SWS FISA NEG
Global Economy
1nc data pullout
Foreign, not domestic, surveillance is what is driving data pull out –
Chander and Le 15 (Director, California International Law Center, Professor of Law and Martin
Luther King, Jr. Hall Research Scholar, University of California, Davis; Free Speech and Technology
Fellow, California International Law Center; A.B., Yale College; J.D., University of California, Davis
School of Law)
Anupam Chander and Uyên P. Lê, DATA NATIONALISM, EMORY LAW JOURNAL, Vol. 64:677,
http://law.emory.edu/elj/_documents/volumes/64/3/articles/chander-le.pdf)
First, the
United States, like many countries, concentrates much of its surveillance
efforts abroad. Indeed, the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act is focused on gathering
information overseas, limiting data gathering largely only when it implicates U.S. persons.174
The recent NSA surveillance disclosures have revealed extensive foreign
operations.175 Indeed, constraints on domestic operations may well have spurred
the NSA to expand operations abroad. As the Washington Post reports,
“Intercepting communications overseas has clear advantages for the NSA,
with looser restrictions and less oversight.”176 Deterred by a 2011 ruling by
the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court barring certain broad domestic
surveillance of Internet and telephone traffic,177 the NSA may have increasingly
turned its attention overseas. Second, the use of malware eliminates even the need
to have operations on the ground in the countries in which surveillance occurs.
The Dutch newspaper NRC Handelsblad reports that the NSA has infiltrated every corner of the
world through a network of malicious malware.178 A German computer expert noted that “data
was intercepted here [by the NSA] on a large scale.”179 The NRC Handelsblad suggests that the
NSA has even scaled the Great Firewall of China,180 demonstrating that efforts to keep
information inside a heavily secured and monitored ironclad firewall do not necessarily mean
that it cannot be accessed by those on the other side of the earth. This is a commonplace
phenomenon on the Internet, of course. The recent enormous security breach of millions of
Target customers in the United States likely sent credit card data of Americans to servers in
Russia, perhaps through the installation of malware on point-of-sale devices in stores.
1nc tech not key
This advantage has no card on how a public advocate stops mass surveillance in
programs like PRISM and BULLRUN, which is what the link chain talks about
being key to reviving the tech industry.
Tech not key – companies don’t even fully make use of existing digital tech
AND manufacturing is an alt cause
Tom and Fosler 14 (Josh Tom, Senior Analyst for The GailFosler Group , Gail D Fosler, president of The GailFosler
Group, “How Important Is Digital Technology to Our Economic Future?: An Interview With Rob Atkinson”, Rob Atkinson is an
economist and the president of the Information Technology and Innovation Foundation, Gailfosler.com,
http://www.gailfosler.com/important-digital-technology-economic-future-interview-rob-atkinson)
Q: In 1987, Robert Solow famously wrote, “You can see the computer age everywhere except in the productivity numbers.” Today, it
seems you can see the digital revolution everywhere but in the economic numbers. Where is this new age of prosperity that all the
“techno-optimists” are talking about? Let’s begin with an important premise. Digital technology is an important dimension in
our economy, but it is
by no means the only driver of economic activity or opportunity. In contrast to
the universal and almost magical properties that “techno-optimists” attribute to digital
technology, we need to make a critical distinction between the promise of technology and the use
of technology. People are blaming technology for not living up to its promises because of poor
economic performance in recent years when it is really its use as manifest in the lack of basic
investment in the economy that is limiting growth. Without increased capital investment in
equipment and software, innovation and technology have no way to spread throughout the
economy. Long-run growth is lower as a consequence. The slowdown in investment has little to
do with technology. Rather it is due in part to an increasing short-termism on the part of U.S.
businesses, leading them to invest less for the longer term. As a result, we are investing less in machines and
equipment and structures than we did a decade ago. The slowdown also appears to be caused by a decline in
manufacturing. Manufacturing is a very high-investment, high-productivity sector that pays good wages relative to some of the
service industries. But manufacturing’s decline is due in large part to international competition, not to
digital technology. Indeed, without digital manufacturing equipment and robotics U.S.
manufacturing would have become even less internationally competitive. Advances in digital
technology have created important new industries and new jobs. Unfortunately, the decline in
manufacturing has offset these gains to a great extent.
Tech doesn’t impact economy-stock increasing now
Cordero 14 [Carrie Cordero is the Director of National Security Studies and an Adjunct Professor of Law at Georgetown
University Law Center], Lawfare, “exploring the effect of NSA disclosures on the US technology industry,” 4/12/14
http://www.lawfareblog.com/exploring-effect-nsa-disclosures-us-technology-industry
This past Monday, I had the honor of moderating a panel organized by students at the American University Washington College of
Law’s National Security Law Brief, on Understanding the Global Implications of the NSA Disclosures on the U.S. Technology
Industry. The panel (Elizabeth Banker (ZwillGen), David Fagan (Covington), Joseph Moreno (Cadwalader), Gerard Stegmaier
(Wilson Sonsoni) and Lawrence Greenberg (Motley Fool)) was stacked with practitioners who are navigating, on a daily basis, issues
related to data privacy, transparency, and cooperation with law enforcement/government requests, among other related issues. As we
explored during the discussion, there are a number of recent media and other reports describing the “fallout”
for U.S. industry as a result of the disclosures. So, at least two questions arise: first, are the reports to
be believed, and second, if so, will there be a lasting impact, or is this only temporary?¶ The short answer is that it is
too soon to judge. But, as we all read these reports, such as this one produced by NTT Communications and cited in a Guardian article
late last month, it will be important to look at the source and potential motivations behind them before drawing firm conclusions about
the state of U.S. industry.¶ Of interest, several of the panelists suggested that the reactions to the recent disclosures perhaps represent
the tipping point of what was already a growing discomfort with, if not outright opposition to, changes to the law in the national
security area since the USA Patriot Act of October 2001. Another panelist noted that despite the reports of dramatic
effects, stock prices of certain affected U.S. technology companies have gone up in recent months
(while some others have gone down). It is an important point: drawing conclusions about the long term
effects on U.S. industry will take careful study, over a sustained period of time. In the meantime, I intend
to spend more time looking into this issue. It seems to me that, given
that foreign intelligence surveillance
activities conducted by the United States are subject to more laws, rules, procedures and oversight
than any other nation, the rush – if there is one – to displace U.S. companies, may be misguided. There
just may be a different story to tell.
2nc tech not key
Technology’s benefit to the economy is overstated – the benefits are
concentrated among a small portion of the population
Bhajaria 15 (Nishant Bhajaria, senior product architect at Nike and a career coach, “Why isn't the tech boom helping the
economy?”, 5/5/2015, LinkedIn, https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/why-isnt-tech-boom-helping-economy-nishant-bhajaria, DJE)
As I wrote last week, the hi-tech sector in the U.S. is red hot in terms of job opportunities. Even as the rest of the economy
barely registers a pulse for many, hi-tech is vibrant with capital and jobs. This made me wonder: why is
the tech boom not boosting the overall economy? Just so we’re clear, no one can deny the innovation and disruption
to daily life that technology makes possible. My argument is that it is possible to have a major impact on our daily
life while generating wealth without growing the overall economy. To understand why the tech
boom has a limited impact on economic growth, consider the following reasons. First, unlike traditional
sectors like agriculture, infrastructure and healthcare, technology is inherently different in terms of the
relationship between output and labor. In those sectors, you need a lot of workers consistently to convert plans into
product. That is not the case with tech jobs, where one of the main appeals of technology is to use
automation to do more with less labor and fewer iterations. For example, when Facebook
acquired WhatsApp for $19 Billion, the latter employed just 55 employees. This purchase was
great for WhatsApp employees, but did not create any profit or income for anyone outside of
those 55 people. Similarly, when Yahoo bought Tumblr, about 40 employees made millions, and
about 178 employees made about $300K. There are other examples similar to this one all over the world. As far as tech
sector being a jobs engine is concerned, reputation is not the reality. As advertised, technology creates great wealth; that
wealth, however is distributed among a small slice of society. There is a bright green line between those who
make millions and the remaining minions. Put simply, the tech sector can create wealth without creating a lot of work. Second, 90%
of startup tech ventures fail. In such instances, employees come away with marketable skills and
contacts, but the benefit to the rest of the economy is negligible in the near term. For a business to create
jobs outside of its immediate scope, the business needs to sustain itself to profitability. Third, the tech sector is more of an urban
phenomenon compared to sectors that have historically boosted the U.S. economy. This is significant since technology and
resultant automation are at least partly responsible for the decline of manufacturing jobs. That
decline in manufacturing affected the whole country. Tech jobs are mainly concentrated on the coasts, along with
venture capital funders (See Figures 1 and 2 below), tech-centric universities and a workforce with transferable skills. Urban America,
therefore, had an easier transition from a manufacturing to a service-oriented economy while the rest of the country did not. Vast areas
of the U.S. have been historically dependent on manufacturing with skills to match for ages. During my undergraduate years in rural
Missouri, driving through the midwest often made for depressing viewing. Town after town featured abandoned homes and factories,
all a symbol of what once was and will never be. These are shards of a shattered past that would never join together again, and the jobs
they once provided have gone forever. The tech sector, with its vast footprint, has not stepped in to fill that void. To the degree that
rural America does offer job opportunities, it is from traditional sectors like healthcare and automobiles. Smaller towns in Nebraska
and Indiana, for example, are surviving due to hospitals that offer high-paying jobs. Beyond those jobs, the next best options for locals
include small, low-skill factories, the dollar store or a Dairy Queen. Similarly, the benefits of a reviving auto industry are not confined
to states like Michigan and Ohio. Ford is building plants and creating jobs in other rural states. Alcoa is a supplier of aluminium to
auto companies, and spent $300m expanding an aluminium plant in rural Iowa. It will soon spend $275m expanding a factory in rural
Tennessee. The tech sector is different from these older sectors when it comes to job creation. Its power is deep, but its reach very
limited. The above three points make clear: the booming tech sector creates a few vastly successful
startups that create a handful of millionaires and many more failed startups that create no tangible
economic benefit. The remaining middle-class jobs created by the tech boom are concentrated in
pockets of the country among the highly educated. All this mitigates the economic impact. Fourth,
even when tech companies venture outside of urban coastal locations, they provide limited
benefits at best to their communities.
Over-emphasizing the importance of technology in an economy drains capital
away from a diversified entrepreneurial portfolio
Kammer-Kerwick and Peterson 15 (Matthew Kammer-Kerwick, , James A. Peterson, , “Want to rebuild the
economy? Stop obsessing over tech start-ups.”, 5/4/2015, The Washington Post,
http://www.washingtonpost.com/posteverything/wp/2015/05/04/want-to-rebuild-the-economy-stop-obsessing-over-tech-start-ups/,
DJE)
Six years after the Great Recession ended, the nation’s economic recovery remains tenuous. The hiring rate
has weakened; the manufacturing sector continues its rapid decline; and the labor force has
shrunk to its lowest level since the 1970s. Nobody has felt this sluggishness more than millennials, who are
facing lower incomes and higher unemployment than their parents did at their age. That’s a big
problem: Projected to be 75 percent of the global workforce by 2025, millennials are the key to a sustainable economic recovery. But
the leaders orchestrating our economy’s turnaround keep overlooking them and failing to cultivate their full economic potential.
