1NC T – Substantial
A. Substantially requires at least a 2% reduction --- this is the smallest percentage we
could find
Word and Phrases 1960
'Substantial" means "of real worth and importance; of considerable value; valuable." Bequest to
charitable institution, making 1/48 of expenditures in state, held exempt from taxation; such
expenditures constituting "substantial" part of its activities. Tax Commission of Ohio v. American
Humane Education Soc., 181 N.E. 557, 42 Ohio App.
B. Plan violates
American Muslim Population is only .8%
Walen 14 (Andrew Walen, “Muslim Population in US: New Poll Shows None of Us Have Any Idea”,
iDigital Times, 11/3/14, http://www.idigitaltimes.com/muslim-population-us-new-poll-shows-none-ushave-any-idea-392930, 7/31/15 AV)
According to the new poll, US citizens guessed the Muslim population of the US to be about 15 percent when asked “Out of every 100 people,
how many do you think are Muslim?” This would mean that the US has 47.4 million Muslims. The reality is quite different, with current research
putting the percentage of Muslims in the United States at about .8 percent of the population, with an estimated
2.6 million Muslims in the US as of 2010. Even higher estimates find that there are between five and eight million Muslims in the entire country.
C. THE AFFIRMATIVE MUST DEFEND AN INTERPRETATION
They cannot just quibble with our definition. They have to counter-define and defend
the limits of their definition. Substantially must be given meaning
CJS 83 Corpus Juris Secundum, 1983 , 765.
“Substantially. A relative and elastic term which should be interpreted in accordance with the context in
which it isused. While it must be employed with care and discrimination, it must, nevertheless, be given
effect.” 48
D. THE AFFIRMATIVE INTERPRETATION IS BAD FOR DEBATE
Limits are necessary for negative preparation and clash, and their interpretation
makes the topic too big. Permitting minor changes like the plan permits a huge
number of cases.
E. T IS A VOTER because the opportunity to prepare promotes better debating, education and fairness.
CP
Case Plan: The United States should amend its national Constitution to declare federal
profiling in surveillance unconstitutional. The US Congress should initiate the process.
The US Supreme Court should not review any cases concerning this amendment in the
next two terms.
The Counterplan solves.
NCC Staff 13 [National Constitution center, June 17, 2013, The Next 10 Amendments: Do we need more laws to protect
privacy? http://news.yahoo.com/constitutional-amendment-protect-privacy-133028314.html] Achal Patel
The furor in the past two weeks over government eavesdropping on the media and citizens has raised a
lot of questions related to the First Amendment and the Fourth Amendment. Government actions to monitor the phone
records of the Associated Press and track the activities of a Fox News reporter started a debate about the First
Amendment. And last week’s revelations about widespread government collection of phone call data—
followed by broader claims about data collection involving the Internet—started a whole new argument
about the Fourth Amendment. Those are just a few of the issues about privacy that have been debated over the past year. There’s also the pesky issue of drones and other
forms of technology that can do much good, but also cause massive privacy invasions in the wrong
circumstances. And there’s the issue of when and how police can enter your home. As for the
government surveillance programs, the Obama administration and Congress members say the activities
of the National Security Agency are approved and monitored by all three government branches, in
accordance with the Constitution. In past court decisions, the Fourth Amendment has been applied to support privacy rights—to learn more about the evolution of privacy rights, National
Constitution Center president Jeffrey Rosen suggests the five must-read books about privacy issues that are now all too contemporary.
Amendments best solve for rights.
Ehling 12 Matt Ehling | 10/04/12 Minnesotans need to better evaluate when (and why) to amend
their constitution
https://www.minnpost.com/community-voices/2012/10/minnesotans-needbetter-evaluate-when-and-why-amend-their-constitution
Rights can either be granted by statute (through legislative action) or through a constitution's
provisions. The former tend to be more specific in nature, and can change with social needs and
desires. The latter tend to be broader philosophical statements that guarantee individual rights by
permanently restraining governmental powers. There has been just one amendment made to the U.S. Constitution that has exclusively
constrained individual conduct, and it was short-lived. The most durable and stable constitutional amendments have
been those that have secured broad-based rights for the people. One can recognize this by looking to the earliest history of
the U.S. Constitution. As originally written, the federal Constitution contained almost no guarantees of
individual rights, save for the "privilege of the writ of habeas corpus." Because of this, a political
struggle ensued, and the Constitution was ratified under the terms of a brokered deal that added
10 rights-based amendments to the original text. These amendments constituted the Bill of
Rights a group of amendments that has survived for over 200 years because of its close
correlation to our nation's guiding philosophy of securing individual liberty.
