carry out retaliatory strikes. Today, however, Russia’s early warning system
is compromised. The last of the satellites that would have detected missile launches from American territory and submarines in the past
stopped functioning last fall. This has raised questions about Russia’s very ability to carry out launch-on-warning attacks.
95
Paradigm Research 2015-2016
CX—Electronic Communication Aff
Human Rights Add-On: 2AC
A. NSA surveillance undermines our human rights leadership
Steven Watt, senior staff attorney, Human Rights Program, ACLU, “Obama Needs to Use this U.N. Meeting to Back Privacy as a
Human Right,” DEFENSE ONE, 3—13—14, www.defenseone.com/ideas/2014/03/obama-needs-use-un-meeting-back-privacy-humanright/80425/?oref=d-river, accessed 3-1-15.
Privacy rights, however, are not absolute. Governments can legitimately interfere with a person’s privacy under narrow circumstances,
such as during emergencies or threats to national security. These circumstances, however, do not provide the government with a license
to run roughshod over people’s privacy rights. Instead, governments must justify their actions and show that any interference with
privacy, such as surveillance powers, is established in laws and regulations, which are clear and precise, necessary to achieve legitimate
government objectives, and proportionate to achieving those limited goals. Privacy also requires an independent, impartial, and
competent judicial or administrative tribunal to oversee the government’s conduct. And when abuse and mistakes occur, government
officials and others responsible must be held accountable. The NSA’s mass surveillance programs fail to meet these exacting standards.
And in doing so, they violate the United States’ international human rights obligation to respect and ensure the privacy rights of U.S. and
non-U.S. citizens, both inside and outside the United States, alike. This year, President Obama singled out China and Russia as countries
that fail to discuss their surveillance programs or the privacy concerns of their citizens and others. He also announced that our
government should be “held to a different standard precisely because we have been at the forefront of defending personal privacy and
human dignity.” Unfortunately, the United States record on privacy belies this rhetoric. To start regaining its human rights leadership
role, the United States should recognize, without equivocation, that privacy is a human right.
B. Stronger human rights are key to global stability
William W. Burke-White, Lecturer, Public and International Affairs and Senior Special Assistant to the Dean, Woodrow Wilson School
of Public and International Affairs, Princeton University, “Human Rights and National Security: The Strategic Correlation,” THE
HARVARD ENVIRONMENTAL LAW REVIEW v. 17, Spring 20 04, p. 268.
Given the linkage between a state's domestic human rights record and its propensity to engage in international aggression, U.S. national
security could be enhanced by a greater emphasis on the promotion of human rights in U.S. foreign policy. In short, better human rights
practices around the globe make the United States safer and more secure. The human rights informed foreign policy presented here is
intended to supplement and alter--not replace--traditional foreign policy. Such a policy would not neglect national security concerns, but
rather would understand the promotion of national security and human rights to be related and mutually reinforcing goals. The linkage
between human rights and international aggression offers a new means of predicting, preventing, and addressing potential aggressor
states. Further, it suggests alternative mechanisms for dealing with pressing threats such as terrorism and WMD. Finally, it offers a new
opportunity for renewed U.S. engagement with the U.N. in protecting international peace and security.
96
Paradigm Research 2015-2016
CX—Electronic Communication Aff
Disadvantage Ans: Terrorism—General
1. Nationalizing counterterror is inefficient and dehumanizing
Steven R. Morrison, Assistant Professor, Law, University of North Dakota, “War in the Digital Age: The System of Domestic
Counterterrorism Law Enforcement,” STANFORD LAW & POLICY REVIEW v. 25, 2014, p. 376-377.
Conversely, nationalized criminal justice tends to produce law enforcement approaches that contain a number of inefficiencies. First,
nationalized criminal justice tends to be politicized. Since prohibition, the media and national political figures have used a perpetual
crime wave to justify their existence. Whether the concern was alcohol, communism, drugs, or terrorists, nationalized crime moves
respond not solely to demands of justice or nuanced policy needs, but also to politicized fears that are rarely reflective of reality. Relative
to the actual danger, inordinate amounts of resources have been directed at these concerns. Second, nationalized criminal justice tends to
dehumanize offenders by viewing them not as people or community members, but merely as criminals. This approach discounts the
value of leniency and dismisses alternative sentencing as an ineffective attempt at rehabilitation and an elision of retributivist principles.
Third, nationalized criminal justice tends to be blind to local needs and concerns. Disgruntled members of the American populace who
may tend toward terrorist conduct probably do not do so for the same reasons, or in the same ways. The missing Somali teens in
Minneapolis in 2009, thought to have joined Al Shabaab; lone wolves who took criminal action, like the Times Square would-be bomber
Faisal Shahzad; those who responded to a government sting and may be mentally ill, like Rezwan Ferdaus; and those who responded to a
government sting based on arrogant anger, like Tarik Shah, would all probably respond differently to different interventions. Managing
the domestic war on terror from Washington, as has been the case, may not produce the nuanced justice that traditional criminal law
demands. It is unclear, furthermore, that centralized policing ensures public safety more than localized approaches. It is clear, however,
that the positive feedback loop engendered by massive, centralized policing creates inefficiencies and unjust outcomes.
2. Terrorists can go low-tech and dodge electronic surveillance programs
Shayana Kadidal, Senior Managing Attorney, Center for Constitutional Rights, “NSA Surveillance: The Implications for Civil
Liberties,” I/S: A JOURNAL OF LAW AND POLICY FOR THE IFNORMATION SOCIETY v. 10 n. 2, 2014, p. 474-475.
Finally, any such system, no matter how sophisticated, would be easy to avoid if terrorist conspirators simply took a low-tech approach.
Recall that by the afternoon of 9/11 there were already pundits on the networks announcing that soon the public would hear about how
the plotters pulled it off with encryption. Instead, they used the most primitive of techniques: staying off-grid, communicating in code
when they did use email (from public computer terminals), etc. As Newsweek summarized it, “[t]he NSA’s top brass assumes that if a
threat does not show up in its databases, it doesn’t exist. As one woman who lives online, Marcy Wheeler, said, the next terrorist attack
will come from a group that stays offline ‘and we’re going to be hit bad by it because we have this hubris about the degree to which all
people live online.’”
3. Mass data collection isn’t justified even if they win the full weight of their terrorism link arguments
Richard A. Clarke et al., President’s Review Group on Intelligence and Communications Technologies, LIBERTY AND SECURITY IN
A CHANGING WORLD, Report and Recommendations, 12—12—13, p. 114-115.
Third, one might argue that, despite these concerns, the hypothetical mass collection of personal information would make it easier for the
government to protect the nation from terrorism, and it should therefore be permitted. We take this argument seriously. But even if the
premise is true, the conclusion does not necessarily follow. Every limitation on the government’s ability to monitor our conduct makes it
more difficult for the government to prevent bad things from happening. As our risk-management principle suggests, the question is not
whether granting the government authority makes us incrementally safer, but whether the additional safety is worth the sacrifice in terms
of individual privacy, personal liberty, and public trust. Although we might be safer if the government had ready access to a massive
storehouse of information about every detail of our lives, the impact of such a program on the quality of life and on individual freedom
would simply be too great. And this is especially true in light of the alternative measures available to the government. Specifically, even
if the government cannot collect and store for future use massive amounts of personal information about our lives, it would still be free
under section 215 to obtain specific information relating to specific individuals or specific terrorist threats from banks, telephone
companies, credit card companies, and the like—when it can demonstrate to the FISC that it has reasonable grounds to access such
information
97
Paradigm Research 2015-2016
CX—Electronic Communication Aff
Disadvantage Ans: Terrorism—General [cont’d]
4. Most of the leads generated from NSA-style surveillance are worthless
House Committee on the Judiciary Majority Staff, REINING IN THE IMPERIAL PRESIDENCY: LESSONS AND
RECOMMENDATIONS RELATING TO THE PRESIDENCY OF GEORGE W. BUSH, Final Report to Chairman John Conyers, Jr.,
3—09, p. 165.
A former senior prosecutor stated that “[t]he information was so thin, and the connections were so remote, that they never led to
anything, and I never heard any follow-up,” and FBI resources were sidetracked on fruitless investigations of “dead ends or innocent
Americans.” Indeed, the leads from the President’s surveillance program were seen as so unproductive within the FBI that agents joked
that “a new bunch of tips meant more calls to Pizza Hut,” even after the NSA began ranking its tips in response to FBI complaints. FBI
Director Mueller testified to the Senate that “most leads [received by the FBI], whether it be from the NSA or overseas from the CIA,
ultimately turn out not to be valid or worthwhile.” And when interviewed by Wolf Blitzer on May 14, 2006, then-Senate Majority
Leader Bill Frist (R-TN), while defending the program’s lawfulness, refused to identify or even acknowledge any specific successes
against terrorism, even though he was asked three separate times whether “there has been one success story that you can point to.”
5. There are very few terrorists who are touched by domestic surveillance protections
Bruce Fein, constitutional expert, “Presidential Authority to Gather Foreign Intelligence,” PRESIDENTIAL STUDIES QUARTERLY v.
37 n. 1, 3—07, p. 34.
Yoo also neglects to remember that virtually all Al Qaeda intelligence is gathered outside of FISA because the NSA’s electronic
surveillance and physical searches generally target persons in foreign countries. Intelligence experts estimate the number of genuine Al
Qaeda members in the United States at one to two dozen. They pose less of a threat to the people of the United States than do the
perpetrators of the approximately twenty thousand murders committed annually here. The latter criminals do not make known their
antisocial propensities to the world. It is more difficult to establish probable cause to obtain a search or arrest warrant against them than
it is to obtain a FISA warrant to spy on a suspected foreign agent. Yet the Constitution does not permit abandonment of the Fourth
Amendment to make foiling murder easier. It does not even permit watering down the Fourth Amendment to thwart domestic terrorism a
la Timothy McVeigh. There is even less reason for relaxing the amendment’s privacy protection in targeting American citizens on
American soil for electronic surveillance and physical searches in pursuit of foreign intelligence on international terrorism.
6. The absence of prosecutions indicates that the NSA programs are only of limited effectiveness
Jameel Jaffer, fellow, Open Society Foundations, “Needles Are Harder to Find in Bigger Haysticks,” NEW YORK TIMES, Room for
Debate, 6—10—13, www.nytimes.com/roomfordebate/2013/06/09/is-the-nsa-surveillance-threat-real-or-imagined, accessed 2-19-15.
Joshua, I agree with you that effectiveness matters. I can’t help but be skeptical, though. If these dragnet programs are effective, where’s
the evidence? As you note, at least one of the success stories identified by anonymous intelligence officials—the story relating to Zazi—
seems not to withstand scrutiny. Let’s also note that there’s no evidence the government has relied on evidence derived from these
dragnet programs in criminal prosecutions. If these dragnet programs had been effective, wouldn’t we have seen at least a handful of
criminal prosecutions? Of course intelligence surveillance has many purposes; gathering evidence of criminal activity is just one of
them. Still, shouldn’t the apparent absence of any criminal prosecution make us question how necessary the programs really are?
7. Mass surveillance programs have never stopped a terrorist attack
Conor Friedersdorf, staff, “The Last Defenders of the NSA,” THE ATLANTIC, 5—19—15,
www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2015/05/the-last-defenders-for-the-phone-dragnet/393581/, accessed 5-31-15.
And even his best-in-class effort fell well short. To illustrate the ongoing threat of terrorism, he begins his article by referencing the
Islamists killed while trying to attack Pamella Geller’s cartoon contest, noting that while they were quickly shot dead, “There may not be
heavy security in place the next time ISIS attacks.” While true, what’s more relevant is that the phone dragnet did nothing to help
prevent the attack even though it was very much operational, just as it failed to stop the Tsarnaev brothers before they attacked Boston.
In both cases no more lives would’ve been lost without it. “The pesky, rather inconvenient fact is that the government's mass
surveillance programs operating under Section 215 of the Patriot Act have never stopped an act of terrorism,” the ACLU notes. “That is
not the opinion of the NSA's most ardent critics, but rather the findings of the president's own review board and the Privacy and Civil
Liberties Oversight Board. This program has had over a decade to prove its value, and yet there is no evidence that it has helped identify
a terrorism suspect or ‘made a concrete different in the outcome of a counterterrorism investigation.’”
98
Paradigm Research 2015-2016
CX—Electronic Communication Aff
Disadvantage Ans: Terrorism—General [cont’d]
8. It is statistically impossible for mass surveillance to decrease terror attacks
Ray Corrigan, Senior Lecturer, Mathematics, Computing, and Technology, Open University, “Mass Surveillance Will Not Stop
Terrorism,” SLATE, 1—25—15,
www.slate.com/articles/health_and_science/new_scientist/2015/01/mass_surveillance_against_terrorism_gathering_intelligence_on_all_
is_statistically.html, accessed 2-19-15.
It is statistically impossible for total population surveillance to be an effective tool for catching terrorists. Even if your magic terroristcatching machine has a false positive rate of 1 in 1,000—and no security technology comes anywhere near this—every time you asked it
for suspects in the U.K. it would flag 60,000 innocent people. Law enforcement and security services need to be able to move with the
times, using modern digital technologies intelligently and through targeted data preservation—not a mass surveillance regime—to
engage in court-supervised technological surveillance of individuals whom they have reasonable cause to suspect. That is not, however,
the same as building an infrastructure of mass surveillance. Mass surveillance makes the job of the security services more difficult and
the rest of us less secure.
9. Surveillance is not preventative—too many dots, does better at backtracking attacks
Joshua A Kroll, staff, “The Cyber Conundrum,” AMERICAN PROSPECT, 6—1—15, http://prospect.org/article/cyber-conundrum,
accessed 6-4-15.
Surveillance of adversaries, both overseas and domestically with an appropriate court order, is prudent and necessary to prevent attacks
and inform diplomatic and military decisions. Universal domestic surveillance is harder to justify on the merits. Officials argue that they
need all of the data if we want them to connect the dots. But the problem is not a lack of dots. More often, the problem is that the dots
can be connected in too many ways. There is no reliable way to tell in advance which pattern marks an impending attack and which
simply reflects one of the endless permutations of human social behavior. Surveillance data is more useful in hindsight. In the Sony
Pictures hack, intelligence and investigation were critical in connecting the dots after the attack had happened, even though they did very
little to prevent the attack or to discover it in the year or so that it was ongoing.