Millennials have made clear how they want to help rebuild our economy. Survey after survey has shown that the
nation’s youngest workers have a hungry entrepreneurial spirit, driven by the opportunity for
independence and creativity. A recent study by Bentley University found that most young adults
dream of starting their own businesses: “Millennials view career success differently than their parents do. Rather than
striving for the CEO spot, 66 percent of millennials would like to start their own business.” We conducted a study that found that, in
terms of setting professional entrepreneurial goals and having formed an idea about the type of company they want to start, millennials
outpace older Americans by approximately 10 percentage points. But despite their dreams of becoming business
owners, few millennials actually do: Just 3.6 percent of households headed by young adults own
stakes in private companies, compared with 10.6 percent in 1989, according to a recent Wall
Street Journal analysis. The future of our economy depends on finding a way to shrink that chasm between having an idea and
having a business. Cultivating entrepreneurs is great for the economy because the new firms they
create are a prominent source of job growth. Washington understands that. This summer, the Obama administration
will hold the first White House Demo Day, billed as an effort to make entrepreneurship more accessible to people from diverse
backgrounds and geographies. This broad, inclusive goal is positive. But the White House has made it clear that its focus is
actually much narrower. When it comes to celebrating entrepreneurship, our
society, led by Washington and Wall
Street, has become fixated on the technology industry, funneling money and support primarily
into tech start-ups. That myopic focus is misguided. In contrast, most aspiring entrepreneurs
dream about starting Main Street companies – restaurants, barbershops, boutiques and other
everyday retail and services. The timing is perfect to capture the economic promise of millennial entrepreneurship. The
oldest members of the generation are reaching what has historically been the prime entrepreneurial age, at a time that coincides with
improving economic conditions and renewed optimism. The climate for Main Street start-ups is looking brighter, with consumers
spending more and interest rates having remained low. Of course, the entrepreneurial process is complicated and fraught with risk:
Hopeful business owners must turn their visions into solid business plans, assess the market, determine how much capital they need
and find backers before they can even launch. After that, it gets even harder. Data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics show that
approximately half of start-up companies fail to last more than five years. These are among the hurdles that have prevented many
young people from becoming their own bosses. For this generation — already saddled with debt and struggling to get the privatesector experience that helps one launch a business — the risk can be especially intimidating. Although as a group, Main Street
companies can be less risky than technology start-ups, they are often underfunded and poorly planned. In
the absence of funding and planning, they are driven by passion, and that’s not sustainable. That’s
why government and other institutions need to step up. For one, we need to demystify the start-up process for aspiring entrepreneurs.
Colleges and universities are the best place to start encouraging Main Street entrepreneurs to plan and fund their companies in a way
that reduces risk. Babson College is an excellent example of an existing program that could be expanded, requiring students to gain
start-up experience on a small scale as part of their course work. The University of Houston is another great example of how education
can include hands-on experience along with traditional classroom learning. The University of Texas at Austin, in addition to offering
formal entrepreneurship-related courses, offers a variety of entrepreneurship programs for students, including Texas Venture Labs,
Longhorn Startup, Longhorn Entrepreneur Agency and the Technology Entrepreneurship Society. These types of programs should be
expanded to reach young people who seek to start businesses after their formal education is over, too. We also need to enhance
connections between millennials and more experienced entrepreneurs as partners and mentors. Mentorship programs have been
promoted at New Orleans Entrepreneur Week and South by Southwest, but we need more. These mentorships and targeted events help
increase young people’s awareness of existing financing options and start-up support programs to launch their ideas. Too often,
nascent entrepreneurs take easier – but riskier routes – to financing their ideas, like credit cards and relatives. Though those options
are more expedient for the passion-driven entrepreneur, other funding routes, like SBA loans and bank loans, require the businessplanning process that reduces the financial risk and stress that can cripple a start-up. Great business ideas shouldn’t stall simply
because they don’t yet have the acumen to engage angel investors or venture capitalist partners. New programs and opportunities for
entrepreneurs shouldn’t just benefit aspiring business owners in their 20s and 30s. Generation X and baby boomers also have
substantial interest in entrepreneurship and can benefit from more experience. When members of different generations work together –
whether in a mentorship or as business partners — synergies can develop between their unique strengths and perspectives: Millennials
are more confident about setting goals, more optimistic about future economic conditions and are driven by a desire to make a
difference in society. In contrast, Generation X and baby boomers are marginally more likely to value persistence in recovering from
setbacks and focus on the concrete benefits of employment: job security, reliable health insurance and retirement savings. If we
continue to undervalue the potential of young entrepreneurship, the consequences will trickle
throughout our economy. Inaction promises a less robust and less diversified economic recovery, and one in which fewer
At this point in our
tenuous recovery, now is exactly the best time to invest in a diversified and inclusive portfolio of
entrepreneurs.
Americans pursue their entrepreneurial dreams. Such inaction is akin to inadequate planning for retirement.
The benefit of technological growth is sidelined by a deficit in US Stem
education
Engler 12 (John Engler, journalist for US News, “STEM Education Is the Key to the U.S.'s Economic Future”, 6/15/2012, U.S.
News and World Report, http://www.usnews.com/opinion/articles/2012/06/15/stem-education-is-the-key-to-the-uss-economic-future)
A close look at American unemployment statistics reveals a contradiction: Even with unemployment at historically high levels ,
large numbers of jobs are going unfilled. Many of these jobs have one thing in common–the need
for an educational background in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics. Increasingly,
one of our richest sources of employment and economic growth will be jobs that require skills in
these areas, collectively known as STEM. The question is: Will we be able to educate enough young Americans to fill
them? Yes, the unemployment numbers have been full of bad news for the past few years. But there has been good news too. While
the overall unemployment rate has slowly come down to May's still-high 8.2 percent, for those in STEM occupations the story is very
different. According to a recently released study from Change the Equation, an organization that supports STEM education, there are
3.6 unemployed workers for every job in the United States. That compares with only one unemployed STEM worker for two unfilled
STEM jobs throughout the country. Many jobs are going unfilled simply for lack of people with the right skill sets. Even with more
than 13 million Americans unemployed, the manufacturing sector cannot find people with the skills to take
nearly 600,000 unfilled jobs, according to a study last fall by the Manufacturing Institute and Deloitte. The hardest jobs to fill
were skilled positions, including well-compensated blue collar jobs like machinists, operators, and technicians, as well as engineering
technologists and sciences. As Raytheon Chairman and CEO William Swanson said at a Massachusetts' STEM Summit last fall, "Too
many students and adults are training for jobs in which labor surpluses exist and demand is low, while high-demand jobs, particularly
those in STEM fields, go unfilled." STEM-related skills are not just a source of jobs, they are a source of
jobs that pay very well. A report last October from the Georgetown University Center on Education and the Workforce found
that 65 percent of those with Bachelors' degrees in STEM fields earn more than Master's degrees in non-STEM occupations. In fact,
47 percent of Bachelor's degrees in STEM occupations earn more than PhDs in non-STEM occupations. But despite the lucrative
potential, many young people are reluctant to enter into fields that require a background in science,
technology, engineering, or mathematics. In a recent study by the Lemselson-MIT Invention Index, which gauges
innovation aptitude among young adults, 60 percent of young adults (ages 16 to 25) named at least one factor that prevented them
from pursuing further education or work in the STEM fields. Thirty-four percent said they don't know much about
the fields, a third said they were too challenging, and 28 percent said they were not well-prepared
at school to seek further education in these areas. This is a problem—for young people and for our country. We
need STEM-related talent to compete globally, and we will need even more in the future. It is not
a matter of choice: For the United States to remain the global innovation leader, we must make
the most of all of the potential STEM talent this country has to offer. Government can play a critical part.
President Barack Obama's goal of 100,000 additional science, technology, engineering, and math teachers is laudable. The president's
STEM campaign leverages mostly private-sector funding. Called Educate to Innovate, it has spawned Change the Equation, whose
study was cited above. A nongovernmental organization, Change the Equation was set up by more than 100 CEOs, with the
cooperation of state governments and educational organizations and foundations to align corporate efforts in STEM education.
The U.S. is not locked into a “winner-take-all” race for science and tech leadership.
Increased innovation in China and India will increase production and consumption
in the U.S. service sector.
Bhidé ‘9
Amar Bhidé, Thomas Schmidheiny Professor in The Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy @ Tufts, was Glaubinger Professor of
Business at Columbia University. “The Venturesome Economy: How Innovation Sustains Prosperity in a More Connected World”.
Winter 2009. Journal of Applied Corporate Finance • Volume 21 Number 1.
http://bhide.net/venturesome_press/JACF_Venturesome_Economy_1_bhide.pdf
My analysis of the multiplayer game and cross-border interactions suggests outcomes that differ
sharply from the dire predictions of the techno-nationalists. According to my assessment, the United
States is not locked into a “winner-take-all” race for scientific and technological
leadership, and the growth of research capabilities in China and India—and thus their
share of cutting-edge research—does
not reduce U.S. prosperity. Indeed my analysis
suggests that advances abroad will improve living standards in the U.S. Moreover, the
benefits I identify are different from the conventional economist’s account whereby prosperity abroad
increases opportunities for U.S. exporters. Instead, I show that cutting-edge research developed
abroad benefits domestic production and consumption in the service sector. And
contrary to the policy prescriptions of techno-nationalists, I suggest that the U.S. embrace the
expansion of research capabilities abroad instead of devoting more resources to
maintaining its lead in science and cutting-edge technology.20
Tech development is not zero-sum – it does not matter the origin of innovation – the
U.S. will still capitalize on it.
Bhidé ‘9
Amar Bhidé, Thomas Schmidheiny Professor in The Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy @ Tufts, was Glaubinger Professor of
Business at Columbia University. “The Venturesome Economy: How Innovation Sustains Prosperity in a More Connected World”.
Winter 2009. Journal of Applied Corporate Finance • Volume 21 Number 1.
http://bhide.net/venturesome_press/JACF_Venturesome_Economy_1_bhide.pdf
Any catch-up, even if it takes place gradually and in the normal course of development, will to some
degree reduce the U.S. “lead.” Furthermore, the global influence of techno-nationalism could
accelerate this process. As alarmists in the U.S. continue to remind us, governments in
“emerging” countries such as China and India—also in the thrall of techno-nationalist
thinking—are making a determined effort to leap ahead in cutting-edge science and
technology. But I am skeptical that these efforts are going to do any more good for
China’s and India’s economy than similar efforts in Europe and Japan in the 1970s
and 1980s.21 But putting aside the issue of whether investing in cutting-edge research represents a
good use of Chinese and Indian resources, does whatever erosion of U.S. primacy in
developing high-level know-how this might cause really threaten U.S. prosperity?
Should the U.S. government respond in kind by putting even more money into research? Nobel
laureate Paul Krugman has long decried what he refers to as the “dangerous obsession”
with “national competitiveness.” As Krugman wrote in a 1994 article in Foreign Affairs, the
widespread tendency to think that “the United States and Japan are competitors in the
same sense that Coca-Cola competes with Pepsi” is “flatly, completely and
demonstrably wrong.” Although “competitive problems could arise in principle, as a practical,
empirical matter,” Krugman goes on to say, “the major nations of the world are not to any significant
degree in economic competition with each other.”22 The techno-nationalist claim that U.S.
prosperity requires that the country “maintain its scientific and technological lead” is
particularly dubious: the argument fails to recognize that the development of
scientific knowledge or cutting-edge technology is not a zero-sum competition. The
results of scientific research are available at no charge to anyone anywhere in the
world. Most arguments for the public funding of scientific research are in fact based on the
unwillingness of private investors to undertake research that cannot yield a profit. Cutting-edge
technology (as opposed to scientific research) has commercial value because it can be
patented; but patent owners generally don’t charge higher fees to foreign licensors.
The then tiny Japanese company Sony was one of the first licensors of Bell Labs’ transistor patent.