Amendments can overrule court decisions.
Schaffner, 05
(Associate Law Professor – GW, 54 Am. U.L. Rev. 1487)
the only "check" on
judicial power of constitutional interpretation is the constitutional amendment process. The
amendment process should be used to overturn the Court only when it acts beyond its powers or
inconsistently with constitutional principles. Otherwise, the careful balance of powers among the branches is compromised.
Because the judicial branch has the ultimate authority over constitutional interpretation and construction,
The history of amending the Constitution to overrule Supreme Court decisions is consistent with this view and is particularly relevant here.
While the U.S. Supreme Court is not being overturned by the FMA, the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court's Goodridge decision is in
jeopardy. Goodridge was the catalyst for the fervor behind the proposed marriage amendment. Moreover, the FMA will forever prevent the
U.S. Supreme Court from addressing the issue.
Only four constitutional amendments have been adopted to overrule the Supreme Court. 186 They are: (1)
the Eleventh Amendment, which overruled Chisolm v. Georgia; 187 (2) the Thirteenth Amendment and, most specifically, the first sentence of
the [*1519] Fourteenth Amendment, 188 which overruled Dred Scott v. Sanford; 189 (3) the Sixteenth Amendment, which overruled Pollack v.
each
amendment was in harmony with the basic principles that underlie the Constitution - individual rights,
separation of powers, and federalism. Moreover, in the cases where fundamental liberty interests were at stake, the
amendment reestablished individual rights in light of the Court's limited interpretation of those rights.
Without analyzing the propriety of the individual Supreme Court decisions, the following will demonstrate that, unlike the FMA, the use of
the amendment power to overrule these cases was proper and consistent with basic democratic
principles.
Farmer's Loan & Trust Co.; 190 and (4) the Twenty-Sixth Amendment, which overruled Oregon v. Mitchell. 191 As we will see,
Hollow Hope
Social Movements are targeted at legislative prison reform – it’s successful and
gaining momentum, but support isn’t locked in
Cj Ciaramella, 3-27-2015, a staff writer for the Washington Free Beacon. Prior to joining the Beacon,
he was a reporter for the Daily Caller. He was also a Collegiate Network year-long fellow at the San
Diego Union-Tribune and has written articles for the Weekly Standard and Oregon Quarterly. "Criminal
Justice Reform Movement Gaining Momentum," Washington Free Beacon,
http://freebeacon.com/issues/criminal-justice-reform-movement-gaining-momentum/)//GV
Criminal Justice Reform Movement Gaining Momentum Rep. Goodlatte: ‘There is a growing consensus across
the political spectrum that our criminal justice system is in need of reform’ SHARE TWEET EMAIL Van Jones / APVan Jones
/ AP BY: CJ Ciaramella Follow @cjciaramella March 27, 2015 5:35 pm Looking out over the lunch crowd packed into a Marriott hotel ballroom in Washington, D.C.,
on Thursday, David Simon, the creator of The Wire, must have felt a touch of the surreal. “When I first started arguing against the drug war, you couldn’t have filled
a room this large at an event like this,” Simon said from the stage. “ There’d
have been two tables, one filled with liberal
Democrats and another with people to the left of them, and maybe William F. Buckley would have been by himself, not associating
with anyone.” Simon was addressing the Bipartisan Summit on Criminal Justice Reform, a conference that featured such figures as U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder,
the Labor Secretary Tom Perez, Gov. Nathan Deal of Georgia, and Sen. Cory Booker (D., N.J.). Video messages were piped in from Republican lawmakers such as Sen.