10. The NSAs program will only catch incompetent terrorists
Leonid Bershidsky, “U.S. Surveillance Is not Aimed at Terrorists,” BLOOMBERG, 6—23—13, www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-0623/u-s-surveillance-is-not-aimed-at-terrorists.html, accessed 2-22-15.
The debate over the U.S. government’s monitoring of digital communications suggests that Americans are willing to allow it as long as
it is genuinely targeted at terrorists. What they fail to realize is that the surveillance systems are best suited for gathering information on
law-abiding citizens. People concerned with online privacy tend to calm down when told that the government can record their calls or
read their e-mail only under special circumstances and with proper court orders. The assumption is that they have nothing to worry about
unless they are terrorists or correspond with the wrong people. The infrastructure set up by the National Security Agency, however, may
only be good for gathering information on the stupidest, lowest-ranking of terrorists. The Prism surveillance program focuses on access
to the servers of America’s largest Internet companies, which support such popular services as Skype, Gmail and iCloud. These are not
the services that truly dangerous elements typically use.
11. There is no real evidence that the program is effective
Yochai Benkler, “Fact: The NSA Gets Negligible Intel from Americans’ Metadata. So End Collection,” GUARDIAN, 10—8—13,
www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2013/oct/08/nsa-bulk-metadata-surveillance-intelligence, accessed 2-22-15.
It is hardly surprising that supporters of bulk collection fervently believe it is critical to national security. No psychologically wellbalanced person could permit herself to support a program that compromises the privacy of tens of millions of Americans, costs billions
of dollars, and imposes direct and articulable harm to cyber security by undermining the security of commercial products and public
standards without holding such a belief truly and honestly. But the honest faith of insiders that their bureaucratic mission is true and
critical is no substitute for credible evidence. A dozen years of experience has produced many public overstatements and much hype
from insiders, but nothing to support the proposition that the program works at all, much less that its marginal contribution is significant
enough to justify its enormous costs in money, freedom, and destabilization of internet security. No rational cost-benefit analysis could
justify such a leap of faith. If the NSA cannot show real, measurable evidence of its effectiveness, evidence that doesn't collapse as soon
as it is examined and isn't a vague appeal to amorphous, measurement-free "peace of mind", its bulk collection program has to go.
99
Paradigm Research 2015-2016
CX—Electronic Communication Aff
Disadvantage Ans: Terrorism—Cooperation Turn
-
Spying won’t work—spurs a global reaction/backlash that confounds surveillance efforts
Martha Mendoza, “ Backlash Grows to NSA Surveillance,” ASSOCIATED PRESS, 10—13—13,
www.denverpost.com/nationworld/ci_24297907/backlash-grows-nsa-surveillance, accessed 2-22-15.
From Silicon Valley to the South Pacific, counterattacks to revelations of widespread National Security Agency surveillance are taking
shape, from a surge of new encrypted e-mail programs to technology that sprinkles the Internet with red-flag terms to confuse would-be
snoops. Policymakers, privacy advocates and political leaders around the world have been outraged at the near weekly disclosures from
former intelligence contractor Edward Snowden that expose sweeping U.S. government surveillance programs. "Until this summer,
people didn't know anything about the NSA," said Amy Zegart, co-director of the Center for International Security and Cooperation at
Stanford University. "Their own secrecy has come back to bite them." Activists are fighting back with high-tech civil disobedience,
entrepreneurs want to cash in on privacy concerns, Internet users want to keep snoops out of their computers and lawmakers want to
establish stricter parameters. Some of the tactics are more effective than others. For example, Flagger, a program that adds words like
"blow up" and "pressure cooker" to web addresses that users visit, is probably more of a political statement than actually confounding
intelligence agents. Developer Jeff Lyon in Santa Clara, Calif., said he is delighted if it generates social awareness, and that 2,000 users
have installed it to date. He said, "The goal here is to get a critical mass of people flooding the Internet with noise and make a statement
of civil disobedience." University of Auckland associate professor Gehan Gunasekara said he has received "overwhelming support" for
his proposal to "lead the spooks in a merry dance," visiting radical websites and setting up multiple online identities. And "pretty soon
everyone in New Zealand will have to be under surveillance," he said. Electronic Frontier Foundation activist Parker Higgens in San
Francisco has a more direct strategy: by using encrypted e-mail and browsers, he creates more smoke screens for the NSA. "Encryption
loses its value as an indicator of possible malfeasance if everyone is using it," he said. CryptoParties are springing up around the world
as well. They are small gatherings where hosts teach attendees, who bring their digital devices, how to download and use encrypted email and secure Internet browsers. "Honestly, it doesn't matter who you are or what you are doing. If the NSA wants to find information,
they will," said organizer Joshua Smith. "But we don't have to make it easy for them."
100
Paradigm Research 2015-2016
CX—Electronic Communication Aff
Disadvantage Ans: Terrorism—Effectiveness Exaggerated
1. Claims of program effectiveness are hollow and ill-supported
Jameer Jaffer, fellow, Open Society Foundations, “Secrecy and Freedom,” NEW YORK TIMES, Room for Debate, 6—9—13,
www.nytimes.com/roomfordebate/2013/06/09/is-the-nsa-surveillance-threat-real-or-imagined, accessed 2-22-15.
Joshua, I agree with you that effectiveness matters. I can’t help but be skeptical, though. If these dragnet programs are effective, where’s
the evidence? As you note, at least one of the success stories identified by anonymous intelligence officials—the story relating to Zazi—
seems not to withstand scrutiny. Let’s also note that there’s no evidence the government has relied on evidence derived from these
dragnet programs in criminal prosecutions. If these dragnet programs had been effective, wouldn’t we have seen at least a handful of
criminal prosecutions? Of course intelligence surveillance has many purposes; gathering evidence of criminal activity is just one of
them. Still, shouldn’t the apparent absence of any criminal prosecution make us question how necessary the programs really are?
Lacking any more solid evidence of success, you fall back on the point that “the people who created and oversee” these programs
“believe they are effective.” But unfortunately there are many reasons to question the trust you imply we should put in our national
security agencies when they tell us, in essence, “we need more power to make you safe.”
2. The program has only stopped one attack—should be ended
Yochai Benkler, “Fact: The NSA Gets Negligible Intel from Americans’ Metadata. So End Collection,” GUARDIAN, 10—8—13,
www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2013/oct/08/nsa-bulk-metadata-surveillance-intelligence, accessed 2-22-15.
Congress may be on the verge of prohibiting the NSA from continuing its bulk telephony metadata collection program. Two weeks ago,
the Senate national security dissenters: Wyden, Udall, Paul, and Blumenthal proposed prohibition. Last week, the move received a major
boost from a bipartisan proposal by core establishment figures: Senator Patrick Leahy, and Representatives Jim Sensenbrenner and John
Conyers. It's a prohibition whose time has come. Dragnet surveillance, or bulk collection, goes to the heart of what is wrong with the
turn the NSA has taken since 2001. It implements a perpetual "state of emergency" mentality that inverts the basic model outlined by the
fourth amendment: that there are vast domains of private action about which the state should remain ignorant unless it provides clear
prior justification. And all public evidence suggests that, from its inception in 2001 to this day, bulk collection has never made more than
a marginal contribution to securing Americans from terrorism, despite its costs. In a 2 October hearing of the Senate judiciary
committee, Senator Leahy challenged the NSA chief, General Keith Alexander: Would you agree that the 54 cases that keep getting
cited by the administration were not all plots, and that of the 54 only 13 had some nexus to the US? Would you agree with that, yes or
no? Alexander responded: Yes. Leahy then demanded that Alexander confirm what his deputy, Christopher Inglis, had said in the prior
week's testimony: that there is only one example where collection of bulk data is what stopped a terrorist activity. Alexander responded
that Inglis might have said two, not one. In fact, what Inglis had said the week before was that there was one case "that comes close to a
but-for example and that's the case of Basaaly Moalin". So, who is Moalin, on whose fate the NSA places the entire burden of justifying
its metadata collection program? Did his capture foil a second 9/11? A cabby from San Diego, Moalin had immigrated as a teenager
from Somalia. In February, he was convicted of providing material assistance to a terrorist organization: he had transferred $8,500 to alShabaab in Somalia. After the Westgate Mall attack in Nairobi, few would argue that al-Shabaab is not a terrorist organization. But alShabaab is involved in a local war, and is not invested in attacking the US homeland. The indictment against Moalin explicitly stated
that al-Shabaab's enemies were the present Somali government and "its Ethiopian and African Union supporters". Perhaps, it makes
sense for prosecutors to pursue Somali Americans for doing essentially what some Irish Americans did to help the IRA; perhaps not. But
this single successful prosecution, under a vague criminal statute, which stopped a few thousand dollars from reaching one side in a local
conflict in the Horn of Africa, is the sole success story for the NSA bulk domestic surveillance program.
101
Paradigm Research 2015-2016
CX—Electronic Communication Aff
Disadvantage Ans: Terrorism—Effectiveness Exaggerated (Specific Cases)
1. Bulk surveillance does little to stop threats—claims to the contrary are overblown
Peter Bergen, Director, National Security Program, New America Foundation, with David Sterman, Emily Schneider and Bailey Cahall,
“Do NSA’s Bulk Surveillance Programs Stop Terrorists?” New America Foundation, 1—14, p. 1-2.
However, our review of the government’s claims about the role that NSA “bulk” surveillance of phone and email communications
records has had in keeping the United States safe from terrorism shows that these claims are overblown and even misleading.* An indepth analysis of 225 individuals recruited by al-Qaeda or a like-minded group or inspired by al-Qaeda’s ideology, and charged in the
United States with an act of terrorism since 9/11, demonstrates that traditional investigative methods, such as the use of informants, tips
from local communities, and targeted intelligence operations, provided the initial impetus for investigations in the majority of cases,
while the contribution of NSA’s bulk surveillance programs to these cases was minimal. Indeed, the controversial bulk collection of
American telephone metadata, which includes the telephone numbers that originate and receive calls, as well as the time and date of
those calls but not their content, under Section 215 of the USA PATRIOT Act, appears to have played an identifiable role in, at most, 1.8
percent of these cases. NSA programs involving the surveillance of non-U.S. persons outside of the United States under Section 702 of
the FISA Amendments Act played a role in 4.4 percent of the terrorism cases we examined, and NSA surveillance under an unidentified
authority played a role in 1.3 percent of the cases we examined. Regular FISA warrants not issued in connection with Section 215 or
Section 702, which are the traditional means for investigating foreign persons, were used in at least 48 (21 percent) of the cases we
looked at, although it’s unclear whether these warrants played an initiating role or were used at a later point in the investigation. (Click
on the link to go to a database of all 225 individuals, complete with additional details about them and the government’s investigations of
these cases: http://natsec.newamerica.net/nsa/analysis).
2. Claims of NSA effectiveness are exaggerated—Zazi plot
Peter Bergen, Director, National Security Program, New America Foundation, with David Sterman, Emily Schneider and Bailey Cahall,
“Do NSA’s Bulk Surveillance Programs Stop Terrorists?” New America Foundation, 1—14, p. 10.
The 2009 plot by Najibullah Zazi et al. to attack the New York subway: This case involved a foiled plot by Colorado resident Najibullah
Zazi and two co-conspirators in New York, Zarein Ahmedzay and Adis Medunjanin, to bomb the New York City subway system in
2009. The government has claimed the case as an NSA success. Yet, the Zazi case was initiated not by the NSA but by British
intelligence, according to a senior U.S. counterterrorism official with direct knowledge of the case whom we consulted. Also, although
the NSA was involved in intercepting Zazi’s email to an al-Qaeda operative in Pakistan, this was an instance where the same result could
have been obtained through traditional targeted investigative methods. The email address Zazi communicated with was known to belong
to an al-Qaeda figure for at least five months prior to the NSA’s interception of Zazi’s email, due to a British intelligence operation in
April 2009. The British shared their findings with U.S. intelligence, which then chose to use the NSA surveillance program to monitor
the email address. The knowledge that the email address was that of an alQaeda associate would have been sufficient to obtain a
traditional, targeted criminal or FISA warrant for the email’s contents. The NSA may have opted to use the Section 702 authority, but
the case, as currently explained in the public record, does not provide evidence for the need for bulk surveillance authorities. It is also
worth noting that the contribution from the bulk collection of Americans’ telephone metadata under Section 215 was minimal, at best, in
this case. The FBI identified a phone number included in Zazi’s email and ran it against the NSA’s phone metadata collected under
Section 215 authority. The query provided a previously unknown second phone number belonging to Adis Medunjanin, one of Zazi’s
co-conspirators, who was already a suspect in the plot. This brings into question how the government measures the “contribution” of the
NSA to terrorism cases and whether the “contributions” cited by officials reflect important and unique contributions to those cases by the
NSA.
102
Paradigm Research 2015-2016
CX—Electronic Communication Aff
Disadvantage Ans: Terrorism—Effectiveness Exaggerated (Specific Cases) [cont’d]
3. Claims of NSA effectiveness are exaggerated—Ouazzani plot
Peter Bergen, Director, National Security Program, New America Foundation, with David Sterman, Emily Schneider and Bailey Cahall,
“Do NSA’s Bulk Surveillance Programs Stop Terrorists?” New America Foundation, 1—14, p. 10.
Khalid Ouazzani et al.’s provision of funds to al-Qaeda and the nascent plot to attack the New York Stock Exchange: Khalid Ouazzani, a
Kansas City small business owner, and his two co-conspirators, Sabirhan Hasanoff, a New York accountant, and Wesam ElHanafi, a
New York computer engineer, provided tens of thousands of dollars to al-Qaeda figures over a number of years. One of Ouazzani’s coconspirators also cased the New York Stock Exchange for a potential attack and produced a report for their handlers, though the plot was
more notional than operational. The U.S. government has cited surveillance conducted under Section 702 as the cause of its
investigation. While little evidence is available to contest the government’s assertion that the NSA under Section 702 played a role in
this investigation, the seriousness of the threat is debatable. Even the government noted in a sentencing memorandum that the casing of
the New York Stock Exchange by one of the defendants resulted in only a one-page report that was “rudimentary and of limited use.”