Sony paid all of $50,000—and only after first obtaining special permission from the Japanese Ministry
of Finance—for the license that started it on the road to becoming a household name in consumer
electronics. Moreover, if patent holders choose not to grant licenses but to exploit their
inventions on their own, this does not mean that the country of origin secures most of
the benefit at the expense of other countries. Suppose IBM chooses to exploit
internally, instead of licensing, a breakthrough from its China Research Laboratory
(employing 150 research staff in Beijing). This does not help China and hurt everyone else.
Rather, as I discuss at length later, the benefits go to IBM’s stockholders, to employees who
make or market the product that embodies the invention, and—above all—to customers, who secure
the lion’s share of the benefit from most innovations. These stockholders, employees, and customers,
who number in the tens of millions, are located all over the world. In a world where
breakthrough ideas easily cross national borders, the origin of ideas is
inconsequential. Contrary to Thomas Friedman’s assertion, it does not matter that Google’s
search algorithm was invented in California. After all, a Briton invented the protocols
of the World Wide Web—in a lab in Switzerland. A Swede and a Dane in Tallinn, Estonia,
started Skype, the leading provider of peer-to-peer Internet telephony. How did the foreign origins of
these innovations harm the U.S. economy?
1nc tech high now
Tech high now-structural features
Calamur 13 (Krishnadev Calamur editor at NPR in DC, NPR, “U.S. Competitiveness Up, Ranking Fifth, Survey Says”, 9/4/2013,
http://www.npr.org/blogs/parallels/2013/09/04/218902510/u-s-competitiveness-up-ranking-fifth-survey-says)
U.S. competitiveness among global economies suffered after the 2008 global economic crisis. Four years after the crisis, the U.S.
slipped in the World Economic Forum's annual competitiveness ranking. This year it's back up a bit: The U.S. rose to fifth position
overall from seventh last year, in the forum's latest survey, which was released Wednesday.¶ Here's what the survey says about the
U.S., the world's largest economy:¶ U.S. competitiveness among global economies suffered after the 2008 global economic crisis. Four
years after the crisis, the U.S. slipped in the World Economic Forum's annual competitiveness ranking. This year it's back up a bit:
The U.S. rose to fifth position overall from seventh last year, in the forum's latest survey, which was released Wednesday. Here's what
the survey says about the U.S., the world's largest economy: "Overall, many structural features continue to make the US economy
extremely productive. US companies are highly sophisticated and innovative, supported by an excellent university system that
collaborates admirably with the business sector in R&D. Combined with flexible labor markets and the scale opportunities afforded by
the sheer size of its domestic economy — the largest in the world by far — these qualities continue to make the United States very
competitive.
2nc tech high now
Tech industry growing
Thomas J. Casey, 1-22-2015, "2015 Technology Industry Trends," Pwc Network,
http://www.strategyand.pwc.com/perspectives/2015-technology-trends
The tech industry is always in flux. Frequent new products and category
innovation define and
redefine the sector’s constantly shifting landscape. But lately we’ve seen even greater volatility
than usual, and it has begun to affect the makeup of hardware and software companies themselves.
Increasingly, technology firms are reexamining the structure of their businesses and taking bold
steps to squeeze out better financial performance. They are doing this because their profit margins and market share
are under siege from disruptive, often well-funded startups and other aggressive competitors. The competition, in turn, has made
customers more demanding. They are seeking greater performance, better features, and more platform
independence and flexibility at the lowest price point possible. This volatility is manifested in a flurry of
attempted and consummated mergers, acquisitions, and divestitures. In the early fall of 2014, for example, multiple major business
publications reported that Hewlett-Packard was in talks to purchase storage equipment maker EMC, primarily to improve scale and
cut costs. Both sides refused to comment on any possible deal, and none occurred. Then, in November, HP announced that it was
splitting in two, separating its computer and printer hardware business (HP Inc.) from its enterprise hardware, software, and services
units (Hewlett-Packard Enterprise). HP’s goal for the split is to allow both units, which will each generate more than US$50 billion in
revenue and be Fortune 50 companies, to become more nimble and focused on their respective markets and competitors. With this
breakup, the two companies will have to find ways to improve the performance of slow-growth businesses struggling to maintain
decent profit margins.
1nc US econ not key
U.S. not key to the global economy.
Caryl 10 [Christian, Senior Fellow at the Center for International Studies at the Massachusetts Institute
of Technology and a contributing editor to Foreign Policy. His column, "Reality Check," appears weekly
on ForeignPolicy.com, Crisis? What Crisis? APRIL 5, 2010,
http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2010/04/05/crisis_what_crisis?page=full]
Many emerging economies entered the 2008-2009 crisis with healthy balance
sheets. In most cases governments reacted quickly and flexibly, rolling out
stimulus programs or even expanding poverty-reduction programs. Increasingly,
the same countries that have embraced globalization and markets are starting to
build social safety nets. And there's another factor: Trade is becoming more evenly
distributed throughout the world. China is now a bigger market for Asian
exporters than the United States. Some economists are talking about "emerging
market decoupling." Jonathan Anderson, an emerging-markets economist at the
Swiss bank UBS, showed in one recent report how car sales in emerging
markets have actually been rising during this latest bout of turmoil -- powerful
evidence that emerging economies no longer have to sneeze when America
catches a cold. Aphitchaya Nguanbanchong, a consultant for the British-based aid
organization Oxfam, has studied the crisis's effects on Southeast Asian economies. "The research
so far shows that the result of the crisis isn't as bad as we were expecting," she says. Indonesia
is a case in point: "People in this region and at the policy level learned a lot from
the past crisis." Healthy domestic demand cushioned the shock when the crisis
hit export-oriented industries; the government weighed in immediately with
hefty stimulus measures. Nguanbanchong says that she has been surprised by the
extent to which families throughout the region have kept spending money on
education even as incomes have declined for some. And that, she says, reinforces a
major lesson that emerging-market governments can take away from the crisis: "Governments
should focus more on social policy, on health, education, and services. They shouldn't be
intervening so much directly in the economy itself."
2nc US econ not key
Decoupling means US isn’t key to the global economy
Bloomberg 10 [“Wall Street Sees World Economy Decoupling From U.S.”, October 4th, 2010,
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2010-10-03/world-economy-decoupling-from-u-s-in-slowdown-returnsas-wall-street-view.html, Chetan]
The main reason for the divergence: “Direct transmission from a U.S. slowdown to other
economies through exports is just not large enough to spread a U.S. demand problem
globally,” Goldman Sachs economists Dominic Wilson and Stacy Carlson wrote in a Sept. 22
report entitled “If the U.S. sneezes...” Limited Exposure Take the so-called BRIC countries of
Brazil, Russia, India and China. While exports account for almost 20 percent of
their gross domestic product, sales to the U.S. compose less than 5 percent of GDP,
according to their estimates. That means even if U.S. growth slowed 2 percent, the drag
on these four countries would be about 0.1 percentage point, the economists reckon.
Developed economies including the U.K., Germany and Japan also have limited
exposure, they said. Economies outside the U.S. have room to grow that the U.S.
doesn’t, partly because of its outsized slump in house prices, Wilson and Carlson said. The
drop of almost 35 percent is more than twice as large as the worst declines in the rest of the
Group of 10 industrial nations, they found. The risk to the decoupling wager is a repeat of 2008,
when the U.S. property bubble burst and then morphed into a global credit and banking shock
that ricocheted around the world. For now, Goldman Sachs’s index of U.S. financial conditions
signals that bond and stock markets aren’t stressed by the U.S. outlook. Weaker Dollar The
break with the U.S. will be reflected in a weaker dollar, with the Chinese yuan appreciating to
6.49 per dollar in a year from 6.685 on Oct. 1, according to Goldman Sachs forecasts. The bank
is also betting that yields on U.S. 10-year debt will be lower by June than equivalent yields for
Germany, the U.K., Canada, Australia and Norway. U.S. notes will rise to 2.8 percent from 2.52
percent, Germany’s will increase to 3 percent from 2.3 percent and Canada’s will grow to 3.8
percent from 2.76 percent on Oct. 1, Goldman Sachs projects. Goldman Sachs isn’t alone in
making the case for decoupling. Harris at BofA Merrill Lynch said he didn’t buy the argument
prior to the financial crisis. Now he believes global growth is strong enough to offer a
“handkerchief” to the U.S. as it suffers a “growth recession” of weak expansion and rising
unemployment, he said. Giving him confidence is his calculation that the U.S. share of
global GDP has shrunk to about 24 percent from 31 percent in 2000. He also notes that,
unlike the U.S., many countries avoided asset bubbles, kept their banking systems sound and
improved their trade and budget positions. Economic Locomotives A book published last week
by the World Bank backs him up. “The Day After Tomorrow” concludes that developing
nations aren’t only decoupling, they also are undergoing a “switchover” that will make
them such locomotives for the world economy, they can help rescue advanced nations.
Among the reasons for the revolution are greater trade between emerging markets, the rise of the
middle class and higher commodity prices, the book said. Investors are signaling they agree.
The U.S. has fallen behind Brazil, China and India as the preferred place to invest,
according to a quarterly survey conducted last month of 1,408 investors, analysts and traders
who subscribe to Bloomberg. Emerging markets also attracted more money from share offerings
than industrialized nations last quarter for the first time in at least a decade, Bloomberg data
show. Room to Ease Indonesia, India, China and Poland are the developing economies least
vulnerable to a U.S. slowdown, according to a Sept. 14 study based on trade ties by HSBC
Holdings Plc economists. China, Russia and Brazil also are among nations with more
room than industrial countries to ease policies if a U.S. slowdown does weigh on
their growth, according to a policy- flexibility index designed by the economists, who include
New York-based Pablo Goldberg. “Emerging economies kept their powder relatively dry, and
are, for the most part, in a position where they could act countercyclically if needed,” the HSBC
group said. Links to developing countries are helping insulate some companies against U.S.
weakness. Swiss watch manufacturer Swatch Group AG and tire maker Nokian Renkaat of
Finland are among the European businesses that should benefit from trade with nations such as
Russia and China where consumer demand is growing, according to BlackRock Inc. portfolio
manager Alister Hibbert. “There’s a lot of life in the global economy,” Hibbert, said at a Sept. 8
presentation to reporters in London.
1nc no econ war
No causal relationship between the economy and war.
Ferguson 6 [Niall, MA, D.Phil., is Laurence A. Tisch Professor of History at Harvard University and
William Ziegler Professor of Business Administration at Harvard Business School. He is also a Senior
Research Fellow at Jesus College, Oxford University, and a Senior Fellow at the Hoover Institution,
Stanford University, Foreign Affairs, Sept/Oct, “The Next War of the World”]
Nor can economic crises explain the bloodshed. What may be the most familiar causal
chain in modern historiography links the Great Depression to the rise of fascism and the
outbreak of World War II. But that simple story leaves too much out. Nazi Germany started
the war in Europe only after its economy had recovered. Not all the countries affected by
the Great Depression were taken over by fascist regimes, nor did all such regimes start wars of
aggression. In fact, no general relationship between economics and conflict is
discernible for the century as a whole. Some wars came after periods of growth, others
were the causes rather than the consequences of economic catastrophe, and some
severe economic crises were not followed by wars.
No impact—statistics prove
Drezner 12 – Daniel is a professor in the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy at Tufts. (“The Irony of
Global Economic Governance: The System Worked”, October 2012,
http://www.globaleconomicgovernance.org/wp-content/uploads/IR-Colloquium-MT12-Week-5_The-Ironyof-Global-Economic-Governance.pdf)
The final outcome addresses a dog that hasn’t barked: the effect of the Great
Recession on cross-border conflict and violence. During the initial stages of the crisis,
multiple analysts asserted that the financial crisis would lead states to increase their
use of force as a tool for staying in power.37 Whether through greater internal repression,
diversionary wars, arms races, or a ratcheting up of great power conflict, there were
genuine concerns that the global economic downturn would lead to an increase in conflict.