During an interrogation, one of their contacts overseas (whose name was redacted in court documents) denied that there was “any real
intention to plan or coordinate such an operation.” The plot was not a serious threat, though the contact these defendants had with
foreign terrorists, which led them to provide a total of about $67,000 and supplies to their contacts abroad, was certainly worrisome.
4. Claims of NSA effectiveness are exaggerated—Coleman Headley plot
Peter Bergen, Director, National Security Program, New America Foundation, with David Sterman, Emily Schneider and Bailey Cahall,
“Do NSA’s Bulk Surveillance Programs Stop Terrorists?” New America Foundation, 1—14, p. 9-10.
C. In three of the key terrorism cases it has cited to defend NSA bulk surveillance programs, the government has exaggerated the role of
the NSA in two of them and the significance of the threat posed by the third case. When the Snowden leaks first broke, the government
declassified some of the details of four terrorism cases to make its defense of the NSA bulk surveillance programs. One was the Moalin
case discussed in the previous section. The three others, involving surveillance under Section 702, are discussed below. (More detail
about all of these cases can be found in the Appendix.) An examination of the terrorism cases that the government has cited to defend the
NSA program
attack the JyllandsPosten newspaper: David Coleman Headley plotted to attack the Danish newspaper Jyllands-Posten in Copenhagen in
2009. The newspaper had become the focus of controversy after publishing cartoons depicting the Prophet Mohammed. The U.S.
government has claimed that it used NSA surveillance under Section 702 to identify Headley as a threat and prevent the attack.
Tahawwur Rana, a Chicago businessman who allowed Headley to use his travel agency as a front, was found guilty of providing support
to Headley’s activities after Headley gave extensive testimony against him at trial. However, the NSA’s bulk surveillance programs
likely played only a secondary role, if any, to British intelligence in discovering Headley’s plotting. In June 2009, Headley was planning
to meet with two British extremists who were already under surveillance in the United Kingdom. Headley, who played a key role in
planning the 2008 terrorist attacks in Mumbai, confirmed that he had met these two extremists in Britain when he was later interrogated
by Indian authorities following his arrest in October 2009. According to reports by ProPublica, this meeting between Headley and the
British extremists sparked the investigation into Headley, and the NSA’s role was merely following up and identifying the individual in
question as Headley. Moreover, the government had received multiple tips over the years from individuals who knew Headley, including
two of his wives, that he was likely a terrorist. So, even if the NSA played some kind of role in building the case against Headley, his
case represents a colossal failure of the counterterrorism apparatus, which despite receiving multiple tips, failed to catch Headley, even
after he assisted with the 2008 Mumbai attack. The main lesson from the Headley case should be the need for better information-sharing
between law enforcement and intelligence agencies – not the development of a sprawling collection system.
103
Paradigm Research 2015-2016
CX—Electronic Communication Aff
Disadvantage Ans: Terrorism—Empirically
1. There is no empirical evidence that dragnet domestic surveillance decreases terror threats
Adrienne Ratner, J.D. Candidate, “Warrantless Wiretapping: The Bush Administration’s Failure to Jam an Elephant into a Mousehole,”
HASTINGS CONSTITUTIONAL LAW QUARTERLY v. 37, Fall 2009, p. 195-196.
In addition to FISA not being restrictive enough to warrant unlimited electronic surveillance, there is no clear basis that mass electronic
surveillance results in the production of substantive intelligence and, specifically, has produced any tangible results in the war on
terrorism. After the NSA began conducting warrantless wiretapping, what the agency gained in speed and freedom, it sacrificed in order
and understanding. In addition, of all the terrorist prosecutions since September 11, the vast majority were charged with "material
support" to a group the government has labeled terrorist under a very broad statute; the government has obtained a number of
convictions or guilty pleas, but none of the defendants have been charged with engaging in terrorist activity. The only criminal
conviction involving an actual terrorist incident since September 11 was that of shoe bomber Richard Reid, captured simply because an
alert airline employee noticed him trying to light his shoe on fire. Dragnet surveillance has failed to detect a terrorist cell within the
United States. The results of electronic surveillance are largely unknowable given its secret nature; but as far as the public knows,
warrantless domestic electronic surveillance has failed to yield "useful dots" - substantive intelligence - or help the government "connect
the dots," while the risk to civil liberties is enormous.
2. There is zero reason to believe that FISA impedes counterterrorism—empirical record
Adrienne Ratner, J.D. Candidate, “Warrantless Wiretapping: The Bush Administration’s Failure to Jam an Elephant into a Mousehole,”
HASTINGS CONSTITUTIONAL LAW QUARTERLY v. 37, Fall 2009, p. 194-195.
The government's argument that FISA impeded effective intelligence gathering is equally implausible. Passed in 1978, the Foreign
Intelligence Surveillance Act created a separate, secret court, the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court ("FISC"), to consider warrant
requests and ostensibly ensure a check on the activities of the executive branch. All of the FISC's opinions and Justice Department
guidance documents are kept secret: The government is not required to disclose the number of U.S. citizens who are subjected to each
type of FISA surveillance, where surveillance occurred, the average length of surveillance and extensions, or the number of targets
subsequently arrested and convicted. Regarding clandestine physical searches, the government need not show any special need for
secrecy or give any notice; FISA permits secrecy that the Fourth Amendment clearly prohibits outside the intelligence-gathering context.
The FISC has given virtually universal approval to the large number of government requests for electronic surveil-lance: From 19972002, the government made between 749 and 1,228 applications for electronic surveillance each year. The FISC approved every single
one. After September 11, Congress passed the Patriot Act, increasing the government's authority to collect and share wiretap information
between agencies and authorizing surveillance where the purpose was not exclusively to gather foreign intelligence information. With
the passage of the Patriot Act, government use of FISA warrants exploded. In short, before and after September 11, 2001, the FISC
allowed the President to do almost any eavesdropping he wanted: the warrant requirement did not impede effective or efficient
intelligence gathering. Moreover, if the executive found FISA to be impeding intelligence gathering, the President could have gone to a
very accommodating Congress to amend the law to extend to the executive even greater eaves-dropping powers.
3. NSA circumvention of FISA has not stopped a single terrorist attack
Bruce Fein, constitutional expert, “Presidential Authority to Gather Foreign Intelligence,” PRESIDENTIAL STUDIES QUARTERLY v.
37 n. 1, 3—07, p. 24.
The NSA’s circumvention of FISA has yielded no demonstrable national security benefits. President Bush has not identified even one
terrorist attack that was frustrated by warrantless spying on American citizens. In contrast, the White House has described in some detail
the terrorism that was allegedly frustrated by the CIA’s secret imprisonments and interrogations of the “Al Qaeda 14.” In signing the
Military Commissions Act of 2006, President Bush elaborated: “The CIA program helped us identify terrorists who were sent to case
targets inside the United States, including financial buildings in major cities on the East Coast. And the CIA program helped us stop the
planned strike on U.S. Marines in Djibouti, a planned attack on the U.S. consulate in Karachi, and a plot to hijack airplanes and fly them
into Heathrow Airport and Canary Wharf in London.” Bush has conspicuously remained as silent as the Sphinx about the NSA’s
warrantless surveillance success stories because there are none to tell. If there were, they would have been leaked and declassified long
ago.
104
Paradigm Research 2015-2016
CX—Electronic Communication Aff
Disadvantage Ans: Terrorism—Empirically [cont’d]
4. Mass surveillance won’t stop attacks—multiple recent examples prove
Patrick Eddington, policy analyst, Cato Institute, “No, Mass Surveillance Won’t Stop Terrorist Attacks,” REASON, 1—27—15,
http://reason.com/archives/2015/01/27/mass-surveillance-and-terrorism#.undnpk:U8Io, accessed 2-19-15.
But would more mass surveillance have prevented the assault on the Charlie Hebdo office? Events from 9/11 to the present help provide
the answer: 2009: Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab—i.e., the "underwear bomber"—nearly succeeded in downing the airline he was on over
Detroit because, according to then-National Counterterrorism Center (NCC) director Michael Leiter, the federal Intelligence Community
(IC) failed "to connect, integrate, and fully understand the intelligence" it had collected. 2009: Army Major Nidal Hasan was able to
conduct his deadly, Anwar al-Awlaki-inspired rampage at Ft. Hood, Texas, because the FBI bungled its Hasan investigation. 2013: The
Boston Marathon bombing happened, at least in part, because the CIA, Department of Homeland Security (DHS), FBI, NCC, and
National Security Agency (NSA) failed to properly coordinate and share information about Tamerlan Tsarnaev and his family,
associations, and travel to and from Russia in 2012. Those failures were detailed in a 2014 report prepared by the Inspectors General of
the IC, Department of Justice, CIA, and DHS. 2014: The Charlie Hebdo and French grocery store attackers were not only known to
French and U.S. authorities but one had a prior terrorism conviction and another was monitored for years by French authorities until less
than a year before the attack on the magazine. No, mass surveillance does not prevent terrorist attacks. It’s worth remembering that the
mass surveillance programs initiated by the U.S. government after the 9/11 attacks—the legal ones and the constitutionally-dubious
ones—were premised on the belief that bin Laden’s hijacker-terrorists were able to pull off the attacks because of a failure to collect
enough data. Yet in their subsequent reports on the attacks, the Congressional Joint Inquiry (2002) and the 9/11 Commission found
exactly the opposite. The data to detect (and thus foil) the plots was in the U.S. government’s hands prior to the attacks; the failures were
ones of sharing, analysis, and dissemination. That malady perfectly describes every intelligence failure from Pearl Harbor to the present
day.
5. There is simply no evidence that the NSA’s dragnet programs are making us any safer
Bruce Schneier, journalist and author, “How the NSA Threatens National Security,” THE ATLANTIC, 1—6—14,
www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2014/01/how-the-nsa-threatens-national-security/282822/#about-the-authors, accessed 2-1915.
Ubiquitous surveillance should have died with the fall of Communism, but it got a new—and even more dangerous—life with the
intelligence community's post-9/11 "never again" terrorism mission. This quixotic goal of preventing something from happening forces
us to try to know everything that does happen. This pushes the NSA to eavesdrop on online gaming worlds and on every cell phone in
the world. But it's a fool's errand; there are simply too many ways to communicate. We have no evidence that any of this surveillance
makes us safer. NSA Director General Keith Alexander responded to these stories in June by claiming that he disrupted 54 terrorist
plots. In October, he revised that number downward to 13, and then to "one or two." At this point, the only "plot" prevented was that of a
San Diego man sending $8,500 to support a Somali militant group. We have been repeatedly told that these surveillance programs would
have been able to stop 9/11, yet the NSA didn't detect the Boston bombings—even though one of the two terrorists was on the watch list
and the other had a sloppy social media trail. Bulk collection of data and metadata is an ineffective counterterrorism tool.
105
Paradigm Research 2015-2016
CX—Electronic Communication Aff
Disadvantage Ans: Terrorism—Focus Turn
1. Greater protections help counterterror operations—focus our resources
Lisa Graves, Executive Director, Center for Media and Democracy, “The Right to Privacy in Light of Presidents' Programs: What
Project MINARET's Admissions Reveal about Modern Surveillance of Americans,” TEXAS LAW REVIEW v. 88, 6—10, p. 18931894.
All that is to say that the revolution in digital communications and communication patterns - which served as one of the rationales for the
push to change FISA to permit more warrantless electronic surveillance - actually warrants greater privacy protections for Americans,
not weaker ones. And, it is my view that greater privacy protections for Americans will help ensure that precious anti-terrorism resources
and Americans' precious tax dollars are not squandered capturing, storing, and analyzing innocent Americans. These tools, this weapon
of surveillance capacity to capture almost every electronic conversation one has and all the data about who our friends and family are,
should not be turned on Americans.
2. Mass surveillance fails—diverts resources
Ray Corrigan, Senior Lecturer, Mathematics, Computing, and Technology, Open University, “Mass Surveillance Will Not Stop
Terrorism,” SLATE, 1—25—15,
www.slate.com/articles/health_and_science/new_scientist/2015/01/mass_surveillance_against_terrorism_gathering_intelligence_on_all_
is_statistically.html, accessed 2-19-15.
Police, intelligence, and security systems are imperfect. They process vast amounts of imperfect intelligence data and do not have the
resources to monitor all known suspects 24/7. The French authorities lost track of these extremists long enough for them to carry out
their murderous acts. You cannot fix any of this by treating the entire population as suspects and then engaging in suspicionless, blanket
collection and processing of personal data. Mass data collectors can dig deeply into anyone’s digital persona but don’t have the resources
to do so with everyone. Surveillance of the entire population, the vast majority of whom are innocent, leads to the diversion of limited
intelligence resources in pursuit of huge numbers of false leads. Terrorists are comparatively rare, so finding one is a needle-in-ahaystack problem. You don’t make it easier by throwing more needleless hay on the stack.
106
Paradigm Research 2015-2016
CX—Electronic Communication Aff
Disadvantage Ans: Terrorism—Human Intelligence Tradeoff Turn
1. Mass surveillance programs trade-off with traditional intelligence techniques—more likely to catch extremists
Dustin Volz, journalist, “Snowden: Overreliance on Mass Surveillance Abetted Boston Marathon Bombing,” NATIONAL JOURNAL,
10—20—14, www.nationaljournal.com/tech/snowden-overreliance-on-mass-surveillance-abetted-boston-marathon-bombing-20141020,
accessed 3-22-15.