Violence in the Middle East, border disputes in the South China Sea, and even the disruptions of
the Occupy movement fuel impressions of surge in global public disorder.
The aggregate data suggests otherwise, however. The Institute for Economics and
Peace has constructed a “Global Peace Index” annually since 2007. A key conclusion they draw
from the 2012 report is that “The average level of peacefulness in 2012 is
approximately the same as it was in 2007.”38 Interstate violence in particular has
declined since the start of the financial crisis – as have military expenditures in
most sampled countries. Other studies confirm that the Great Recession has not
triggered any increase in violent conflict; the secular decline in violence that started
with the end of the Cold War has not been reversed.39 Rogers Brubaker concludes, “ the crisis
has not to date generated the surge in protectionist nationalism or ethnic exclusion
that might have been expected.”40
None of these data suggest that the global economy is operating swimmingly. Growth remains
unbalanced and fragile, and has clearly slowed in 2012. Transnational capital flows remain
depressed compared to pre-crisis levels, primarily due to a drying up of cross-border interbank
lending in Europe. Currency volatility remains an ongoing concern. Compared to the aftermath
of other postwar recessions, growth in output, investment, and employment in the developed
world have all lagged behind. But the Great Recession is not like other postwar recessions in
either scope or kind; expecting a standard “V”-shaped recovery was unreasonable. One financial
analyst characterized the post-2008 global economy as in a state of “contained depression.”41
The key word is “contained,” however. Given the severity, reach and depth of the 2008
financial crisis, the proper comparison is with Great Depression. And by that
standard, the outcome variables look impressive. As Carmen Reinhart and Kenneth
Rogoff concluded in This Time is Different: “that its macroeconomic outcome has been only the
most severe global recession since World War II – and not even worse – must be regarded as
fortunate.”42
2nc no econ war
No war from economic collapse
Barnett ’09
(Thomas P.M. Barnett, Thomas P.M. Barnett is an American military geostrategist and Chief Analyst at
Wikistrat, 24 Aug 2009, “ The New Rules: Security Remains Stable Amid Financial Crisis”,
http://www.worldpoliticsreview.com/articles/4213/the-new-rules-security-remains-stable-amid-financialcrisis)
When the global financial crisis struck roughly a year ago, the blogosphere was
ablaze with all sorts of scary predictions of, and commentary regarding, ensuing
conflict and wars -- a rerun of the Great Depression leading to world war, as it were. Now, as
global economic news brightens and recovery -- surprisingly led by China and emerging markets
-- is the talk of the day, it's interesting to look back over the past year and realize
how globalization's first truly worldwide recession has had virtually no impact
whatsoever on the international security landscape. None of the more than threedozen ongoing conflicts listed by GlobalSecurity.org can be clearly attributed to the
global recession. Indeed, the last new entry (civil conflict between Hamas and Fatah in
the Palestine) predates the economic crisis by a year, and three quarters of the
chronic struggles began in the last century. Ditto for the 15 low-intensity
conflicts listed by Wikipedia (where the latest entry is the Mexican "drug war" begun in
2006). Certainly, the Russia-Georgia conflict last August was specifically timed, but by most
accounts the opening ceremony of the Beijing Olympics was the most important external trigger
(followed by the U.S. presidential campaign) for that sudden spike in an almost two-decade long
struggle between Georgia and its two breakaway regions. Looking over the various databases,
then, we see a most familiar picture: the usual mix of civil conflicts, insurgencies,
and liberation-themed terrorist movements. Besides the recent Russia-Georgia dust-up,
the only two potential state-on-state wars (North v. South Korea, Israel v. Iran) are both tied to
one side acquiring a nuclear weapon capacity -- a process wholly unrelated to global
economic trends. And with the United States effectively tied down by its two
ongoing major interventions (Iraq and Afghanistan-bleeding-into-Pakistan), our
involvement elsewhere around the planet has been quite modest, both leading up to
and following the onset of the economic crisis: e.g., the usual counter-drug efforts in Latin
America, the usual military exercises with allies across Asia, mixing it up with pirates off
Somalia's coast). Everywhere else we find serious instability we pretty much let it burn,
occasionally pressing the Chinese -- unsuccessfully -- to do something. Our new Africa
Command, for example, hasn't led us to anything beyond advising and training local forces. So,
to sum up: *No significant uptick in mass violence or unrest (remember the
smattering of urban riots last year in places like Greece, Moldova and Latvia?); *The usual
frequency maintained in civil conflicts (in all the usual places); *Not a single state-on-state war
directly caused (and no great-power-on-great-power crises even triggered); *No great
improvement or disruption in great-power cooperation regarding the emergence of new nuclear
powers (despite all that diplomacy); *A modest scaling back of international policing efforts by
the system's acknowledged Leviathan power (inevitable given the strain); and *No serious
efforts by any rising great power to challenge that Leviathan or supplant its role. (The worst
things we can cite are Moscow's occasional deployments of strategic assets to the Western
hemisphere and its weak efforts to outbid the United States on basing rights in Kyrgyzstan; but
the best include China and India stepping up their aid and investments in Afghanistan and Iraq.)
Sure, we've finally seen global defense spending surpass the previous world record set in the late
1980s, but even that's likely to wane given the stress on public budgets created by all this
unprecedented "stimulus" spending. If anything, the friendly cooperation on such stimulus
packaging was the most notable great-power dynamic caused by the crisis. Can we say that the
world has suffered a distinct shift to political radicalism as a result of the economic crisis?
Indeed, no. The world's major economies remain governed by center-left or
center-right political factions that remain decidedly friendly to both markets and
trade. In the short run, there were attempts across the board to insulate economies from
immediate damage (in effect, as much protectionism as allowed under current trade rules), but
there was no great slide into "trade wars." Instead, the World Trade Organization is functioning
as it was designed to function, and regional efforts toward free-trade agreements have not
slowed. Can we say Islamic radicalism was inflamed by the economic crisis? If it was, that shift
was clearly overwhelmed by the Islamic world's growing disenchantment with the brutality
displayed by violent extremist groups such as al-Qaida. And looking forward, austere economic
times are just as likely to breed connecting evangelicalism as disconnecting fundamentalism. At
the end of the day, the economic crisis did not prove to be sufficiently frightening to provoke
major economies into establishing global regulatory schemes, even as it has sparked a spirited -and much needed, as I argued last week -- discussion of the continuing viability of the U.S.
dollar as the world's primary reserve currency. Naturally, plenty of experts and pundits have
attached great significance to this debate, seeing in it the beginning of "economic warfare" and
the like between "fading" America and "rising" China. And yet, in a world of globally integrated
production chains and interconnected financial markets, such "diverging interests" hardly
constitute signposts for wars up ahead. Frankly, I don't welcome a world in which America's
fiscal profligacy goes undisciplined, so bring it on -- please! Add it all up and it's fair to
say that this global financial crisis has proven the great resilience of America's
post-World War II international liberal trade order. Do I expect to read any analyses
along those lines in the blogosphere any time soon? Absolutely not. I expect the fantastic fearmongering to proceed apace. That's what the Internet is for.
Terrorism
1nc can’t stop mass surveillance
A privacy advocate doesn’t solve mass surveillance
Nojeim 13, (Gregory Nojeim is a Senior Counsel at the Center for Democracy & Technology Constitution Center, 11/1/13
“FISA court advocate helpful, but no replacement for ending mass surveillance,” http://blog.constitutioncenter.org/2013/11/fisa-courtadvocate-helpful-but-no-replacement-for-ending-mass-surveillance/)
Whatever the truth, several factors erode trust in the FISA Court, the foremost being that it operates secretly and issues important
decisions in a one-sided process in which only the government is represented. This inhibits the Court from giving adequate
consideration to arguments against surveillance, and leaves the government free to make flawed or unsubstantiated assertions without
fear of rebuttal.¶ One-sided FISA Court proceedings has led to the development of an unnatural collaborative relationship between
clerks of the court and the Department of Justice lawyers who submit surveillance applications to the FISA Court.¶ In response to this
problem, Senator Richard Blumenthal (D-CT) introduced legislation, S.1467, to create an independent Special Advocate within the
Executive Branch who would “vigorously [advocate] before the FISA Court or the FISA Court of Review … in support of legal
interpretations that minimize the scope of surveillance and the extent of data collection and retention.Ӧ The Special Advocate
would review every application to the FISA Court, and could ask to participate in any FISA Court
proceeding, although the FISA Court has the authority to deny such requests. The Special Advocate could
also request that outside parties be granted the ability to file amicus curiae briefs with the Court, or participate in oral arguments. The
Special Advocate could also appeal FISA Court decisions – including requests to participate and substantive decisions regarding
surveillance applications – to the FISA Court of Review and the Supreme Court. Finally, the Special Advocate could petition for
public disclosure of decisions and other relevant documents held by the FISA Court.¶ Picking up on this idea, Senator Ron Wyden (DOR) included a “Constitutional Advocate” in his FISA reform bill, the Intelligence Oversight and Surveillance Reform Act (S. 1551)
and Senator Patrick Leahy (D-VT) and Representative James Sensenbrenner (R-WI) included a similar provision in their USA
Freedom Act, which was introduced on October 29.¶ Several improvements could strengthen the “ Special Advocate”
legislation. First, advocating protection of privacy and civil liberties should be added to the duties of the Office of the Special
Advocate. While the current charge to advocate for minimizing the scope of data collection is helpful, sometimes consideration of
broader civil liberties interests is appropriate. In addition, the Privacy and Civil Liberties Oversight Board should choose the Special
Advocate, rather than selecting a slate of candidates from which the Chief Judge of the FISA Court would choose, as is suggested in
the Blumenthal bill. Finally, the Special Advocate, not the FISA Court, should decide in which cases the Special advocate would have
a voice. Otherwise, he or she could be barred from participating in most proceedings.¶ Inserting a Special Advocate in FISA Court
proceedings – particularly one charged with making those proceedings more transparent – would go some distance toward restoring
trust in intelligence surveillance. But, it is no substitute for clearer, more restrictive rules about the
information that can be collected for intelligence purposes, particularly when that information
pertains to Americans. In other words, having a Special Advocate is no panacea; it is far more
important that Congress act to end the bulk collection of metadata about communications.
1nc key to stop terrorism
Surveillance works and NSA domestic programs are key
Zuckerman, Bucci and Carafano 13 (Jessica, Policy Analyst, Western Hemisphere, Heritage
Foundation, Steven P., Director of the Center for Foreign and National Security Policy at the Heritage
Foundation, and James Jay, PhD, Vice President for the Institute for National SEcurity and Foreign Policy,
"60 Terrorist Plots Since 9/11: Continued Lessons in Domestic Counterterrorism")
Strengthening the Domestic Counterterrorism Enterprise¶ Three months after the attack at the
Boston Marathon, the pendulum of awareness of the terrorist threat has already begun to swing
back, just as it did after 9/11. Due to the resilience of the nation and its people, for most, life has
returned to business as usual. The threat of terrorism against the United States,
however, remains.¶ Expecting to stop each and every threat that reaches a country’s borders is
unreasonable, particularly in a free society committed to individual liberty. Nevertheless, there
are important steps that America’s leaders can take to strengthen the U.S.
domestic counterterrorism enterprise and continue to make the U.S. a harder target.