Edward Snowden on Monday suggested that if the National Security Agency focused more on traditional intelligence gathering—and
less on its mass-surveillance programs—it could have thwarted the 2013 Boston Marathon bombings. The fugitive leaker, speaking via
video to a Harvard class, said that a preoccupation with collecting bulk communications data has led to resource constraints at U.S.
intelligence agencies, often leaving more traditional, targeted methods of spying on the back burner. "We miss attacks, we miss leads,
and investigations fail because when the government is doing its 'collect it all,' where we're watching everybody, we're not seeing
anything with specificity because it is impossible to keep an eye on all of your targets," Snowden told Harvard professor and Internet
freedom activist Lawrence Lessig. "A good example of this is, actually, the Boston Marathon bombings." Snowden said that Dzhokhar
and Tamerlan Tsarnaev were pointed out by Russian intelligence to U.S. officials prior to the bombings last year that killed three and left
hundreds wounded, but that such actionable intelligence was largely ignored. He argued that targeted surveillance on known extremists
and diligent pursuit of intelligence leads provides for better counterterrorism efforts than mass spying. "We didn't really watch these
guys and the question is, why?" Snowden asked. "The reality of that is because we do have finite resources and the question is, should
we be spending 10 billion dollars a year on mass-surveillance programs of the NSA to the extent that we no longer have effective means
of traditional [targeting]?" Anti-spying activists have frequently argued that bulk data collection has no record of successfully thwarting
a terrorist attack, a line of argument some federal judges reviewing the NSA's programs have also used in their legal reviews of the
activities. Snowden's suggestion—that such mass surveillance has not only failed to directly stop a threat, but actually makes the U.S.
less safe by distracting resource-strapped intelligence officials from performing their jobs—takes his criticism of spy programs to a new
level. "We're watching everybody that we have no reason to be watching simply because it may have value, at the expense of being able
to watch specific people for which we have a specific cause for investigating, and that's something that we need to look carefully at how
to balance," Snowden said.
2. Mass surveillance programs do not make us safer—traditional intelligence techniques are more effective
Stephen M. Walt, Professor, International Relations, Harvard University, “The Big Counterterrorism Counterfactual,” FOREIGN
POLICY, 11—10—14, http://foreignpolicy.com/2014/11/10/the-big-counterterrorism-counterfactual/, accessed 3-3-15.
It’s a serious issue, and democracies that want to respect individual privacy while simultaneously keeping citizens safe are going to have
to do a much better job of reassuring us that vast and (mostly) secret surveillance capabilities overseen by unelected officials such as
Hannigan won’t be abused. I tend to favor the privacy side of the argument, both because personal freedoms are hard to get back once
lost, but also because there’s not much evidence that these surveillance activities are making us significantly safer. They seem to be able
to help us track some terrorist leaders, but there’s a lively debate among scholars over whether tracking and killing these guys is an
effective strategy. The fear of being tracked also forces terrorist organizations to adopt less efficient communications procedures, but it
doesn’t seem to prevent them from doing a fair bit of harm regardless. So here’s a wild counterfactual for you to ponder: What would the
United States, Great Britain, and other wealthy and powerful nations do if they didn’t have these vast surveillance powers? What would
they do if they didn’t have armed drones, cruise missiles, or other implements of destruction that can make it remarkably easy (and in the
short-term, relatively cheap) to target anyone they suspect might be a terrorist? Assuming that there were still violent extremists plotting
various heinous acts, what would these powerful states do if the Internet was there but no one knew how to spy on it? For starters, they’d
have to rely more heavily on tried-and-true counterterrorism measures: infiltrating extremist organizations and flipping existing
members, etc., to find out what they were planning, head attacks off before they occurred, and eventually roll up organization
themselves. States waged plenty of counterterrorism campaigns before the Internet was invented, and while it can be difficult to infiltrate
such movements and find their vulnerable points, it’s not exactly an unknown art. If we couldn’t spy on them from the safety of Fort
Meade, we’d probably be doing a lot more of this.
107
Paradigm Research 2015-2016
CX—Electronic Communication Aff
Disadvantage Ans: Terrorism—Human Intelligence Tradeoff Turn [cont’d]
3. Failure to expand our human intelligence capabilities only increases the risks of deadly intelligence failures
Gabriel Margolis, Conflict Management and Resolution Graduate Program, University of North Carolina-Wilmington, “The Lack of
HUMINT: A Recurring Intelligence Problem,” GLOBAL SECURITY STUDIES v. 4 n. 2, Spring 2013, p. 43.
The United States has accumulated an unequivocal ability to collect intelligence as a result of the technological advances of the 20th
century. Numerous methods of collection have been employed in clandestine operations around the world including those that focus on
human, signals, geospatial, and measurements and signals intelligence. An infatuation with technological methods of intelligence
gathering has developed within many intelligence organizations, often leaving the age old practice of espionage as an afterthought. As a
result of the focus on technical methods, some of the worst intelligence failures of the 20th century can be attributed to an absence of
human intelligence. The 21st century has ushered in advances in technology have allowed UAVs to become the ultimate technical
intelligence gathering platform; however human intelligence is still being neglected. The increasing reliance on UAVs will make the
United States susceptible to intelligence failures unless human intelligence can be properly integrated. In the near future UAVs may be
able to gather human level intelligence, but it will be a long time before classical espionage is a thing of the past.
4. Intelligence is key to addressing an array of threats—human intelligence competes for resources with more
technical programs
Loch K. Johnson, Professor, Political Science, University of Georgia, “Evaluating ‘Humint’: The Role of Foreign Agents in U.S.
Security, Paper Presented at the ISA’s 50th Annual Convention, 2—15—09,
http://citation.allacademic.com/meta/p_mla_apa_research_citation/3/1/0/6/6/p310665_index.html, accessed 12-22-14.
The world is a dangerous place, plagued by the presence of terrorist cells; failed or failing states; competition for scarce resources, such
as oil, water, uranium, and food; chemical, biological, and nuclear weapons, not to mention bristling arsenals of conventional
armaments; and deep-seated animosities between rival nations and factions. For self-protection, if for no other reason, government
officials leaders seek information about the capabilities and—an especially elusive topic—the intentions of those overseas (or
subversives at home) who can inflict harm upon the nation. That is the core purpose of espionage: to gather information about threats,
whether external or internal, and to warn leaders about perils facing the homeland. Further, the secret services hope to provide leaders
with data that can help advance the national interest—the opportunity side of the security equation. Through the practice of espionage—
spying or clandestine human intelligence: whichever is one’s favorite term—the central task, stated baldly, is to steal secrets from
adversaries as a means for achieving a more thorough understanding of threats and opportunities in the world. National governments
study information that is available in the public domain (Chinese newspapers, for example), but knowledge gaps are bound to arise. A
favorite metaphor for intelligence is the jigsaw puzzle. Many of the pieces to the puzzle are available in the stacks of the Library of
Congress or on the Internet; nevertheless, there will continue to be several missing pieces—perhaps the most important ones. They may
be hidden away in Kremlin vaults or in caves where members of Al Qaeda hunker down in Pakistan’s western frontier. The public pieces
of the puzzle can be acquired through careful research; but often discovery of the missing secret pieces has to rely on spying, if they can
be found at all. Some things— “mysteries” in the argot of intelligence professionals—are unknowable in any definitive way, such as
who is likely to replace the current leader of North Korea. Secrets, in contrast, may be uncovered with a combination of luck and skill—
say, the number of Chinese nuclear-armed submarines, which are vulnerable to satellite and sonar tracking. Espionage can be pursued by
way of human agents or with machines, respectively known inside America’s secret agencies as human intelligence (“humint,” in the
acronym) and technical intelligence (“techint”). Humint consists of spy rings that rely on foreign agents or “assets” in the field, recruited
by intelligence professionals (known as case officers during the Cold War or, in more current jargon, operations officers).i Techint
includes mechanical devises large and small, including satellites the size of Greyhound buses, equipped with fancy cameras and listening
devices that can see and hear acutely from orbits deep in space; reconnaissance aircraft, most famously the U-2; unmanned aerial
vehicles (UAVs) or drones, such as the Predator—often armed with Hellfire missiles, allowing the option to kill what its handlers have
just spotted through the lens of an onboard camera); enormous ground-based listening antennae, aimed at enemy territory; listening
devices clamped surreptitiously on fiber-optic communications cables that carry telephone conversations; and miniature listening “bugs”
concealed within sparkling cut-glass chandeliers in foreign embassies or palaces. Techint attracts the most funding in Washington, D.C.
(machines are costly, especially heavy satellites that must be launched into space), by a ratio of some nine-to-one over humint in
America’s widely estimated $50 billion annual intelligence budget. Human spies, though, continue to be recruited by the United States in
most every region of the globe.
108
Paradigm Research 2015-2016
CX—Electronic Communication Aff
Disadvantage Ans: Terrorism—Human Intelligence Tradeoff Turn [cont’d]
5. Human intelligence information is important in making the rest of the intelligence setup more effective
Gabriel Margolis, Conflict Management and Resolution Graduate Program, University of North Carolina-Wilmington, “The Lack of
HUMINT: A Recurring Intelligence Problem,” GLOBAL SECURITY STUDIES v. 4 n. 2, Spring 2013, p. 50.
The U.S. intelligence culture tends to focus on technical means of intelligence like GEOINT, SIGINT, and MASINT. The tendency of
the U.S. to employ its technological capacity has often left intelligence operations lacking something. HUMINT is missing. The lack of
HUMINT in intelligence operations leaves analysts staring at pictures, frantically searching through communications, reading
newspapers, and measuring emissions to ascertain what is going on. HUMINT gives operations valuable direction by uncovering
intentions and capabilities to corroborate what the technical intelligence may, or may not affirm. However, because of the U.S. emphasis
on the technical INTs, HUMINT was sometimes absent or susceptible to CI, resulting in some of the greatest intelligence failures and
close calls in CIA history.
6. We need to place more focus on human intelligence
Gabriel Margolis, Conflict Management and Resolution Graduate Program, University of North Carolina-Wilmington, “The Lack of
HUMINT: A Recurring Intelligence Problem,” GLOBAL SECURITY STUDIES v. 4 n. 2, Spring 2013, p. 56.
The pattern that emerges when reflecting upon intelligence failures of the 20th century shows that no single form of intelligence
collection does well by itself. HUMINT is especially detrimental to overlook or ignore because covert actions are often subject to bad
information, CI, and mismanagement from policy-makers. The U.S. fascination and focus on technical methods of intelligence has made
some operations especially susceptible to CI and other forms of failure when areas of HUMINT are not addressed. This problem has
come to an apex in the form of UAV technology and the implementation of signature strikes. UAVs can contain GEOINT, SIGINT, and
MASINT capabilities and can therefore immediately operate based upon technical intelligence. The United States has focused on the
technical methods of intelligence gathering, and once again HUMINT is missing. Signature strikes are not based upon HUMINT, which
brings to mind the various intelligence failures that failed to incorporate HUMINT into their modus operandi.
109
Paradigm Research 2015-2016
CX—Electronic Communication Aff
Disadvantage Ans: Terrorism—Human Intelligence Turn (Answers to “It Fails”)
1. Human intelligence can be enormously valuable, even accounting for its limitations
Loch K. Johnson, Professor, Political Science, University of Georgia, “Evaluating ‘Humint’: The Role of Foreign Agents in U.S.
Security, Paper Presented at the ISA’s 50th Annual Convention, 2—15—09,
http://citation.allacademic.com/meta/p_mla_apa_research_citation/3/1/0/6/6/p310665_index.html, accessed 12-22-14.
The collection of intelligence is pursued as a means for informing the foreign policy and security deliberations of America’s leaders.
“Many elements make up a decision,” Secretary of State Dean Rusk has said. “First, though, one must grapple with the facts. What is the
situation?” In determining “the situation” overseas, no single “int” is sufficient. Success depends on the synergism of all the ints working
together, just as an engine performs best when each of its cylinders is firing. As a former CIA officer notes, the “‘ints’ can be teamed to
operate jointly.” Both survey data and qualitative case studies of collection operations indicate that humint contributes regularly, and
sometimes significantly to this synergism—particularly against certain targets like terrorists, narcotics dealers, and weapons
proliferators, as well as events and conditions in much of the developing world. Humint must be approached warily, however; assets are
corruptible and a depressingly high number of foreign recruits have proven to be doubled. Further, a large percentage have offered
inaccurate and sometimes fabricated reports, as the postmortem results on the Cuban missile crisis illustrate. Nevertheless, humint
successes like Col. Penkovsky, Adolf G. Tolkachev (a Soviet aviation specialist), and a host of others—including several who managed
during the Cold War to penetrate the Soviet intelligence services (though seldom the political or military leadership ranks in Moscow)—
underscore how crucial the payoff can be from classical espionage.
2. Human intelligence is useful despite any problems with it
Gabriel Margolis, Conflict Management and Resolution Graduate Program, University of North Carolina-Wilmington, “The Lack of
HUMINT: A Recurring Intelligence Problem,” GLOBAL SECURITY STUDIES v. 4 n. 2, Spring 2013, p. 46.
Despite the shortcomings of HUMINT, it still has tremendous significance. “Clandestine sources may make up only 10 or 20 percent of
the inputs to intelligence analysis, agent reports can provide insights that are truly valuable.” The insights of the agents are valuable
because they are experts in their respective fields, and are on the ground to watch the developments unfold firsthand. HUMINT should
give analysts a perspective that ‘puts their fingers on the pulse’ of the situation; allowing them to know what is happening on the ground.
Arthur Hulnick points out that “agents can bring us material that cannot be obtained by technical sensors or developed by diplomats. It
seems foolish to give up the possibility of learning inside information from a well-placed source.”
110
Paradigm Research 2015-2016
CX—Electronic Communication Aff
Disadvantage Ans: Terrorism—Human Intelligence Turn (Answers to “SIGINT Superior”)
1. Signals intelligence has a number of limitations
Gabriel Margolis, Conflict Management and Resolution Graduate Program, University of North Carolina-Wilmington, “The Lack of
HUMINT: A Recurring Intelligence Problem,” GLOBAL SECURITY STUDIES v. 4 n. 2, Spring 2013, p. 46-47.