Congress and the Administration should:¶ Ensure a proactive approach to preventing terrorist
attacks. Despite the persistent threat of terrorism, the Obama Administration continues to focus
on reactive policies and prosecuting terrorists rather than on proactive efforts to enhance
intelligence tools and thwart terrorist attempts. This strategy fails to recognize the pervasive
nature of the threat posed by terrorist groups such as al-Qaeda and homegrown extremism. The
Administration, and the nation as a whole, should continue to keep in place a
robust, enduring, and proactive counterterrorism framework in order to identify
and thwart terrorist threats long before the public is in danger.¶ Maintain essential
counterterrorism tools. Support for important investigative tools such as the PATRIOT
Act is essential to maintaining the security of the U.S. and combating terrorist
threats. Key provisions within the act, such as the roving surveillance authority and business
records provision, have proved essential for thwarting terror plots, yet they require frequent
reauthorization. In order to ensure that law enforcement and intelligence authorities have the
essential counterterrorism tools they need, Congress should seek permanent authorization of the
three sun setting provisions within the PATRIOT Act.[208] Furthermore, legitimate
government surveillance programs are also a vital component of U.S. national
security, and should be allowed to continue. Indeed, in testimony before the house, General
Keith Alexander, the director of the National Security Agency (NSA), revealed that more than
50 incidents of potential terrorism at home and abroad were stopped by the
set of NSA surveillance programs that have recently come under scrutiny. That said, the
need for effective counterterrorism operations does not relieve the government of its obligation
to follow the law and respect individual privacy and liberty. In the American system, the
government must do both equally well.¶ Break down the silos of information. Washington
should emphasize continued cooperation and information sharing among federal, state, and local
law enforcement agencies to prevent terrorists from slipping through the cracks between the
various jurisdictions. In particular, the FBI should make a more concerted effort to share
information more broadly with state and local law enforcement. State and local law enforcement
agencies are the front lines of the U.S. national security strategy. As a result, local authorities are
able to recognize potential danger and identify patterns that the federal authorities may miss.
They also take the lead in community outreach, which is crucial to identifying and stopping
“lone wolf” actors and other homegrown extremists. Federal law enforcement, on the other hand,
is not designed to fight against this kind of threat; it is built to battle cells, groups, and
organizations, not individuals.¶ Streamline the domestic counterterrorism system. The domestic
counterterrorism enterprise should base future improvements on the reality that governments at
all levels are fiscally in crisis. Rather than add additional components to the system, law
enforcement officials should streamline the domestic counterterrorism enterprise by improving
current capabilities, leveraging state and local law enforcement resources and authorities, and, in
some cases, reducing components where the terrorist threat is not high and the financial support
is too thin or could be allocated more effectively. For example, the Department of Homeland
Security should dramatically reduce the number of fusion centers, many of which exist in lowrisk areas or areas where similar capabilities exist. An easy way to reduce the number of fusion
centers is to eliminate funding to those that are located outside the 31 urban areas designated as
the highest risk.¶ Fully implement a strategy to counter violent extremism. Countering
violent extremism is an important complementary effort to an effective
counterterrorism strategy. In August 2011, the U.S. government released a strategic plan
called “Empowering Local Partners to Prevent Violent Extremism in the United States.”[209]
The plan focuses on outlining how federal agencies can assist local officials, groups, and private
organizations in preventing violent extremism. It includes strengthening law enforcement
cooperation and helping communities understand how to counter extremist propaganda
(particularly online). Sadly, this plan is not a true strategy. It fails to assign responsibilities and
does not direct action or resource investments. More direction and leadership must be applied to
transform a laundry list of good ideas into an effective program to support communities in
protecting and strengthening civil society.¶ Vigilance Is Not Optional¶ In a political
environment of sequestration on the one hand and privacy concerns on the other, there are those
on both sides of the aisle who argue that counterterrorism spending should be cut and U.S.
intelligence agencies reigned in. As the above list indicates however,
the long war on
terrorism is far from over . Most disturbingly, an increasing number of Islamistinspired terrorist attacks are originating within America’s borders. The rise of
homegrown extremism is the next front in the fight against terrorism and should be
taken seriously by the Administration.¶ While there has not been another successful
attack on the homeland on the scale of 9/11, the bombings in Boston reminded
the country that the threat of terrorism is real and that continued vigilance is
critical to keeping America safe. Congress and the Administration must continue to
upgrade and improve the counterterrorism capabilities of law enforcement and intelligence
agencies as well exercise proper oversight of these capabilities. The American people are
resilient, but the lesson of Boston is that the government can and should do more to
prevent future terror attacks.
2nc key to stop terrorism
NSA mass surveillance is critical –to combating terror
Wittes 14 (Benjamin, Senior Fellow @ the Brookings Institute, April 8th 2014,
"Is Al Qaeda Winning:
Grading the Administration's Counter terrorism Policy, Brookings Institute)
As I said at the outset of this statement, the question of intelligence collection under Section 702
of the FAA may seem connected to the AUMF’s future in only the most distant fashion. In fact,
the connection between intelligence collection authorities and the underlying
regime authorizing the conflict itself is a critical one. Good intelligence is key to any
armed conflict and good technical intelligence is a huge U.S. strength in the fight
against Al Qaeda. Yet ironically, the more one attempts to narrow the conflict, the more
important technical intelligence becomes. The fewer boots on the ground we have in
Afghanistan, for example, the greater our reliance will become on technical collection. The more
we rely on drone strikes, rather than large troop movements, in areas where we lack large human
networks, the more we rely on technical intelligence. Particularly if one imagines staying on
offense against a metastasizing Al Qaeda in the context of a withdrawal from Afghanistan and a
narrowing—or a formal end—of the AUMF conflict, the burden on technical intelligence
collection to keep us in the game will be huge even ignoring the many other foreign intelligence
and national security interests Section 702 surveillance supports.¶ Section 702 is a
complicated statute, and it is only one part of a far more complicated, larger statutory
arrangement. But broadly speaking, it permits the NSA to acquire without an
individualized warrant the communications of non-US persons reasonably
believed to be overseas when those communications are transiting the United
States or stored in the United States. Under these circumstances, the NSA can order
production of such communications from telecommunications carriers and internet companies
under broad programmatic orders issued by the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court (FISC),
which reviews both targeting and minimization procedures under which the collection then takes
place. Oversight is thick, both within the executive branch, and in reporting requirements to the
congressional intelligence committees.¶ Make no mistake: Section 702 is a very big deal
in America’s counterterrorism arsenal. It is far more important than the much debated
bulk metadata program, which involves a few hundred queries a year. Section 702
collection, by contrast, is vast, a hugely significant component not only of
contemporary counterterrorism but of foreign intelligence collection more
generally. In 2012, the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence wrote that “[T]he authorities
provided [under section 702] have greatly increased the government’s ability to collect
information and act quickly against important foreign intelligence targets. . . . [ The] failure to
reauthorize [section 702] would ‘result in a loss of significant intelligence and
impede the ability of the Intelligence Community to respond quickly to new
threats and intelligence opportunities.’”[8] The President’s Review Group on
Intelligence and Communications Technologies, after quoting this language, wrote that “Our
own review is not inconsistent with this assessment. . . . [ W]e are persuaded that section
702 does in fact play an important role in the nation’s effort to prevent terrorist
attacks across the globe.”[9] The Washington Post has reported that 702 was in
2012 the single most prolific contributor to the President’s Daily Brief.[10]
1nc no cyber terror
No impact to cyber terror –countries don’t react
Libicki, 13 – Senior Management Scientist at the RAND Corporation and a Visiting Professor at the U.S. Naval Academy
(Martin, “Cyberwar Fears Pose Dangers of Unnecessary Escalation,” Rand Corporation, 7/15/13,
http://www.rand.org/pubs/periodicals/rand-review/issues/2013/summer/cyberwar-fears-pose-dangers-of-unnecessaryescalation.html)//schnall
cyberwar may not be seen as it actually is, and states may react out of fear rather than
reflection. An action that one side perceives as innocuous may be seen as nefarious by the other.
For all these reasons,
Fortunately, mistakes in cyberspace do not have the potential for catastrophe that mistakes in the nuclear arena do. Unfortunately, that fact may prevent leaders from exercising
although the systemic features of cyber crises lend themselves to
resolution (there is little pressure to respond quickly, and there are grounds for giving the other
side some benefit of the doubt), the fretful perceptions of cyberoperations as they opaquely
unfold may drive participants toward conflict. Cautionary Guidelines To manage crises and forestall their escalation in cyberspace, the
their normal caution in crisis circumstances. Paradoxically,
following seven points may be usefully kept in mind. The first is to understand that the answer to the question — Is this cyberattack an act of war? — is a decision, not a
Even if cyberwar can be used to disrupt life on a mass scale, it cannot be used to occupy
another nation's capital. It cannot force regime change. No one has yet died from it. A
cyberattack, in and of itself, does not demand an immediate response to safeguard national
security. The victim of a cyberattack could declare that it was an act of war and then go forth and fight — or the victim could look at policies
that reduce the pain without so much risk, such as by fixing or forgoing software or network
connections whose vulnerabilities permitted the cyberattack in the first place. Second is to take the time to think
conclusion.
things through. Unlike with nuclear war, a nation's cyberwar capabilities cannot be disarmed by a first strike. There is not the same need to get the jump on the other guy — or to
match his offense with your offense when it is your defense that dictates how much damage you are likely to receive. Third is to understand what is at stake — which is to say,
With cyberattack, what you are trying to prevent is not the initial attack but the next
attack, the effects of which might be larger than the initial attack but might also be smaller. (The latter
what you hope to gain.
is particularly true if the initial attack teaches the victims that, say, making industrial controls accessible to the Internet may not have been the smartest idea.) Fourth is not to take
It is common, these
to emphasize the cost and consequences of a cyberattack as a national calamity
possession of the crisis unnecessarily. That is, do not back yourself into a corner where you always have to respond, whether doing so is wise or not.
days,
. Having created a demand
among the public to do something, the government is then committed to doing something even when doing little or nothing is called for. Emphasizing the pain from a cyberattack
fostering the impression that a great country can bear the
pain of cyberattacks, keep calm, and carry on reduces the temptation. Fifth is to craft a narrative that can take the crisis
also fuels the temptation of others to induce such pain. Conversely,
where you want it to go. Narratives are morality plays in which events take their designated place in the logical and moral scheme of things: "We are good, you are bad"; "we are
strong and competent, unless we have stumbled temporarily because of your evil." Narratives also have to find a role for the attacker, and the development of such a role may, in
the odds that an attack in cyberspace arises
from miscalculation, inadvertence, unintended consequences, or rogue actors are nontrivial.
Perhaps more than any other form of combat, cyberwar is storytelling — appropriately for a form of conflict that means
some cases, encourage the attacker's graceful and face-saving retreat from belligerence. After all,
to alter information. Sixth is to figure out what norms of conduct in cyberspace, if any, work best. In March 2013, the United States and China agreed to carry out high-level talks
useful norms are those that can be monitored before any war starts. These include
norms that pledge nations to cooperate in investigating cybercrimes, that sever bonds between a state and its hackers or
commercially oriented cybercriminals, and that frown deeply on espionage on networks that support critical public services (such as electrical power).
Working toward useful norms may well help reduce the likelihood of a crisis, but it would be unrealistic to believe
on cyber norms. Particularly
that they can eliminate the possibility.