“Signals intelligence (SIGINT) is the interception and decoding of foreign electronic communications.” It is made up of communication
intelligence, electronic intelligence, and telemetry intelligence. Communications intelligence (COMINT) is the monitoring of
communications in whatever form they can be conveyed. Operation Gold was a mission during the Cold War which utilized
communications intelligence. “Agents tunneled half a mile into East Berlin and set up a listening post to intercept Russian and East
German military communications.” COMINT has several weaknesses; communication has to exist for it to be intercepted. A target can
go ‘off the grid’, rendering the COMINT operation irrelevant. Encoded communications can also pose a problem to SIGINT analyst
whether the code is verbal, written, or within computer programs. Electronic intelligence (ELINT) is the interception of electronic
emissions, and telemetry intelligence (TELINT) detects signals given off from weapons. “TELINT and ELINT offer valuable
information on weapons capabilities that would otherwise be unknown or would require far more risky human intelligence operation to
obtain.” Although these are not forms of communication, these disciplines of intelligence are able to discern what has happened from
either electronic signals or those given off by weapons of mass destruction (WMD).
2. Terrorist groups have an easier time dodging signals intelligence operations
Gabriel Margolis, Conflict Management and Resolution Graduate Program, University of North Carolina-Wilmington, “The Lack of
HUMINT: A Recurring Intelligence Problem,” GLOBAL SECURITY STUDIES v. 4 n. 2, Spring 2013, p. 47.
An issue that arises in SIGINT is referred to as risk versus take. This implies that the value of intelligence must be weighed against the
dissemination of technology to enemies and political fallout. Terrorists and other criminal groups may also pose a problem to SIGINT
because they emanate a much smaller signature than a country or no signal at all. “Against terrorists, drug dealers, or organized criminal
groups, however, our ability to collect information will depend on the extent to which these groups use communications that can be
intercepted.” Additional problems which plague the future of SIGINT are a lack of language skills and the rate at which new
technologies are introduced. Foreign language skills are generally lacking within the United States and fast pace of changing technology
that SIGINT collectors must keep up with make SIGINT a complex undertaking. Moore’s law states that “that processor speeds, or
overall processing power for computers wills double every two years.” This means that SIGINT is constantly changing and hard to
maintain.
111
Paradigm Research 2015-2016
CX—Electronic Communication Aff
Disadvantage Ans: Terrorism—Information Overload Turn
1. Our agencies end up getting overwhelmed by the sheer volume of information
Sebastian Rotella, Pulitzer Prize winning journalist, “How the NSA’s High-Tech Surveillance Helped Europeans Catch Terrorists,”
PROPUBLICA, 6—19—13, www.propublica.org/article/how-the-nsas-high-tech-surveillance-helped-europeans-catch-terrorists,
accessed 2-22-15.
At the same time, some European experts see the furor as a sign that the strengths of the American giant intertwine with its weaknesses.
U.S. agencies devote huge resources to sophisticated technology to the detriment of analysis and human spying, they say. As a result,
they say, U.S. agencies sometimes appear overwhelmed by the sheer volume of information. “The problem is not collecting information,
it’s understanding it,” said Alain Bauer, a well-connected French criminologist who has served as a presidential adviser. “What is the
sense of such programs? They are too big. They will not work. We are a former colonial empire. We know the value of human
intelligence. It is more efficient and less expensive than technological fetishism. Fortunately, we do not have enough money to do it the
other way.”
2. Data overload actually makes it harder to prevent attacks
Jameel Jaffer, fellow, Open Society Foundations, “Needles Are Harder to Find in Bigger Haysticks,” NEW YORK TIMES, Room for
Debate, 6—10—13, www.nytimes.com/roomfordebate/2013/06/09/is-the-nsa-surveillance-threat-real-or-imagined, accessed 2-19-15.
It’s also worth remembering that the intelligence community’s biggest challenge has never been collecting information; the biggest
challenge has always been making sense of it. Launching new programs to collect more information can be a good way to pad the
pockets of defense contractors and data-miners, but, as many have noted, it isn’t usually a good way to identify terrorist threats. The
analogy is now a bit threadbare, but it’s still useful: You don’t find needles by building bigger haystacks. After the NSA launched the
warrantless wiretapping program, FBI agents repeatedly complained that they were drowning in useless information. (Eric Lichtblau
wrote: “The torrent of tips led [the FBI] to few potential terrorists inside the country they did not know of from other sources and
diverted agents from counterterrorism work they viewed as more productive.”). One of the 9/11 Commission’s most important
observations was that the intelligence community had information in the summer of 2001 that could have allowed it to prevent the 9/11
attacks. The problem wasn’t that it lacked information, but that it didn’t understand the information it had.
3. Dragnet mass surveillance fails—generates too much information
Jay Stanley, Senior Policy Analyst, Speech, Privacy & Technology Project, “The Burdens of Total Surveillance,” American Civil
Liberties Union, Free Future, 4—30—13, www.aclu.org/blog/burdens-total-surveillance, accessed 6-2-15.
It’s not clear what information the CIA’s request was based upon, but reportedly it came from Russian authorities. It is also possible that
Tsarnaev’s communications were flagged by US agencies such as the NSA. Either way, it seems as though there’s a real possibility that
Tamerlan’s name came to the attention of the authorities through some dragnet-style surveillance technique. If so, the conundrum for the
authorities is this: When surveillance takes place on such a mass scale, it is impossible to pay close attention to everything. Even with
automated electronic systems used for the eavesdropping, attempting to flag certain conversations or certain subjects as “suspicious” for
human analysts, the volume of false positives is always going to dwarf real alarms. The world is just too full of too enormous a variety
of conversations for such monitoring to be very precise. Think of all that the NSA or its Russian equivalent must pick up—from those
who speak with unintentionally alarming metaphors or double meanings, to fiction authors discussing scenarios, to fans discussing
movie or book plots, to harmless but slightly crazy people talking nonsense. Yet because of the dragnet nature of such surveillance,
when one of the many, many false positives later turns into a true threat, and everybody starts looking at what happened, the government
is highly likely to have some information on the person. And everyone is going to look at the fact that the government flagged that
person and ask, “why didn’t you do more about that?” If you create a total-surveillance time machine, there will always be dots that can
be connected in hindsight.
112
Paradigm Research 2015-2016
CX—Electronic Communication Aff
Disadvantage Ans: Terrorism—Information Overload Turn [cont’d]
4. We need limits—the NSA is current suffering from information overload
Audra Healey, J.D. Candidate, “A Tale of Two Agencies: Exploring Oversight of the National Security Administration by the Federal
Communications Commission,” FEDERAL COMMUNICATIONS LAW JOURNAL v. 67 n. 1, 2014, p. 102.
Moreover, according to some classified intelligence documents released by The Washington Post and other outlets, the NSA appears to
be overwhelmed by the sheer amount of data it is has collected, which indicates that the mechanisms in place do not adequately help the
NSA to focus its search. For instance, the NSA has begun to implement a program (SCISSORS) in order to focus on the portion of the
data that is relevant amongst the mass of data collected. This is because the NSA was collecting broad swaths of data with “little or no
[foreign intelligence] information.” The first PCLOB report indicates that the NSA metadata collection program does not pass any
semblance of relevancy standards to target the data to a specific question of national security; this is because the NSA does not have
reason to suspect the owners of the metadata, unlike in other cases where the collection was lawful.
5. Mass surveillance undermines counterterror efforts—information overload
Stan Ward, “NSA Swamped with Data Overload Also Trashes the Constitution,” BEST VPN, 5—18—15,
www.bestvpn.com/blog/19187/nsa-swamped-with-data-overload-also-trashes-the-constitution/, accessed 6-22-15.
Almost on the second anniversary of the Edward Snowden revelations, another (in)famous NSA whistleblower has again spoken up.
This comes at a pivotal juncture in the legislative calendar as contentious debate about surveillance rages over the impending sunset of
some of the Patriot Act. It has long been an argument of the civil liberties crowd that bulk data gathering was counter-productive, if not
counter- intuitive. The argument was couched in language suggesting that to “collect it all”, as the then NSA director James Clapper
famously decried, was to, in effect, gather nothing, as the choking amounts of information collected would be so great as to be unable to
be analyzed effectively. This assertion is supported by William Binney, a founder of Contrast Security and a former NSA official,
logging more than three decades at the agency. In alluding to what he termed “bulk data failure”, Binney said that an analyst today can
run one simple query across the NSA’s various databases, only to become immediately overloaded with information. With about four
billion people (around two-thirds of the world’s population) under the NSA and partner agencies’ watchful eyes, according to his
estimates, there is far too much data being collected. “That’s why they couldn’t stop the Boston bombing, or the Paris shootings, because
the data was all there… The data was all there… the NSA is great at going back over it forensically for years to see what they were
doing before that. But that doesn’t stop it.” Binney is in a position to know, earning his stripes during the terrorism build up that
culminated with the 9/11 World Trade Center bombing in 2001. He left just days after the draconian legislation known as the USA
Patriot Act was enacted by Congress on the heels of that attack. One of the reasons which prompted his leaving was the scrapping of a
surveillance system on which he long worked, only to be replaced by more intrusive systems. It is interesting to note here that Edward
Snowden, in alluding to Binney, said he was inspired by Binney’s plight, and that this, in part, prodded him to leak thousands of
classified documents to journalists. Little did Binney know that his work was to be but the tip of the iceberg in a program that eventually
grew to indiscriminately “collect it all.”
6. The NSA programs tradeoff with catching people like the Boston Marathon bombers
Lee Ferran, journalist, “Snowden: Wasted Surveillance Resources May Have Stopped Boston Bombing,” ABC NEWS, 3—10—14,
http://abcnews.go.com/blogs/headlines/2014/03/snowden-wasted-surveillance-resources-may-have-stopped-boston-bombing/, accessed
3-22-15.
National Security Agency leaker Edward Snowden said today that rather than helping combat terrorism, the U.S. government's massive
surveillance programs have led to "tremendous intelligence failures" and may have contributed to allowing the deadly Boston Marathon
bombing to have taken place. "We're monitoring everybody's communications, instead of suspects' communications," Snowden said
during a live video conference at Austin's popular South by Southwest festival. "That lack of focus has caused us to miss leads that we
should've had. Tamerlan Tsarnaev, one of the Boston bombers, the Russians had warned us about him… And if we hadn't spent so much
on mass surveillance, if we had followed the traditional models, we might've caught him." In 2011 Russian intelligence requested the
FBI and CIA to separately help them investigate Tamerlan's possible ties to Islamic extremism. Months later, the FBI closed their
investigation after concluding that Tamerlan did not pose a threat. In April 2013, authorities allege Tamerlan and his little brother
Dzhokhar set off a pair of bombs near the finish line of the Boston Marathon, killing three and injuring more than 260 others. Tamerlan
was killed in a shootout with police days later, and Dzhokhar was arrested and has pleaded not guilty to terrorism-related charges. He
could face the death penalty. The New York Times reported weeks after the bombing that the FBI concluded there was little the Bureau
could have done to prevent the attacks.
113
Paradigm Research 2015-2016
CX—Electronic Communication Aff
Disadvantage Ans: Terrorism—Information Overload Turn [cont’d]
7. Data overload limits metadata program effectiveness
Shayana Kadidal, Senior Managing Attorney, Center for Constitutional Rights, “NSA Surveillance: The Implications for Civil
Liberties,” I/S: A JOURNAL OF LAW AND POLICY FOR THE IFNORMATION SOCIETY v. 10 n. 2, 2014, p. 470-471.
Mass surveillance of the scope described in the Snowden documents should present other problems in theory as well. General
Alexander’s claim that the NSA seeks to “collect everything” implicitly assumes that size of the data pool gathered equals success. But
intelligence experts themselves have long warned of the danger that the more data you collect, the more chaff there is hiding the kernels
of wheat, the more haystack hiding the needle. (Alexander’s response to this before Congress was: “You need the haystack to find the
needle,” which perhaps only proves that the actual meaning of farm metaphors is lost on high-tech executives.) The New York Times
and Washington Post reported very early on in 2006 that the targeted NSA Program produced lots of bad leads that were passed on to the
FBI for further investigation, resulting in both dead ends–“more calls to Pizza Hut,” in the words of an FBI agent quoted in the Times’
story–and, of course, the lost opportunity costs of the wasted effort in pursuing those leads to being with. (Curiously, the only reason this
evidence of the poor practical efficacy of the NSA Program came out in 2006 was likely that natural interagency rivalries gave the FBI
an incentive to leak information to reporters–a dynamic that seems to have played out between the FBI and CIA throughout various
torture-related FOIA releases.) The Washington Post has similarly unearthed and published a slide revealing some of the NSA’s current
over-collection problems: because spammers got into an email account the agency was surveilling, the web of connections from sent
emails out of that compromised account became so huge it was flooding their entire collection system, eventually forcing NSA to cut off
that target from surveillance. (Perhaps the lesson for civil libertarians here is to periodically click on those Nigerian emails to protect
your Gmail account from surveillance.)
114
Paradigm Research 2015-2016
CX—Electronic Communication Aff
Disadvantage Ans: Terrorism—Terror—Other Means Solve
1. Claims about NSA effectiveness are wrong—traditional investigative techniques were the cornerstone of most
counterterror investigations
Peter Bergen, Director, National Security Program, New America Foundation, with David Sterman, Emily Schneider and Bailey Cahall,
“Do NSA’s Bulk Surveillance Programs Stop Terrorists?” New America Foundation, 1—14, p. 4.