No cyberterrorism- technological complexity and lack of publicity
Covert 15
(Edwin, 1/13/15, InfoSec Institute, “Cyber Terrorism: Complexities and Consequences,” Edwin is a cybersecurity professional and
works for Booz Allen Hamilton, http://resources.infosecinstitute.com/cyber-terrorism-complexities-consequences/)
While a terrorist using the Internet to bring down the critical infrastructures the United States relies on makes an outstanding
Hollywood plot, there are flaws in the execution of this storyline as an actual terrorist strategy. Conway (2011) calls out three
limitations on using cyber-related activities for terrorists: Technological complexity, image, and accident (Against Cyberterrorism,
2011, p. 27).∂ Each is important to consider. While critical infrastructures may make a tempting target and threat actor capabilities are
certainly increasing (Nyugan, 2013), it is a complicated process to attack something of that magnitude. It is precisely the
interconnectedness of these two disparate parts that make them a target, however.∂ Nyugan (2013) calls them cyber-physical systems
(CPS): “A physical system monitored or controlled by computers. Such systems include, for example, electrical grids, antilock brake
systems, or a network of nuclear centrifuges” (p. 1084).∂ In Verton’s (2003) imaginary narrative, the target of the Russian hackers, the
SCADA system, is a CPS. However, Lewis (2002) argues the relationship between vulnerabilities in critical infrastructures (such as
MAE-East) and computer network attacks is not a clear cut as first thought (p. 1). It is not simply a matter of having a computer
attached to a SCADA system and thus the system is can now be turned off and society goes in a free fall of panic and explosions and
mass chaos.∂ The first idea Conway (2011) posits reduces to the notion that information technology is difficult in most cases. There
are reasons it takes veritable armies of engineers and analysts to make these complex systems interact and function as intended.
However, there are a limited number of terrorists with the necessary computer skills to conduct a successful attack (pp. 2728).∂ Immediately the argument turns to hiring external assistance from actual computer hackers (as most journalists and Hollywood
scriptwriters do). Conway (2011) dismisses that idea, correctly, as a significant compromise of operational security (p. 28).∂ The US
Department of Defense as defines operational security, or OPSEC:∂ A process of identifying critical information and analyzing
friendly actions attendant to military operations and other activities to: identify those actions that can be observed by adversary
intelligence systems; determine indicators and vulnerabilities that adversary intelligence systems might obtain that could be
interpreted or pieced together to derive critical information in time to be useful to adversaries, and determine which of these represent
an unacceptable risk; then select and execute countermeasures that eliminate the risk to friendly actions and operations or reduce it to
an acceptable level (US Department of Defense, 2012). ∂ In the context of this paper, letting outside profit-motivated technicians into
the planning and execution phase of a terrorist plot would be risky for conservative-minded individuals such a religious terrorists
(Hoffman, 2006). As the number of people who are aware of a plot increases, the potential number of people who can leak operational
details of the plot increases exponentially.∂ It is for this reason Verton’s (2003) scenario is most improbable.∂ The second concern
Conway (2011) notes is one of audience. Recalling the definition of terrorist put forth by Hoffman (2006), terrorists need to generate
publicity to achieve their goals: they need to create a climate of fear through violence or the threat of violence. Simply attacking
something and having no one notice it is not an operational success for a terrorist. Terrorists need to have their grievances known
(Nacos, 2000, p. 176).∂ The terrorist act needs to be witnessed, such as the planes crashing into the World Trade Center or the hostage
taking in Munich. in order to generate the necessary level of discourse to affect the goals the terrorist has in mind. Unfortunately,
injecting code into a DNS server or shutting down Amazon.com does not generate the required intensity of chaos modern terrorists
require (Conway, Against Cyberterrorism, 2011, p. 28).∂ This leads to Conway’s (2011) third point: the accident. The United States
relies heavily on computer and information systems. However, if a system goes offline in today’s world, users are just as likely to
suspect a system failure or accident as anything else is (p. 28).
Even if they attack, easy to stop
Cluley 14
(Graham, 10/20/14, The State of Security, “GCHQ Spokesperson Says Cyber Terrorism Is ‘Not a Concern’,” former employee of
Sophos, McAfee, Dr. Solomon’s, inducted into the InfoSecurity Europe Hall of Fame, http://www.tripwire.com/state-ofsecurity/security-data-protection/gchq-spokesperson-says-cyber-terrorism-is-not-a-concern/, 7/17/15, SM)
Yes, a terrorist could launch a denial-of-service attack, or write a piece of malware, or hack into a sensitive system, just as easily as
the next (non-terrorist), but there is no reason to believe that an attack launched by a terrorist living in his secret HQ in the mountain
caves of Afghanistan would be any harder to stop than the hundreds of thousands of other attacks launched each day. ∂ That’s not to
say that launching an Internet attack wouldn’t have attractive aspects for those behind a terror campaign. Put bluntly, it’s a heck lot
easier (and less physically dangerous) to write a Trojan horse to infect a computer on the other side of the world, than to drive a lorry
loaded up with Semtex outside a government building’s front door.∂ Furthermore, terrorists are often interested in making headlines,
to focus the world’s attention on what they believe to be their plight. If innocent people die during a terrorist action that certainly does
help you make the newspapers, but it’s very bad for public relations, and is going to make it a lot harder to convince others to
sympathise with your campaign.∂ The good news about pretty much all Internet attacks, of course, is that they don’t involve the loss of
life. Any damage done is unlikely to leave individuals maimed or bleeding, but can still bloody the nose of a government that should
have been better protected or potentially disrupt economies.∂ But still, such terrorist-initiated Internet attacks should be no harder to
protect against than the financially-motivated and hacktivist attacks that organisations defend themselves against every day.∂ So, when
a journalist asks me if I think cyber terrorism is a big concern, I tend to shrug and say “Not that much” and ask them to consider why
Al Qaeda, for instance, never bothered to launch a serious Internet attack in the 13 years since September 11.∂ After all, if it is
something for us all to fear – why wouldn’t they have done it already?∂ So, I was pleased to have my views supported last week –
from a perhaps surprising source.∂ GCHQ, the UK intelligence agency which has become no stranger to controversy following the
revelations of NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden, appears to agree that cyber terrorism is not a concern. Or at least that’s what
they’re saying behind closed doors, according to SC Magazine.∂ Part of SC Magazine story on cyber terrorism∂ The report quoted an
unnamed GCHQ spokesperson at a CSARN (City Security And Resilience Networks) forum held last week in London, debunking the
threat posed by cyber terrorists:∂ “Quite frankly we don’t see cyber terrorism. It hasn’t occurred…but we have to guard against it. For
those of you thinking about strategic threats, terrorism is not [a concern] at this point in time,” although he added that the agency was
‘very concerned’ on a possible attack at the time of the 2012 London Olympics. ∂ ∂ He said that while it is clear that terrorism groups –
such as ISIS and Al-Qaeda – are technically-adept, there’s been no sign of them venturing to cyber beyond promotional purposes.∂ ∂
“For some reason, there doesn’t seem intent to use destructive cyber capability. It’s clearly a theoretical threat. We’ve not seen –
and we were very worried around London Olympics – but we’ve never seen it. We’ll continue to keep an eye on it.” ∂ In a time when
the potential threat posed by terrorism is often used as an excuse for covert surveillance by intelligence agencies, such as GCHQ, and
the UK government raising the “threat level” to “Severe” at the end of August due to conflict in Iraq and Syria, one has to wonder if
the spokesperson quoted was speaking entirely “on-message.”
2nc no cyberterror
No cyberterrorism— too expsensive
Chen 14
(Thomas, June 2014, Strategic Studies Institute and US Army War College, “Cyberterrorism After Stuxnet,” professor of
cybersecurity @ the School of Engineering and Mathematical Sciences at City University London,
http://www.strategicstudiesinstitute.army.mil/pdffiles/PUB1211.pdf)
WHY NOT A MAJOR CYBERATTACK∂ Having established motive, means, and opportunity∂ for terrorists, the natural question is
why a major∂ cyberattack has not happened yet. It seems that al-Qaeda∂ and other terrorist groups still prefer bombs and∂ physical
attacks, even after Stuxnet.35 In the absence of∂ an attack, a case could be argued that cyberterrorism∂ is more of a hypothetical threat
than a real one.36 However,∂ there is debate about whether an actual cyberattack∂ by terrorists has happened.37 No major attacks∂
have occurred, according to the public record, some∂ observers have speculated that attacks have happened∂ but have been kept
confidential so as not to disclose∂ weaknesses in the national infrastructure. ∂ 21∂ In 2007, Denning postulated three indicators that∂
could precede a successful cyberterrorism attack:38 ∂ 1. Failed cyberattacks against critical infrastructures,∂ such as ICS. Unlike the
case with the professionally∂ developed Stuxnet, Denning expected that∂ the first cyberterrorist attack would likely be unsuccessful, ∂
considering that even terrorist kinetic attacks∂ frequently fail.∂ 2. Research and training labs, where terrorists∂ simulate their
cyberattacks against targets, test attack∂ tools, and train people. Israel reportedly had centrifuges∂ at its Dimona complex to test
Stuxnet on.∂ 3. Extensive discussions and planning relating∂ to attacks against critical infrastructures, not just∂ websites.∂ So far, none
of these indicators has been observed,∂ which would imply that terrorists are not trying hard∂ to prepare for cyberattacks.∂ Conway has
argued against the likelihood of cyberterrorism∂ in the near future.39 Her argument consists∂ of these reasons:∂ • Violent jihadis’ IT
knowledge is not superior.∂ • Real-world attacks are difficult enough.∂ • Hiring hackers would compromise operational∂ security.∂ •
For a true terrorist event, spectacular moving∂ images are crucial.∂ • Terrorists will not favor a cyberattack with the∂ potential to be
hidden, portrayed as an accident,∂ or otherwise remaining unknown.∂ Perhaps the most straightforward explanation of∂ the lack of
observed cyberattacks is the cost-benefit∂ argument put forth by Giacomello.40 He compared the ∂ 22∂ costs of traditional physical
terrorist attacks with cyberattacks∂ of the “break things and kill people” type.∂ Specifically, Giacomello estimated the costs of three∂
cyberterrorism scenarios aimed at the power grid; a∂ hydroelectric dam; and an air traffic control system. If∂ the power grid was
viewed as an unlikely target, fatalities∂ will be indirect or accidental. For a hydroelectric∂ dam, the cost is based on a historical
incident of an∂ insider sabotaging the controls at the dam. Somewhat∂ arbitrarily, the estimate assumed two proficient hackers∂ with
supporting personnel, totaling up to $1.3 million.∂ For an air traffic control system, a higher number∂ of skilled hackers are needed to
compromise the∂ system, prevent the air controllers from detecting and∂ responding to the intrusion, and defeat built-in safety∂
mechanisms. Again, it is not explicitly stated, but a∂ year of work seems to be assumed, since the total is∂ based on a year’s salary.
The resulting estimated cost∂ was up to $3 million.∂ For comparison, Giacomello pointed out that the∂ World Trade Center bomb cost
only $400 to build,∂ yet, it injured 1,000 people and caused $550 million of∂ physical damages. The March 2004 attacks in Madrid,∂
exploding 10 simultaneous bombs on four commuter∂ trains using mining explosives and cellphones, cost∂ about $10,000 to carry out.
The 9/11 Commission Report∂ stated that the 9/11 attacks cost between $400,000 ∂ and $500,000 to plan and execute.41∂ An
examination of these comparative costs makes∂ it clear that bombs are a much cheaper approach than∂ cyberattacks by orders of
magnitude. Stuxnet, estimated∂ to have cost millions of dollars, does not change∂ the cost-benefit comparison. At the present time and∂
in the near future, cyberattacks of the “break things∂ and kill people” type require an enormous amount of ∂ 23∂ effort by highly skilled
experts. In contrast, bombs can∂ be made cheaply and deployed without skilled effort.∂ In addition, physical attacks are appealing
because of∂ the higher certainty of success.
1nc no nuclear terror
Uniqueness is for cyber attack coming while the impact card is about a nuclear
bomb blowing up in New York. Not real sure how they get to that impact
No risk of nuclear terrorism---too many obstacles
John J. Mearsheimer 14, R. Wendell Harrison Distinguished Service Professor of Political Science at the University of
Chicago, “America Unhinged”, January 2, nationalinterest.org/article/america-unhinged-9639?page=show
Am I overlooking the obvious threat that strikes fear into the hearts of so many Americans, which is terrorism? Not at all. Sure,
the United States has a terrorism problem . But it is a minor threat . There is no question we fell victim to a
spectacular attack on September 11, but it did not cripple the United States in any meaningful way and another
attack of that magnitude is highly unlikely in the foreseeable future. Indeed, there has not been a single
instance over the past twelve years of a terrorist organization exploding a primitive bomb on
American soil, much less striking a major blow. Terrorism—most of it arising from domestic groups—was a much bigger
problem in the United States during the 1970s than it has been since the Twin Towers were toppled.¶ What about the
possibility that a terrorist group might obtain a nuclear weapon? Such an occurrence would be a game changer, but
the chances of that happening are virtually nil . No nuclear-armed state is going to supply
terrorists with a nuclear weapon because it would have no control over how the recipients might use that
weapon. Political turmoil in a nuclear-armed state could in theory allow terrorists to grab a loose nuclear weapon,
but the United States already has detailed plans to deal with that highly unlikely contingency.¶ Terrorists
might also try to acquire fissile material and build their own bomb. But that scenario is extremely
unlikely as well : there are significant obstacles to getting enough material and even
bigger obstacles to building a bomb and
delivering it.
country
has a profound interest in making sure no terrorist group acquires a nuclear weapon, because they
cannot be sure they will not be the target of a nuclear attack, either by the terrorists or another country the terrorists strike.
then
More generally, virtually every
Nuclear terrorism, in short, is not a serious threat . And to the extent that we should worry about it, the main
remedy is to encourage and help other states to place nuclear materials in highly secure custody.
Terrorism doesn’t pose an existential risk
Fettweis, Professor of Political Science, ‘10
Chris, Professor of Political Science @ Tulane,Threat and Anxiety in US Foreign Policy, Survival, 52:2
Even terrorists equipped with nuclear, biological or chemical weapons would be
incapable of causing damage so cataclysmic that it would prove fatal to modern
states. Though the prospect of terrorists obtaining and using such weapons is one of the most
consistently terrifying scenarios of the new era, it is also highly unlikely and not nearly as dangerous
as sometimes portrayed. As the well-funded, well-staffed Aum Shinrikyo cult found out in the 1990s,
workable forms of weapons of mass destruction are hard to purchase, harder still to synthesise without state help, and
challenging to use effectively. The Japanese group managed to kill a dozen people on the Tokyo subway system at rush hour.
While tragic, the attack was hardly the stuff of apocalyptic nightmares. Superweapons are simply not easy for even the most sophisticated non-state actors to
use.31 If terror- ists were able to overcome the substantial obstacles and use the
most destructive weapons in a densely populated area, the outcome would of course
be terrible for those unfortunate enough to be nearby. But we should not operate
under the illusion that doomsday would arrive. Modern industrialised countries can
cope with disasters, both natural and man-made. As unpleasant as such events
would be, they do not represent existential threats.
2nc nuclear terror
No risk of nuclear terrorism---too many obstacles
John J. Mearsheimer 14, R. Wendell Harrison Distinguished Service Professor of Political Science at the University of
Chicago, “America Unhinged”, January 2, nationalinterest.org/article/america-unhinged-9639?page=show
Am I overlooking the obvious threat that strikes fear into the hearts of so many Americans, which is terrorism? Not at all. Sure,
the United States has a terrorism problem . But it is a minor threat . There is no question we fell victim to a
spectacular attack on September 11, but it did not cripple the United States in any meaningful way and another
attack of that magnitude is highly unlikely in the foreseeable future. Indeed, there has not been a single
instance over the past twelve years of a terrorist organization exploding a primitive bomb on
American soil, much less striking a major blow. Terrorism—most of it arising from domestic groups—was a much bigger
problem in the United States during the 1970s than it has been since the Twin Towers were toppled.¶ What about the
possibility that a terrorist group might obtain a nuclear weapon? Such an occurrence would be a game changer, but
the chances of that happening are virtually nil . No nuclear-armed state is going to supply
terrorists with a nuclear weapon because it would have no control over how the recipients might use that
weapon. Political turmoil in a nuclear-armed state could in theory allow terrorists to grab a loose nuclear weapon,
but the United States already has detailed plans to deal with that highly unlikely contingency.¶ Terrorists
might also try to acquire fissile material and build their own bomb. But that scenario is extremely
unlikely as well : there are significant obstacles to getting enough material and even
bigger obstacles to building a bomb and
delivering it.
country
has a profound interest in making sure no terrorist group acquires a nuclear weapon, because they
cannot be sure they will not be the target of a nuclear attack, either by the terrorists or another country the terrorists strike.
then
More generally, virtually every
Nuclear terrorism, in short, is not a serious threat . And to the extent that we should worry about it, the main
remedy is to encourage and help other states to place nuclear materials in highly secure custody.
1nc no retaliation
No retaliation or escalation
Mueller 5 (John, Professor of Political Science – Ohio State University, Reactions and Overreactions to Terrorism,
http://polisci.osu.edu/faculty/jmueller/NB.PDF)
However, history
clearly demonstrates that overreaction is not necessarily inevitable.
Sometimes, in fact, leaders have been able to restrain their instinct to overreact. Even
more important, restrained reaction--or even capitulation to terrorist acts--has often
proved to be entirely acceptable politically. That is, there are many instances where
leaders did nothing after a terrorist attack (or at least refrained from overreacting) and did
not suffer politically or otherwise. Similarly, after an unacceptable loss of American lives in Somalia in 1993, Bill Clinton responded by
withdrawing the troops without noticeable negative impact on his 1996 re-election bid. Although Clinton responded with (apparently counterproductive) military retaliations after
the two U.S. embassies were bombed in Africa in 1998 as discussed earlier, his administration did not have a notable response to terrorist attacks on American targets in Saudi
Arabia (Khobar Towers) in 1996 or to the bombing of the U.S.S. Cole in 2000, and these non-responses never caused it political pain. George W. Bush's response to the anthrax
attacks of 2001 did include, as noted above, a costly and wasteful stocking-up of anthrax vaccine and enormous extra spending by the U.S. Post Office. However, beyond that, it
was the same as Clinton's had been to the terrorist attacks against the World Trade Center in 1993 and in Oklahoma City in 1995 and the same as the one applied in Spain when
terrorist bombed trains there in 2004 or in Britain after attacks in 2005: the dedicated application of police work to try to apprehend the perpetrators. This approach was politically
acceptable even though the culprit in the anthrax case (unlike the other ones) has yet to be found. The demands for retaliation may be somewhat more problematic in the case of
suicide terrorists since the direct perpetrators of the terrorist act are already dead, thus sometimes impelling a vengeful need to seek out other targets. Nonetheless, the attacks in
Thus, despite short-term
demands that some sort of action must be taken, experience suggests politicians can often
successfully ride out this demand after the obligatory (and inexpensive) expressions
of outrage are prominently issued.
Lebanon, Saudi Arabia, Great Britain, and against the Cole were all suicidal, yet no direct retaliatory action was taken.
Solvency
1nc ineffective
Even if advocate is constitutional-the question undermines effectiveness
Doyle and Kumar 14 (MICHAEL DOYLE AND ANITA KUMAR 1/20/14 MCCLATCHY WASHINGTON BUREAU
“No one is sure how public advocate at spy”¶ ://www.mcclatchydc.com/news/nation-world/national/nationalsecurity/article24761953.html)
Serious questions shadow President Barack Obama’s proposal to add a public advocate to the secret court that oversees
surveillance programs. The public advocate, Obama says, would provide an “independent voice in significant cases” before the
Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court. The details, though, remain sketchy even as some of the administration’s own lawyers
wonder about the wisdom of it all.¶ The questions include: How will the advocates be appointed? What
surveillance cases will merit their participation? How much power will they have? And, not
least: Does the Constitution allow them?¶ Obama's proposal echoed ideas that legal scholars and others have
raised in recent years.¶ “There are both practical and legal concerns with a special advocate,” Robert Litt, the general counsel of
the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, told the Privacy and Civil Liberties Oversight Board, a government panel, in
November.¶ Obama offered the public advocate proposal, along with others designed to address surveillance and spying
controversies, on Friday. A number of the proposals, such as the one for a public advocate, left up to Congress or the Justice
Department the job of filling in the blanks. Skeptics abound.¶ “The advocate proposal is simply a cosmetic
attempt to make up an appearance, without substance, of an adversarial proceeding,” said Carl
Messineo, the legal director of the Partnership for Civil Justice, a liberal advocacy group.¶ The nonpartisan
Congressional Research Service said in a report last October that the “novel” public advocate
proposal raises “several difficult questions of constitutional law” that ultimately might
undermine the advocate’s authority. The former chief of the surveillance court, Judge John D. Bates, cautioned
lawmakers in a letter last week that a public advocate is “unnecessary and could prove
counterproductive in the vast majority” of surveillance court matters.¶ 2nc ineffective
Privacy advocate doesn’t fix surveillance problems
Woodhouse 13 (Leighton Woodhouse 8/10/13 partner and co-founder of Dog Park Media, a creative agency that focuses
on video production and graphic design, journalist and independent producer “NSA Surveillance Needs More than Window
Dressing Reform” http://www.huffingtonpost.com/leighton-woodhouse/nsa-surveillance-needs-mo_b_3735707.html)
Yesterday, President Obama repeated what has become a familiar routine: after two months of bad press on a
controversial issue, he made a grand gesture of conceding that his critics may have a point,
even while largely holding to his increasingly untenable position, and announced a series of
"reforms" that amount, at the end of the day, to window dressing. It was an even less persuasive version of his
performance than his pretense of holding Wall Street accountable for the crimes that led to the economic meltdown.¶ Obama's
declared reforms of the massive and opaque government surveillance programs that have dramatically expanded on his watch are
as follows:¶ Set up a toothless committee to make non-binding recommendations months in the future, once it's safe to ignore
them.¶ Hire a privacy officer in the NSA whom few in the agency will take seriously, possibly including the privacy officer
him/herself.¶ Appoint a privacy advocate to the FISA Court, and pretend that he/she is a
reasonable stand-in for a truly adversarial court system.¶ None of these measures will come
close to dealing with the serious Constitutional issues at stake in the continued existence of
the government's surveillance regime. Short of scrapping the NSA and the FISA Court (FISC)
altogether, nothing less than an about-face on the administration's position on the public's
right to challenge the legal basis of the surveillance programs will even begin to bring
government spying into line with the Constitution.