After examining all 225 cases of individuals charged with some kind of terrorism crime, we drew several conclusions. A. Traditional
investigative methods initiated the majority of terrorism cases. Traditional investigative methods initiated 60 percent of the cases we
identified. In 5 percent of the cases, a violent incident occurred prior to prevention, and in 28 percent of the cases – involving 62
individuals – court records and public reporting do not identify which methods initiated the investigation. The unclear cases may have
been initiated by an undercover informant, a family member tip, other traditional law enforcement methods, CIA- or FBI-generated
intelligence, NSA surveillance of some kind, or any number of other methods. Additionally, some of these cases may be too recent to
have developed a public record large enough to identify which investigative tools were used. In 23 of these 62 unclear cases (37
percent), an informant was involved, though we were unable to determine whether the informant initiated the investigation. The
widespread use of informants suggests that if there was an NSA role in these cases, it was limited and insufficient to generate evidence
of criminal wrongdoing without the use of traditional investigative tools. NSA surveillance of any kind, whether bulk or targeted of U.S.
persons or foreigners, played an initiating role in only 7.5 percent of cases. To break that down further: The controversial bulk collection
of telephone metadata appears to have played an identifiable role in, at most, 1.8 percent of the terrorism cases we examined. In a further
4.4 percent of the cases, NSA surveillance under Section 702 of targets reasonably believed to be outside of the country that were
communicating with U.S. citizens or residents likely played a role, while NSA surveillance under an unknown authority likely played a
role in 1.3 percent of the cases we examined
2. There is little credible evidence that the NSA itself has been successful in foiling attacks—other
means have been used
Teun van Dongen, “The NSA Isn’t Foiling Terrorist Plots,” FOREIGN POLICY IN FOCUS, 10—9—13, www.alternet.org/nsa-isntfoiling-terrorist-plots, accessed 2-22-15.
Admittedly we do not know how all terrorist plots have been detected. But going by what we do know, the conclusion is simple: terrorist
plots have been foiled in all sorts of ways, few of which had anything to do with mass digital surveillance. True, in the case of the
dismantlement of the Sauerland Cell in Germany in 2007, NSA information played a role. But whether the authorities got this
information from “digital dragnet surveillance” or from more individualized and targeted monitoring is hard to tell. It might be tempting
to give the NSA the benefit of the doubt, given that the organization speaks on the basis of information that we do not have. But such
dubious claims about the effectiveness of the digital surveillance programs fit seamlessly into a pattern of misinformation and deceit.
The U.S. government acknowledged the existence of PRISM only after Edward Snowden had leaked details about it to The Guardian.
Moreover, when the news broke, President Obama and Director of National Intelligence James Clapper tried to downplay the scale of
the digital data gathering, even though we know now that the NSA is essentially making a back-up of pretty much all conceivable forms
of online communication. President Obama further promised that “ nobody is listening to your phone calls,” but it later became clear that
the NSA can access the content of phone calls and e-mails if it so desires. Congressional oversight is poor, privacy rules are frequently
broken, and the NSA liberally shares data with other intelligence agencies and foreign governments. Against this background of disputed
or outright false government claims, the public is wise to be skeptical of the NSA’s claims about the effectiveness of the digital
surveillance programs. The recent revelations may be mind-boggling in their technological, legal, and procedural complexities, but the
bottom line is quite simple: The first credible piece of evidence that these programs are doing any good in the fight against terrorism has
yet to surface. Until such evidence is provided, the Obama administration is only eroding the trust of the citizens it is claiming to protect.
115
Paradigm Research 2015-2016
CX—Electronic Communication Aff
Disadvantage Ans: Terrorism—Smart Power Turn
1. Ending mass surveillance would force us to adopt a better “smart power” strategy to deal with terrorism
Stephen M. Walt, Professor, International Relations, Harvard University, “The Big Counterterrorism Counterfactual,” FOREIGN
POLICY, 11—10—14, http://foreignpolicy.com/2014/11/10/the-big-counterterrorism-counterfactual/, accessed 3-3-15.
Second, if we didn’t have all these expensive high-tech capabilities, we might spend a lot more time thinking about how to discredit and
delegitimize the terrorists’ message, instead of repeatedly doing things that help them make their case and recruit new followers. Every
time the United States goes and pummels another Muslim country — or sends a drone to conduct a "signature strike" — it reinforces the
jihadis’ claim that the West has an insatiable desire to dominate the Arab and Islamic world and no respect for Muslim life. It doesn’t
matter if U.S. leaders have the best of intentions, if they genuinely want to help these societies, or if they are responding to a legitimate
threat; the crude message that drones, cruise missiles, and targeted killings send is rather different. If we didn’t have all these cool hightech hammers, in short, we’d have to stop treating places like Afghanistan, Pakistan, Iraq, and Syria as if they were nails that just needed
another pounding, and we might work harder at marginalizing our enemies within their own societies. To do that, we would have to be
building more effective partnerships with authoritative sources of legitimacy within these societies, including religious leaders. Our
failure to do more to discredit these movements is perhaps the single biggest shortcoming of the entire war on terror, and until that
failure is recognized and corrected, the war will never end.
2. Curtailing mass surveillance will force us to adopt a smarter counter-terror strategy
Stephen M. Walt, Professor, International Relations, Harvard University, “The Big Counterterrorism Counterfactual,” FOREIGN
POLICY, 11—10—14, http://foreignpolicy.com/2014/11/10/the-big-counterterrorism-counterfactual/, accessed 3-3-15.
Lastly, if U.S. leaders had to think harder about where to deploy more expensive resources, they might finally start thinking about the
broader set of U.S. and Western policies that have inspired some of these movements in the first place. Movements like IS, al Qaeda, alNusra Front, al-Shabab, or the Taliban are in some ways indigenous movements arising from local circumstances, but they did not spring
up out of nowhere and the United States (and other countries) bear some (though not all) blame for their emergence and growth. To say
this is neither to defend nor justify violent extremism, nor to assert that all U.S. policies are wrong; it is merely to acknowledge that there
is a causal connection between some of what we do and some of the enemies we face. But if some of the things the United States (or its
allies) is doing are making it unpopular in certain parts of the world, and if some of that unpopularity gets translated into violent
extremism that forces us to spend hundreds of billions of dollars trying to protect ourselves, then maybe we ought to ask ourselves if
every single one of those policies makes sense and is truly consistent with U.S. interests and values. And if not, then maybe we ought to
change some of them, if only to take some steam out of the extremist enterprise. What I’m suggesting, in short, is that the "surveil and
strike" mentality that has dominated the counterterrorism effort (and which is clearly reflected in Hannigan’s plea to let Big Brother —
oops, I mean the NSA and GCHQ — keep its eyes on our communications) is popular with government officials because it’s relatively
easy, plays to our technological strengths, and doesn’t force us to make any significant foreign-policy changes or engage in any sort of
self-criticism at all. If we can solve the terrorist problem by throwing money at it, and enriching some defense contractors and former
government officials in the process, what’s not to like? To be clear: I’m not suggesting we dismantle the NSA, fire all our
cryptographers, and revert to Cordell Hull’s quaint belief that "gentlemen [or ladies] do not read each other’s mail." But until we see
more convincing evidence that the surveillance of the sort Hannigan was defending has really and truly kept a significant number of
people safer from foreign dangers, I’m going to wonder if we aren’t overemphasizing these activities because they are relatively easy for
us, and because they have a powerful but hard-to-monitor constituency in Washington and London. In short, we’re just doing what
comes naturally, instead of doing what might be more effective.
3. Cutting back mass surveillance would force us to be more judicious in the use of force / boots on the ground
Stephen M. Walt, Professor, International Relations, Harvard University, “The Big Counterterrorism Counterfactual,” FOREIGN
POLICY, 11—10—14, http://foreignpolicy.com/2014/11/10/the-big-counterterrorism-counterfactual/, accessed 3-3-15.
Third, and somewhat paradoxically, if we didn’t have drones and the NSA, we’d have to think more seriously about boots on the ground,
at least in some places. But having to think harder about such decisions might be a good thing, because it would force the United States
(or others) to decide which threats were really serious and which countries really mattered. It might even lead to the conclusion that any
sort of military intervention is counterproductive. As we’ve seen over the past decade, what the NSA, CIA, and Special Ops Command
do is in some ways too easy: It just doesn’t cost that much to add a few more names to the kill list, to vacuum up a few more terabytes of
data, or to launch a few more drones in some new country, and all the more so when it’s done under the veil of secrecy. I’m not saying
that our current policy is costless or that special operations aren’t risky; my point is that such activities are still a lot easier to
contemplate and authorize than a true "boots on the ground" operation. By making it easier, however, the capabilities make it easier for
our leaders to skirt the more fundamental questions about interests and strategy. It allows them to "do something," even when what is
being done won’t necessarily help.
116
Paradigm Research 2015-2016
CX—Electronic Communication Aff
Disadvantage Ans: Terrorism—Trust Turn
-
Metadata programs decrease trust in law enforcement—undermines counterterror programs
Stephen Schulhofer, Professor, Law, New York University, “Making Sense of the NSA Metadata Collection Program (Part II),” JUST
SECURITY, 11—8—13, http://justsecurity.org/2985/making-sense-nsa-metadata-collection-program-part-ii/, accessed 2-27-15.
Efforts like the NSA sweeps actually undermine the counterterrorism effort itself. The reason is that these types of programs generate
profound mistrust of government in general and of law enforcement in particular. We have already seen dramatic examples in the way
that the Snowden revelations of our spying on allies has angered European leaders and endangered our working relationships with them.
Although this breach eventually will be healed, alienation and mistrust among ordinary citizens is equally important, and it will not be so
easily remedied. That mistrust, in turn, has a strong chilling effect on the willingness of law-abiding, loyal citizens to cooperate in the
counterterrorism effort – for example by working with officials in local counterterrorism programs or by alerting law enforcement to
various kinds of suspicious behavior. This dynamic has been demonstrated in several decades of extensive law enforcement research,
including research focused specifically on counterterrorism policies and their impact on Muslim communities in the West. In one study,
for example, Muslim-Americans in New York City were 61% less likely to report potentially suspicious precursors of terrorism when
they felt that counterterrorism policies were being unfairly set and implemented. (See Schulhofer, Tyler & Huq, American Policing at a
Crossroads: Unsustainable Policies and the Procedural Justice Alternative, 101 J. Crim. L. & Criminology 335, 364-74 (2011).) his last
point underscores the most important, but least appreciated, “given” of the counterterrorism enterprise. Because the consequences of a
terrorist attack could be so catastrophic, citizens and public officials alike tend to support strong law enforcement more readily than they
do in ordinary times. The perception is that strong measures are acceptable because the top priority must be to reduce the risk of attack.
And strong measures, whatever their drawbacks, at least seem to offer ways to reduce that risk. The central lesson of smart law
enforcement, however, is that there are no risk-free choices. Strengthening the powers of the executive enhances some of our defenses
against terrorism, but it weakens others – many of which, including community trust and cooperation, are absolutely essential to
reducing the dangers of terrorism. Against this background, we must – for the sake of our democracy and even for the sake of our
physical security – find ways to dissipate the cloud of mistrust that now hangs over NSA surveillance.
117
Paradigm Research 2015-2016
CX—Electronic Communication Aff
Disadvantage Ans: Terrorism—Answers to “Dozens of Attacks Stopped”
1. Claims that the NSA programs have stopped dozens of terrorist attacks are just false—multiple reasons
Cindy Cohn and Nadia Kayyali, staff, “The Top 5 Claims That Defenders of the NSA Have to Stop Making to Remain Credible,”
Electronic Frontier Foundation, 6—2—14, www.eff.org/deeplinks/2014/06/top-5-claims-defenders-nsa-have-stop-making-remaincredible, accessed 2-20-15.
1. The NSA has Stopped 54 Terrorist Attacks with Mass Spying The discredited claim NSA defenders have thrown out many claims
about how NSA surveillance has protected us from terrorists, including repeatedly declaring that it has thwarted 54 plots. Rep. Mike
Rogers says it often. Only weeks after the first Snowden leak, US President Barack Obama claimed: “We know of at least 50 threats that
have been averted” because of the NSA’s spy powers. Former NSA Director Gen. Keith Alexander also repeatedly claimed that those
programs thwarted 54 different attacks. Others, including former Vice President Dick Cheney have claimed that had the bulk spying
programs in place, the government could have stopped the 9/11 bombings, specifically noting that the government needed the program
to locate Khalid al Mihdhar, a hijacker who was living in San Diego. Why it’s not credible: These claims have been thoroughly
debunked. First, the claim that the information stopped 54 terrorist plots fell completely apart. In dramatic Congressional testimony, Sen.
Leahy forced a formal retraction from NSA Director Alexander in October, 2013: "Would you agree that the 54 cases that keep getting
cited by the administration were not all plots, and of the 54, only 13 had some nexus to the U.S.?" Leahy said at the hearing. "Would you
agree with that, yes or no?" "Yes," Alexander replied, without elaborating. But that didn’t stop the apologists. We keep hearing the “54
plots” line to this day. As for 9/11, sadly, the same is true. The government did not need additional mass collection capabilities, like the
mass phone records programs, to find al Mihdhar in San Diego. As ProPublica noted, quoting Bob Graham, the former chair of the
Senate Intelligence Committee: U.S. intelligence agencies knew the identity of the hijacker in question, Saudi national Khalid al
Mihdhar, long before 9/11 and had the ability find him, but they failed to do so. "There were plenty of opportunities without having to
rely on this metadata system for the FBI and intelligence agencies to have located Mihdhar," says former Senator Bob Graham, the
Florida Democrat who extensively investigated 9/11 as chairman of the Senate’s intelligence committee. Moreover, Peter Bergen and a
team at the New America Foundation dug into the government’s claims about plots in America, including studying over 225 individuals
recruited by al Qaeda and similar groups in the United States and charged with terrorism, and concluded: Our review of the
government’s claims about the role that NSA "bulk" surveillance of phone and email communications records has had in keeping the
United States safe from terrorism shows that these claims are overblown and even misleading... When backed into a corner, the
government’s apologists cite the capture of Zazi, the so-called New York subway bomber. However, in that case, the Associated Press
reported that the government could have easily stopped the plot without the NSA program, under authorities that comply with the
Constitution. Sens. Ron Wyden and Mark Udall have been saying this for a long time. Both of the President’s hand-picked advisors on
mass surveillance concur about the telephone records collection. The President’s Review Board issued a report in which it stated “the
information contributed to terrorist investigations by the use of section 215 telephony meta-data was not essential to preventing attacks,”
The Privacy and Civil Liberties Oversight Board (PCLOB) also issued a report in which it stated, “we have not identified a single
instance involving a threat to the United States in which [bulk collection under Section 215 of the Patriot Act] made a concrete
difference in the outcome of a counterterrorism investigation.” And in an amicus brief in EFF’s case First Unitarian Church of Los
Angeles v. the NSA case, Sens. Ron Wyden, Mark Udall, and Martin Heinrich stated that, while the administration has claimed that bulk
collection is necessary to prevent terrorism, they “have reviewed the bulk-collection program extensively, and none of the claims
appears to hold up to scrutiny.” Even former top NSA official John Inglis admitted that the phone records program has not stopped any
terrorist attacks aimed at the US and at most, helped catch one guy who shipped about $8,000 to a Somalian group that the US has
designated as a terrorist group but that has never even remotely been involved in any attacks aimed at the US.
118
Paradigm Research 2015-2016
CX—Electronic Communication Aff
Disadvantage Ans: Terrorism—Answers to “Dozens of Attacks Stopped” [cont’d]
2. Government claims of NSA program effectiveness are greatly exaggerated—should be discounted
Peter Bergen, Director, National Security Program, New America Foundation, with David Sterman, Emily Schneider and Bailey Cahall,
“Do NSA’s Bulk Surveillance Programs Stop Terrorists?” New America Foundation, 1—14, p. 11.
D. The administration has repeatedly exaggerated the role of NSA bulk surveillance programs in preventing terrorism and is misleading
the public when it says that 9/11 could have been prevented by such programs when, in fact, better information-sharing about already
existing intelligence would have been far more effective in preventing 9/11. Members of Congress, senior government officials, and
NSA officials have justified the programs with statements about how many terrorist events the surveillance programs have foiled – citing
a total of 54 “events” around the globe, of which 13 were in the United States – and have warned of the risk of a future 9/11-like attack if
the programs were curtailed. As mentioned above, President Obama defended the NSA surveillance programs during a visit to Berlin in
June, saying: “We know of at least 50 threats that have been averted because of this information not just in the United States, but, in
some cases, threats here in Germany. So lives have been saved.” Gen. Alexander testified before Congress that: “the information
gathered from these programs provided the U.S. government with critical leads to help prevent over 50 potential terrorist events in more
than 20 countries around the world.” Rep. Mike Rogers, chairman of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, said on the
chamber floor in July that NSA programs “stopped and thwarted terrorist attacks both here and in Europe – saving real lives” a total of
54 times. The government’s defense has demonstrated a lack of precision regarding the exact nature of the threats in the terrorism cases
the government has claimed were prevented by NSA surveillance. Were they real attacks that were thwarted? Serious plots that were still
somewhere in the planning stages? Plots that were concerning, but never really operational? Or did they involve some sort of terrorismsupport activity, such as fundraising? President Obama has called them “threats,” Gen. Alexander called them “events” and then later
used the term “activities,” while Rep. Rogers and one of Gen. Alexander’s slides at the 2013 Black Hat conference referred to them as
“attacks.” Sen. Leahy brought attention to this disconnect at a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing in July 2013, saying he had been
shown a classified list of “terrorist events” detected through surveillance which did not show that “dozens or even several terrorist plots”
had been thwarted by the collection of American telephone metadata under Section 215. Sen. Leahy asked Gen. Alexander: “Would you
agree that the 54 cases that keep getting cited by the administration were not all plots, and of the 54, only 13 had some nexus to the
U.S.?” and Gen. Alexander’s reply was a simple “Yes.” On this key point, beyond his one-word answer, the NSA director did not
elaborate while under oath.
119
Paradigm Research 2015-2016
CX—Electronic Communication Aff
Disadvantage Ans: Terrorism—Answers to “FISA Links”
1. FISA does nothing to limit foreign intelligence
David Cole, Professor, Georgetown University, “Are You a Terrorist or an American?: An Analysis of Immigration Law Post 9/11:
Reviving the Nixon Doctrine: NSA Spying, the Commander-in-Chief, and Executive Power in the War on Terror,” WASHINGTON
AND LEE JOURNAL OF CIVIL RIGHTS AND SOCIAL JUSTICE v. 13, Fall 2006, p. 32.
In assessing this argument, it is important to first note what FISA does and does not regulate. Administration de-fenders have repeatedly
argued that if the president is wiretapping an al Qaeda member in Afghanistan, it should not have to turn off the wiretap simply because
he happens to call someone within the United States. The simple answer is that nothing in FISA would compel that result. FISA does not
regulate electronic surveillance acquired abroad and targeted at non-U.S. persons, even if the surveillance happens to collect information
on a communication with a U.S. person. FISA's requirements are triggered only when the surveillance is "targeting [a] United States
person who is in the United States," or the surveillance "acquisition occurs in the United States." Thus, the hypothetical tap on the al
Qaeda member abroad is not governed by FISA at all.
2. FISA does not infringe on the president’s power to engage the enemy—only applies to domestic
communications
David Cole, Professor, Georgetown University, “Are You a Terrorist or an American?: An Analysis of Immigration Law Post 9/11:
Reviving the Nixon Doctrine: NSA Spying, the Commander-in-Chief, and Executive Power in the War on Terror,” WASHINGTON
AND LEE JOURNAL OF CIVIL RIGHTS AND SOCIAL JUSTICE v. 13, Fall 2006, p. 33.
Because FISA leaves unregulated electronic surveillance conducted outside the United States and not targeted at U.S. persons, it leaves
to the president's unfettered discretion a wide swath of "signals intelligence." Moreover, it does not actually prohibit any signals
intelligence regarding al Qaeda, but merely requires judicial approval where the surveillance targets a U.S. person or is acquired here. As
such, the statute cannot reasonably be said to intrude impermissibly upon the president's ability to "engage the enemy," and certainly
does not come anywhere close to "prohibit[ing] the President from undertaking actions necessary to fulfill his constitutional obligation to
protect the Nation from foreign attack," as the Justice Department claims. Again, if, as President Bush concedes, Congress can
absolutely prohibit certain methods of "engaging the enemy," such as torture, surely it can impose reasonable regulations on electronic
surveillance of U.S. persons.
120
Paradigm Research 2015-2016
CX—Electronic Communication Aff
Disadvantage Ans: Terrorism—Answers to “Information Key” / “Transparency Links”
1. There is little benefit to more information—bigger issue is how we share it
Peter Bergen, Director, National Security Program, New America Foundation, with David Sterman, Emily Schneider and Bailey Cahall,
“Do NSA’s Bulk Surveillance Programs Stop Terrorists?” New America Foundation, 1—14, p. 2-3.
Finally, the overall problem for U.S. counterterrorism officials is not that they need vaster amounts of information from the bulk
surveillance programs, but that they don’t sufficiently understand or widely share the information they already possess that was derived
from conventional law enforcement and intelligence techniques. This was true for two of the 9/11 hijackers who were known to be in the
United States before the attacks on New York and Washington, as well as with the case of Chicago resident David Coleman Headley,
who helped plan the 2008 terrorist attacks in Mumbai, and it is the unfortunate pattern we have also seen in several other significant
terrorism cases.
2. Basic transparency measures won’t compromise the effectiveness of the NSA
Kevin Bankston, Policy Director, Open Technology Institute, New America Foundation, Center for Democracy and Technology,
Testimony before the Senate Judiciary Committee, Subcommittee on Privacy, Technology and the Law, 11—13—13,
www.judiciary.senate.gov/imo/media/doc/11-13-13BankstonTestimony.pdf, accessed 3-10-15.
NSA directors past and present are rightly unconcerned about tipping off the terrorists that purportedly use Gmail, Facebook, Twitter,
and Yahoo with their general statements. First, because any bad guys presumably already assume that each Internet service is being
surveilled to some extent; second, because no bad guys can tell whether they in particular have been targeted yet—even if they already
know from the companies’ law enforcement reporting, or from Generals Alexander and Keith themselves, that the government routinely
seeks information from a wide range of Internet services. Basic information about how the government is using its various surveillance
authorities isn’t of use to terrorists. It is, however, of great use to the American people and users of American Internet services who are
trying to evaluate whether or not the US government’s surveillance powers are being used in a reasonable and proportionate manner.
121
Paradigm Research 2015-2016
CX—Electronic Communication Aff
Disadvantage Ans: Terrorism—Answers to “Lone Wolf”
1. Surveillance data is not useful in catching lone wolf terrorists
Matthew Harwood, Editor, “The Lone-Wolf Terror Trap: Why the Cure Will Be Worse Than the Disease,” American Civil Liberties
Union, Speak Freely, 2—5—15, www.aclu.org/blog/lone-wolf-terror-trap-why-cure-will-be-worse-disease, accessed 6-2-15.
The "literature" on both terrorism and the lone wolf should be approached with a healthy degree of skepticism. To this day, there is little
consensus on what exactly terrorism is; the same is true of the lone-wolf variety. In the media and in recent academic studies, what
separates the lone-wolf terrorist from the phenomenon in general is the perpetrator. Lone wolves are, by definition, solitary individuals,
almost always men, often with mental health problems, who lash out violently against civilian targets. At least in some fashion, they are
spurred on by belief. Researcher Michael Becker defines it this way: "Ideologically driven violence, or attempted violence, perpetrated
by an individual who plans and executes an attack in the absence of collaboration with other individuals or groups." Although you
wouldn't know it at the moment in America, the motivation for such attacks can run the gamut from religiously inspired anti-abortion
beliefs to white supremacism, from animal rights to an al-Qaeda-inspired worldview. According to the literature, lone wolves are unique
in the annals of terrorism because of the solitariness with which they plan and carry out their acts. They lack peer or group pressure and
their crimes are conceived and executed without assistance. In this way, they bear a strong resemblance to the individual school shooters
and rampage killers that Americans are already so used to. One practical reason many such individuals act alone, according to
researchers, is fear of detection. In "Laws for the Lone Wolf," white supremacist Tom Metzger wrote: "The less any outsider knows, the
safer and more successful you will be. Keep your mouth shut and your ears open. Never truly admit to anything." (Before 9/11, lonewolf terrorism in America was overwhelmingly a right-wing affair.) This isn't to say that individuals who commit political violence don't
talk to anyone before they attack. Recent research into 119 lone-actor terrorists in the United States and Europe, who were either
convicted of such a crime or died during it, finds that they often expressed their extremist beliefs, grievances, and sometimes their
violent intentions to others -- mostly friends and family or online communities. The good news should be that family, friends, and
colleagues might be able to help prevent those close to them from engaging in political violence if, as a society, we were to adopt
strategies that built trust of law enforcement in the public, particularly affected communities, rather than fear and suspicion. (But given
the record these last years, don't hold your breath.) On the other hand, the methods that the police and national security state seem to be
exploring to deal with the issue – like trying to determine what kinds of individuals will join terrorist groups or profiling lone wolves –
won't work. The reasons individuals join terrorist groups are notoriously complex, and the same holds true for politically violent people
who act alone. After reviewing those 119 lone-wolf cases, for example, the researchers concluded, "There was no uniform profile of
lone-actor terrorists." Even if a "profile" were to emerge, they added, it would be essentially worthless: "[T]he use of such a profile
would be unwarranted because many more people who do not engage in lone-actor terrorism would share these characteristics, while
others might not but would still engage in lone-actor terrorism."
2. The surveillance measures that might catch some lone wolf terrorists pose an enormous threat to our civil
liberties
Matthew Harwood, Editor, “The Lone-Wolf Terror Trap: Why the Cure Will Be Worse Than the Disease,” American Civil Liberties
Union, Speak Freely, 2—5—15, www.aclu.org/blog/lone-wolf-terror-trap-why-cure-will-be-worse-disease, accessed 6-2-15.
Other proposed solutions to the "lone-wolf" problem are even more indiscriminate. In a recent book, former RAND Corporation analyst
Jeffrey Simon offers an inventory of possible technological strategies for identifying the wolf in sheep's clothing before he attacks. These
are typical of our moment and include the widespread use of Internet-enabled smart surveillance cameras, as well as the active,
suspicionless monitoring of Internet and social media usage. Another increasingly popular approach he suggests is the expansion of
biometric collection, meaning the government would assemble biological traits unique to each individual, such as facial dimensions and
DNA, without any evidence of wrongdoing. It should be noted that such an approach – and it's typical of the direction the national
security state and law enforcement have taken in these years – would represent a fundamental assault on a free society. Such
"countermeasures" should send a shiver down your spine. Simon seems to recognize this, writing, "Privacy issues will have to be
addressed, including the willingness of the public to have their facial expressions, eye movements, heart rates, breathing patterns, and
other characteristics captured by sophisticated sensors wherever they go in order for a decision to be made by others concerning what
they might be intending to do." The dangers to Americans in allowing government agencies to collect such intimate information in order
to discover whether any of them are possible lone wolves should be obvious in terms of the destruction of privacy, among other things.
The result would be both an Orwellian world and a hopeless one in safety terms. It's already clear that none of these expensive and
advanced technological "solutions" will work. Totally innocent conduct ("false positives") will overwhelm the truly menacing. Some of
these approaches, like surveillance cameras, may help finger a perpetrator after the crime, while others, such as trying to identify who
will engage in terrorism by his body language, will only further contribute to the security theater the government has staged since 9/11.
122
Paradigm Research 2015-2016
CX—Electronic Communication Aff
Disadvantage Ans: Terrorism—Answers to “NAS/NRC Report / No Alternative”
1. The NAS report does not prove that we need bulk data programs
Nadia Kayyali, staff, “New Report on Bulk Collection Shows That There’s No Magical Solution to Bad Policy,” Electronic Frontier
Foundation, 1—21—15, www.eff.org/deeplinks/2015/01/new-report-bulk-collection-shows-theres-no-magical-solution-bad-policy,
accessed 2-17-15.
PPD 28 asked for a limited technical assessment. And that’s the substance of the report. Some analyses of the report from the media
seem to misunderstand this, emphasizing that the report finds “no effective alternative to the government’s ‘bulk collection.’” But the
report makes it clear that it does not address “policy questions and tried to avoid making judgments about them." In fact, as the report
aptly (and repeatedly) points out: Other groups, such as the President's Review Group on Intelligence and Communications Technologies
and the Privacy and Civil Liberties Oversight Board (in its Section 215 report) have said that bulk collection of telephone metadata is not
justified. These were policy and legal judgments that are not in conflict with the committee's conclusion that there is no software
technique that will fully substitute for bulk collection; there is no technological magic. That’s right. There’s no software magic that can
recreate the past in the same way that bulk collection of the phone records of millions of innocent people can. That’s all the report
(unsurprisingly) concludes about bulk collection.