1nc circumvention
Reforms fail – the NSA will circumvent
Greenwald 14 (Glenn, lawyer, journalist and author – he founded the Intercept and has contributed to Salon and the Guardian,
named by Foreign Policy as one of the Top 100 Global Thinkers of 2013, “CONGRESS IS IRRELEVANT ON MASS
SURVEILLANCE. HERE’S WHAT MATTERS INSTEAD”, https://firstlook.org/theintercept/2014/11/19/irrelevance-u-s-congressstopping-nsas-mass-surveillance/)
All of that illustrates what is, to me, the most important point from all of this: the last place one should look to impose limits on the
powers of the U.S. government is . . . the U.S. government . Governments don’t walk around trying to figure out how to limit their
own power, and that’s particularly true of empires . The entire system in D.C. is designed at its core to prevent real reform. This
Congress is not going to enact anything resembling fundamental limits on the NSA’s powers of mass surveillance. Even if it
somehow did, this White House would never sign it. Even if all that miraculously happened, the fact that the U.S. intelligence
community and National Security State operates with no limits and no oversight means they’d easily co-opt the entire reform
process . That’s what happened after the eavesdropping scandals of the mid-1970s led to the establishment of congressional
intelligence committees and a special FISA “oversight” court—the committees were instantly captured by putting in charge supreme
servants of the intelligence community like Senators Dianne Feinstein and Chambliss, and Congressmen Mike Rogers and “Dutch”
Ruppersberger, while the court quickly became a rubber stamp with subservient judges who operate in total secrecy. Ever since
the Snowden reporting began and public opinion (in both the U.S. and globally) began radically changing, the White House’s strategy
has been obvious. It’s vintage Obama: Enact something that is called “reform”—so that he can give a pretty speech telling the
world that he heard and responded to their concerns—but that in actuality changes almost nothing, thus strengthening the very
system he can pretend he “changed.” That’s the same tactic as Silicon Valley, which also supported this bill: Be able to point to
something called “reform” so they can trick hundreds of millions of current and future users around the world into believing that their
communications are now safe if they use Facebook, Google, Skype and the rest. In pretty much every interview I’ve done over the last
year, I’ve been asked why there haven’t been significant changes from all the disclosures. I vehemently disagree with the premise of
the question, which equates “U.S. legislative changes” with “meaningful changes.” But it has been clear from the start that U.S.
legislation is not going to impose meaningful limitations on the NSA’s powers of mass surveillance, at least not fundamentally.
T-Curtail
1nc shell
Curtail means reduce or limit
Merriam-Webster 15
© 2015 Merriam-Webster, Incorporated
http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/curtail
Curtail verb cur·tail \(ˌ)kər-ˈtāl\
: to reduce or limit (something)
Full Definition of CURTAIL
transitive verb
: to make less by or as if by cutting off or away some part <curtail the power of the executive branch>
<curtail inflation>
Violation: voting aff doesn’t mandate a surveillance reduction
Advocate doesn’t have to stop surveillance
Carr 13 (James G. Carr a federal district judge for the United States District Court for the Northern District of Ohio. 7/22/13 “A
Better Secret Court”http://www.nytimes.com/2013/07/23/opinion/a-better-secret-court.html?_r=0)
James Robertson, a retired federal judge who served with me on the FISA court, recently called for greater transparency of the court’s
proceedings. He has proposed the naming of an advocate, with high-level security clearance, to argue against the
government’s filings. He suggested that the Privacy and Civil Liberties Oversight Board, which oversees surveillance activities, could
also provide a check. I would go even further.¶ In an ordinary criminal case, the adversarial process assures legal representation of the
defendant. Clearly, in top-secret cases involving potential surveillance targets, a lawyer cannot, in the conventional sense, represent
the target.¶ Congress could, however, authorize the FISA judges to appoint, from time to time, independent lawyers with security
clearances to serve “pro bono publico” — for the public’s good — to challenge the government when an application for a FISA order
raises new legal issues.¶ During my six years on the court, there were several occasions when I and other judges faced issues none of
us had encountered before. A staff of experienced lawyers assists the court, but their help was not always enough given the complexity
of the issues.¶ The low FISA standard of probable cause — not spinelessness or excessive deference to the government — explains
why the court has so often granted the Justice Department’s requests. But rapid advances in technology have outpaced the
amendments to FISA, even the most recent ones, in 2008.¶ Having lawyers challenge novel legal assertions in these secret proceedings
would result in better judicial outcomes. Even if the government got its way all or most of the time, the court
would have more fully developed its reasons for letting it do so. Of equal importance, the
appointed lawyer could appeal
a decision in the government’s favor to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court of Review —
and then to the Supreme Court.
Reasons to prefer:
Limits- the aff could do a small legal change which explodes the topic
Ground- core negative ground for the topic are predicated off of the
affirmative reducing surveillance not a small legal change
Topicality is a voting issue for education and fairness
At best makes the Fx T-the plan may not reduce surveillance
Independent voter for fairness and competitive equity- if we win that the plan
doesn’t guarantee ruling against the government then voting aff doesn’t
mandate topical action.
Interp Cards
Curtail is to reduce or limit
Cambridge 15
(Definition of curtail from the Cambridge Academic Content Dictionary © Cambridge University Press)
http://dictionary.cambridge.org/us/dictionary/american-english/curtail)
Curtail verb [T] us /kərˈteɪl/
› to reduce or limit something, or to stop something before it is finished: He had to curtail his speech
when time ran out.
Curtail means reduce or limit something
Macmillan 15
Macmillan Dictionary 2015
http://www.macmillandictionary.com/us/dictionary/american/curtail
curtail - definition and synonyms
Using the thesaurus
verb [transitive] formal curtail pronunciation in American English /kɜrˈteɪl/Word Forms
Contribute to our Open Dictionary
to reduce or limit something, especially something good
a government attempt to curtail debate
Synonyms and related words
To limit or control something or someone:draw a line in the sand, limit, control...
Explore Thesaurus
Synonyms and related words
To reduce something:salami-slice, top-slice, cut back...
Explore Thesaurus
Politics
1nc link
FISA reforms are unpopular with republican and cost PC
Gross 6/5/15 (Grant Gross covers technology and telecom policy in the U.S. government for the IDG News Service 6/5/15
“Don't expect major changes to NSA surveillance from Congress” http://www.pcworld.com/article/2932337/dont-expect-majorchanges-to-nsa-surveillance-from-congress.html)
The USA Freedom Act also does nothing to limit the NSA’s surveillance of overseas Internet traffic, including the content of emails
and IP voice calls. Significantly limiting that NSA program, called Prism in 2013 Snowden leaks, will be a
difficult task in Congress, with many lawmakers unconcerned about the privacy rights of people
who don’t vote in U.S. elections.¶ Still, the section of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act that
authorizes those NSA foreign surveillance programs sunsets in 2017, and that deadline will force Congress
to look at FISA, although lawmakers may wait until the last minute, as they did with the expiring sections of the Patriot Act
covered in the USA Freedom Act.¶ The House Judiciary Committee will continue its oversight of U.S. surveillance programs, and the
committee will address FISA before its provisions expire, an aide to the committee said. ¶ Republican leaders opposed to
more changes¶ Supporters of new reforms will have to bypass congressional leadership, however. Senate Republican
leaders attempted to derail even the USA Freedom Act and refused to allow amendments that would
require further changes at the NSA.¶ In the House, Republican leaders threatened to kill the USA Freedom Act if the
Judiciary Committee amended the bill to address other surveillance programs. Still, many House members, both Republicans and
Democrats, have pushed for new surveillance limits, with lawmakers adding an amendment to end so-called backdoor government
searches of domestic communications to a large appropriations bill this week.¶ Obama’s administration has threatened
to veto the appropriations bill for several unrelated reasons, but several House members have pledged to push hard to
prohibit the FBI and CIA from searching the content of reportedly tens of thousands of U.S. communications swept up in an NSA
surveillance program targeting overseas terrorism suspects.¶ Closing that surveillance backdoor is a top priority for civil liberties
groups, said Neema Singh Guliani, a legislative counsel with the American Civil Liberties Union’s Washington, D.C., legislative
office. “We’ve had this statute that masquerades as affecting only people abroad, but the reality is that it sweeps up large numbers of
U.S. persons,” she said.¶ Other changes possible¶ Advocates and lawmakers will also push for a handful of other surveillance reforms
in the coming months. The changes most likely to pass make limited changes to surveillance programs, however. ¶ While not tied to
NSA surveillance, lawmakers will press for changes to the 29-year-old Electronic Communications Privacy Act (ECPA), a wiretap
law that gives law enforcement agencies warrantless access to emails and other communications stored in the cloud for more than six
months. A House version of ECPA reform counts more than half the body as co-sponsors.¶ Still, tech companies and civil liberties
groups have been pushing since 2010 to have those communications protected by warrants, but
law enforcement
agencies and some Republican lawmakers have successfully opposed the changes .¶
Another bill that may gain traction in coming months is the Judicial Redress Act, a bill that would allow citizens of some countries to
file lawsuits under the U.S. Privacy Act if government agencies misuse their records. ¶ “The Privacy Act offers limited protections,
even to Americans, but passage of this bill would be an important first step to addressing especially European concerns that US
privacy reforms won’t help them,” said Berin Szoka, president of free market think tank TechFreedom. ¶ Public pressure, along with
potentially new leaks, will be the key to driving any more surveillance changes, advocates said. ¶ “The public will for mass
surveillance laws was made very clear recently, and that’s partly why we saw much of Congress flock to whatever could be called
surveillance reform,” said Tiffiniy Cheng, a founder of digital rights group Fight for the Future. “No one is fooled by USA Freedom—
it’s a weak piece of legislation that uses exceptions in legislative language to codify the NSA’s practice of surveilling most people.”¶
Congress has much work left to do, Cheng said by email. “After the recent showdown and public outcry, USA Freedom is at best,
seen as a beginning of surveillance reform, not the end,” she said.
Block link
Obama will fight to maintain NSA surveillance through FISA
Ackerman 6/9
(Spencer Ackerman: National security editor for Guardian, “Obama lawyers asked secret court to ignore
public court's decision on spying”, The Guardian, 6/9/2015, http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/jun/09/obama-fisa-courtsurveillance-phone-records)
The
Obama administration has asked a secret surveillance court to ignore a federal court that found
bulk surveillance illegal and to once again grant the National Security Agency the power to collect the
phone records of millions of Americans for six months.¶ The legal request, filed nearly four hours after Barack Obama
vowed to sign a new law banning precisely the bulk collection he asks the secret court to approve, also suggests that the administration may
not necessarily comply with any potential court order demanding that the collection stop.¶ US
officials confirmed last week that they would ask the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance court – better
known as the Fisa court, a panel that meets in secret as a step in the surveillance process and thus far has only ever had the government argue before it –
to turn the domestic bulk collection spigot back on.
McConnell will inevitably make any NSA collection reform bill a huge fightPATRIOT Act proves
Kim 5/17 (Seung Min Kim: An assistant editor who covers Congress for POLITICO. Previously, she edited the Arena and
served as a Web producer, “Time crunch pushes Senate to edge of surveillance cliff,” 5/17/15,
http://www.politico.com/story/2015/05/senate-cliff-nsa-patriot-transportation-trade-recess-118040.html, Accessed: 7/16/15, RRR)
The overwhelming 338-88 House vote last week ending the NSA’s bulk collection programs —
though phone companies would still keep the data that could later be tapped in smaller amounts for terrorism investigations — puts
considerable pressure on Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.), who is demanding a
straight reauthorization of the current bulk collection methods until 2020.¶ “I think it is an
important tool if we’re going to have the maximum opportunity to defend our people here at
home, and I don’t think the House bill does that,” McConnell said of the NSA program Sunday on ABC’s “This
Week.” “I think it basically leads us to the end of the program.”¶ But McConnell, Senate Intelligence
Committee Chairman Richard Burr (R-N.C.) and other GOP proponents of retaining the NSA
bulk collection program are running into resistance from Democrats and libertarian-leaning
Republicans, as well as a bipartisan vow to filibuster even a short-term reauthorization of the PATRIOT Act powers.