2. There are plenty of viable alternatives to bulk data collection
Nadia Kayyali, staff, “New Report on Bulk Collection Shows That There’s No Magical Solution to Bad Policy,” Electronic Frontier
Foundation, 1—21—15, www.eff.org/deeplinks/2015/01/new-report-bulk-collection-shows-theres-no-magical-solution-bad-policy,
accessed 2-17-15.
While our current lack of a software time-machine may be a disappointment, it does not mean there is no alternative to bulk collection.
Alternatives abound. Indeed, in the context of Section 215 and the bulk collection of Americans’ phone records, after just six months of
public debate and deliberation, an alternative was proposed that would ensure that the intelligence community has the “necessary and
appropriate tools to help keep us safe,” while “end[ing] the dragnet collection of phone records under Section 215 of the PATRIOT
Act.” But the government hasn’t made it easy to have an honest debate about bulk surveillance, since as the report notes, “Very little has
been made public about actual cases where U.S. SIGINT has contributed to counterterrorism…The selection of the cases that were made
public, the details of the accounts, and their significance have all been controversial.” Compounding these shortcomings, officials have
made trumped-up claims about the effectiveness of bulk collection—claims that have been criticized by the President’s Review Board
and the Privacy and Civil Liberties Oversight Board, among others. It’s impossible to have an honest debate without access to facts.
Ultimately, as the report points out “whether the gain in privacy is worth the loss [of bulk collection] is a policy question that the
committee does not address”—and it’s one we might not even need to answer. We’re confident that alternatives to bulk collection
exist—alternatives that can be created through honest and full public debate, alternatives that preserve important national security
functions without compromising the privacy of millions. So there may be no technological magic bullet. And there may not even be a
political magic bullet. But that doesn’t mean there aren’t solutions.
123
Paradigm Research 2015-2016
CX—Electronic Communication Aff
Disadvantage Ans: Terrorism—Answers to “NAS/NRC Report / No Alternative” [cont’d]
3. The NRC report exaggerates the value of bulk intelligence
Marshall Erwin, counterterrorism analyst, “The Intelligence Time Machine,” JUST SECURITY, 4—30—15,
http://justsecurity.org/22560/intelligence-time-machine/, accessed 6-7-15.
The Superiority of Targeted Collection. There is good reason to believe that the ability to retrospectively mine bulk intelligence traffic
isn’t as valuable as the NRC expects. The two broadest NSA programs to have received public scrutiny are its bulk phone records
program (Section 215) and Internet content collection program (Section 702). Several rigorous reviews (for example here, here, and
here) have been conducted of the Section 215 program and have concluded that the program is not an effective counterterrorism tool. At
the same time, the consensus has emerged that NSA’s Section 702 program — a targeted program, albeit one that does incidentally
sweep up the communications of some non-targets— is vital to national security. These conclusions are the opposite of what one would
expect from the NRC’s analysis. The NRC was content to limit the scope of its review to “technical aspects of signals intelligence,”
without regard to the practicalities of intelligence work or the details of any particular bulk collection program. It is therefore able to
argue that the conclusions from other reviews of NSA’s programs “were policy and legal judgments that are not in conflict with the
committee’s conclusion that there is no software technique that will fully substitute for bulk collection.” Nonetheless, it is hard to read
those other reviews and not conclude that there is something missing from the NRC’s report. One can’t generalize about bulk collection
based on an analysis of just two actual intelligence programs. But experience fighting al-Qaeda over the last decade has shown there are
diminishing returns to data collection. In many of the most significant counterterrorism failures over the last decade, problems stemmed
from having too much information, not too little. Intelligence time machines don’t actually seem to work that well as intelligence tools.
Bulk collection programs are inferior substitutes for targeted ones. There are two fundamental reasons why this is the case. First,
intelligence analysis isn’t about looking back. It is about looking forward. This is the basic distinction that separates intelligence analysis
from criminal investigations. Criminal investigations seek information about a crime that has taken place. Indeed, intelligence time
machines are most valuable when our intelligence community has already failed, after a terrorist attack has occurred, when we are
seeking to reconstruct the events that led to that attack. Intelligence analysis involves anticipating threats, identifying the information
needed to understand those threats, and then doing what is necessary to get that information. Intelligence professionals often talk about
the intelligence life cycle: intelligence requirements drive collection operations, operations generate actual intelligence that is
disseminated and analyzed, and analysts use that information to define new intelligence requirements. The intelligence life cycle entails
an entirely different approach to intelligence collection than the one described by the NRC committee. The intelligence time machine
tries to short circuit the cycle by seeking to satisfy intelligence requirements before those requirements have actually been defined. In so
doing, it breaks the iterative process that allows for actual knowledge accumulation within the IC. Second, intelligence is all about the
details. Bulk collection programs inherently sacrifice precision and detail for breadth. This is true in two respects. It is the content of
communications that is always the most valuable for intelligence purposes because it contains the details necessary to power
sophisticated analysis. Bulk metadata programs will never cut it because metadata doesn’t include those details. Conversely, bulk
content collection has its own set of problems. Because the content of communications is typically unstructured, it is more difficult to
synthesize and surface the most important details to intelligence analysts. This leaves those details hidden in the haystack, never to be
found unless the analyst already knows exactly what they are looking for. And again, analysts only know exactly what they are looking
for at the point when the intelligence community has already failed. Good intelligence work involves the accumulation of discrete pieces
of information that one knows to be credible and significant. It is a process of building a pool of knowledge. This is what drives most
intelligence successes. Conceptually, it does not fundamentally involve the whittling away of huge quantities data, the vast majority of
which we know beforehand to be useless. And to the extent that analytic work requires whittling down vast amounts of useless data, this
is actually a drawback that makes the job hard and increases the likelihood that important pieces of intelligence will be missed.
124
Paradigm Research 2015-2016
CX—Electronic Communication Aff
Disadvantage Ans: Terrorism—Answers to “NAS/NRC Report / No Alternative” [cont’d]
4. The NRC is wrong about bulk collection—it’s report uses impossible standards
Marshall Erwin, counterterrorism analyst, “The Intelligence Time Machine,” JUST SECURITY, 4—30—15,
http://justsecurity.org/22560/intelligence-time-machine/, accessed 6-7-15.
The NRC’s report threatens to serve as the foundation for future thought about how the IC should respond to the age of big data, which
is why its analysis is both important and problematic. Its baseline conclusion is that “[t]here is no software technique that will fully
substitute for bulk collection where it is relied on to answer queries about the past after new targets become known.” Outside of the
narrowest technical context, this conclusion is fundamentally wrong. In practice, targeted approaches will more than substitute for bulk
collection. The NRC Report. The NRC report is the result of a process started by Presidential Policy Directive 28, which asked the
Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI) to “assess the feasibility of creating software that would allow the IC to conduct
targeted information acquisition [of signal intelligence] rather than bulk collection.” The ODNI requested that the National Academies
form a committee to study the question. The NRC report is the product of that committee’s work. The NRC’s conclusion is based on
comparing prospective collection methodologies against intelligence time machines. An intelligence time machine is a concept first
articulated to me by network security expert Eric Rescorla. The idea is that there may be some point in the future when an intelligence
analyst will wish he had collected some piece of intelligence in the past. But he can’t know today exactly what intelligence he may want
in the future, so any selective collection method always leaves open the possibility that he may fail to collect what he will need. If
instead he collects everything, he has effectively built himself a sort of time machine: in the future, he can go back and reprocess the data
to find the intelligence he didn’t know he would need at the time it was collected. Here is how the NRC committee puts it: A key value
of bulk collection is its record of past SIGINT that may be relevant to subsequent investigations. If past events become interesting in the
present, because intelligence-gathering priorities change to include detection of new kinds of threats or because of new events such as
the discovery that an individual is a terrorist, historical events and the context they provide will be available for analysis only if they
were previously collected. This is the basis of the committee’s conclusion that no software technique will fully substitute for bulk
collection. The committee caveats this finding with sub-conclusions that address alternatives to bulk collection. But those alternatives
are only a “partial substitute” because they can’t theoretically provide as much value as an intelligence time machine. Put in this context,
it should be clear what the problem is here. It doesn’t take a presidentially mandated committee full of distinguished technical experts to
tell you that a time machine could be useful to have around. Of course, notionally, a time machine could be quite handy. Intelligence
officials and surveillance reform advocates could all probably agree on that point. The committee’s conclusion — that a software
technique that allows you to look into the past is theoretically better than software that doesn’t allow you to do so — is at once both true
and trivial. The triviality makes it difficult to see how this report makes a meaningful contribution to debates about bulk collection.
Furthermore, this conclusion based on a highly theoretical premise breaks down when applied to the realities of intelligence analysis.
5. The NRC report is wrong—the value of bulk data collection is limited
Marshall Erwin, counterterrorism analyst, “The Intelligence Time Machine,” JUST SECURITY, 4—30—15,
http://justsecurity.org/22560/intelligence-time-machine/, accessed 6-7-15.
Conclusions. The NRC committee essentially concluded that intelligence time machines make sense in theory. But the committee
reached that conclusion by ignoring the details of how intelligence analysis actually works. As in the business of intelligence, the details
here should matter, and the reality is that intelligence time machines fail in practice. Bulk collection programs are less effective than
targeted ones, a conclusion that runs counter to the NRC’s analysis. Further, bulk collection efforts make targeted programs less valuable
by burying good intelligence within larger volumes of useless information. Reliance on intelligence time machines may thus hurt the IC
more than they help, ensuring that analysts have the information they need to disrupt the next terrorist attack but that they only find that
information after the attack has occurred.
125
Paradigm Research 2015-2016
CX—Electronic Communication Aff
Disadvantage Ans: Terrorism—Answers to “Would Have Stopped 9/11”
1. The NSA program would not have stopped 9/11—don’t believe the hype
Peter Bergen, Director, National Security Program, New America Foundation, with David Sterman, Emily Schneider and Bailey Cahall,
“Do NSA’s Bulk Surveillance Programs Stop Terrorists?” New America Foundation, 1—14, p. 12.
The administration has also deliberately tried to present the issue as one of preventing future 9/11s, taking advantage of the emotional
resonances of that day. However, our review suggests that this rhetorical framing does not in any way accurately reflect the character of
the plots that might be cited to justify the NSA programs. NSA talking points acquired by Al Jazeera through a Freedom of Information
Act request, for example, demonstrate that the administration considered the 9/11 attacks a key point in its defense of the NSA programs.
The talking points included statements such as, “NSA AND ITS PARTNERS MUST MAKE SURE WE CONNECT THE DOTS SO
THAT THE NATION IS NEVER ATTACKED AGAIN LIKE IT WAS ON 9/11.” Spokespeople were also encouraged to use “SOUND
BITES THAT RESONATE,” specifically, “I MUCH PREFER TO BE HERE TODAY EXPLAINING THESE PROGRAMS, THAN
EXPLAINING ANOTHER 9/11 EVENT THAT WE WERE NOT ABLE TO PREVENT.” Administration officials have adhered to the
talking points’ advice to utilize the 9/11 attacks to defend the program. During a House intelligence committee hearing on June 18, 2013,
Gen. Alexander invoked 9/11 using language very close to that in the talking points, stating, “Let me start by saying that I would much
rather be here today debating this point than trying to explain how we failed to prevent another 9/11.” Indeed, the need to prevent a
future 9/11 functions as the central framing for the administration’s case. In an October 29, 2013, House intelligence committee hearing
on the NSA programs featuring Gen. Alexander and Director of National Intelligence James Clapper, the 9/11 attacks were mentioned
14 times.
2. Loosening warrant requirements would have done nothing to stop 9/11
Adrienne Ratner, J.D. Candidate, “Warrantless Wiretapping: The Bush Administration’s Failure to Jam an Elephant into a Mousehole,”
HASTINGS CONSTITUTIONAL LAW QUARTERLY v. 37, Fall 2009, p. 193-194.
Not only was the TSP an unconstitutional executive act that violates the public's Fourth Amendment rights, it also failed to resolve
intelligence problems. The conventional wisdom after September 11, 2001, was that U.S. national security agencies failed to "connect
the dots" before the attacks. In contrast, others saw a more critical intelligence failure that there were "too few useful dots." By
circumventing FISA, however, the TSP solved neither of these institutional problems. The government defends the TSP with the
argument that FISA impeded intelligence work by creating a "wall" that restricted the degree of cooperation between law enforcement
and intelligence collectors and limited the use of information in criminal prosecutions. Neither of these arguments explain the
government's failure to intervene in the September 11 terrorist attacks when the NSA had conducted judicially authorized electronic
surveillance since 1999 on two September 11 terrorists, Khalid al-Mihdhar and Nawaf al-Hazmi, and had shared their identities with the
CIA and FBI. Eliminating the requirement for court approval of electronic surveillance would have done nothing to improve intelligence
efforts related to the September 11 terrorist attacks.
3. Looser FISA provisions would not have prevented 9/11—the Commission report proves
Bruce Fein, constitutional expert, “Presidential Authority to Gather Foreign Intelligence,” PRESIDENTIAL STUDIES QUARTERLY v.
37 n. 1, 3—07, p. 24.
President Bush has chosen to flout FISA for more than five years with no evidence that its mild restraints on foreign intelligence
collection impair the defeat of international terrorism. His motivations have been fivefold: to gather political intelligence against his
domestic critics, to chill dissent by creating an aura of intimidation, to cripple Congress as a check on presidential power, to warn courts
against second-guessing national security decisions of the commander in chief, and to concoct an appearance of toughness on terrorism.
FISA did not facilitate the success of the 9/11 hijackers. The 9/11 Commission did not find that the hijackings would have been averted
if the president had enjoyed unchecked power to spy. On July 31, 2002, the Bush administration testified to the Senate Intelligence
Committee that FISA was nimble, flexible, and impeccable as an instrument for nipping terrorist plots in the bud.
126