Mike Lee (R., Utah) and Rep. Bob Goodlatte (R., Va.), the chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, and from Govs. Rick Perry and John Kasich. Matt Kibbe, the
president of the Tea Party-aligned group FreedomWorks, was there, as was Mark Holden, Koch Industries’ point man on criminal justice issues. Simon was followed
on stage by Piper Kerman, the author of Orange is the New Black, and at the end of the day, the summit screened a video of President Obama sitting down with
Simon to talk about The Wire. The
summit was organized by Van Jones, the former Obama administration official and
civil rights activist, and Newt Gingrich. “This thing has turned into Woodstock for criminal justice,” Jones said in a conference call a day before
the summit. “People are going to look at photographs of this and swear it was photoshopped.” Jones said organizers originally planned on a mere four-hour event,
but by the time the schedule was finalized, it stretched from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. The crowded schedule was as much a testament to the newfound momentum behind
criminal justice reform as it was to Jones and Gingrich’s considerable networking prowess and gift of gab. Over
the past few years, liberal
groups aiming to overhaul the U.S. criminal justice system—which they say is outmoded and inhumane—have been joined
by conservative groups, including the dreaded Koch brothers, who argue that it is outrageously expensive and at odds with their views about individual
liberty. Much of the media coverage of the criminal justice reform movement has focused on the odd-couple optics of die-hard conservatives teaming up with
avowed liberals, and it is true that the novelty of seeing Rep. Elijah Cummings (D., Md.) standing in front of a podium emblazoned with “Koch Industries” never quite
wears off. But now,
with the wind at its back, the coalition is facing the question of whether, even with all
this recent bipartisan kumbaya, it can get anything done. States, both red and blue, have enacted sweeping
prison reforms and rolled back strict sentencing laws, but the federal system has lagged far behind, and any possible reform
will have to wind its way through a gridlocked Congress. Speaking to a group of reporters in the hall outside the conference, Jones
and Gingrich both acknowledged that the window for passing any meaningful reform bill will likely close by 2016, when
election fever takes over Capitol Hill. Bipartisan groups of senators and House members have introduced a slate of criminal justice
bills this session. Mike Lee and Rep. Raul Labrador (R., Idaho) introduced the Smarter Sentencing Act of 2015 in the Senate and
House, which would cut mandatory minimum sentences for nonviolent drug offenders in half. Booker and Sen.
Rand Paul (R., Ky.) reintroduced a bill earlier this month, the REDEEM Act, which would allow non-violent offenders to have their records sealed. Another bill
introduced by Sens. John Cornyn (R., Texas) and Sheldon Whitehouse (D., R.I.) would allow federal prisoners to trim their sentences by attending anti-recidivism
programs. The Cornyn-Whitehouse bill is the least sweeping but also the one considered the most likely to pass. But so far none of
these bills has made it to, much less through, committee. Goodlatte’s video appearance at the summit is a good sign for reformers, since he controls the flow of any
would-be criminal justice bills through the House. “There
is a growing consensus across the political spectrum that our
criminal justice system is in need of reform,” Goodlatte said in his video statement. “The issue of over-criminalization is an issue of liberty.
We must work together to improve our criminal justice system so that it works fairly and efficiently and reduces crime across the United States.” However, on the
Senate side Sen. Chuck Grassley (R., Iowa), the chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee and an old-school law-and-order conservative, has expressed deep
concerns with plans to cut mandatory minimum sentences. In a floor statement earlier this month, Grassley said the bills “are dangerous and poorly considered
proposals to change the criminal justice system that are divisive, are not based on reality, and will never become law. “There
are also problems in
the criminal justice system that are clear, widely recognized, have serious consequences, and can be the
subject of effective bipartisan legislative efforts,” Grassley said. “I will do what I can to make sure the Senate
Judiciary Committee devotes its energies to the second category.” Gingrich said he is confident that Grassley can be assuaged,
and that the current alliance between the younger, libertarian wing of the Republican caucus and progressive Democrats will continue to widen. “If you build
a big enough bipartisan majority in the Senate, it’s going to pass,” Gingrich said. Kibbe said he has talked with tea party activists
on the ground in Iowa who plan on putting pressure on Grassley. “Washington and politics are a lagging indicator of social change,” Kibbe said. “ Washington
will do something if Americans insist they do something.” For the moment, criminal justice reform advocates,
who spent the last three decades mostly toiling in obscurity for precious few gains, have the ears of both the
powerful inside Washington, the media, and much of the public. Their fear is their moment will pass without reform, and
they’ll be in the same spot they used to be: the outside.
Court decisions are like flypaper, they drag social movements from congress to the
courts, where they fail
Rosenberg 91, Associate Professor Political Science @ U Chicago Law 1991, Gerald N The Hollow
Hope, p. 340
If this is the case, then there is another important way in which courts affect social change. It is, to put it simply, that courts
act as "flypaper" for social reformers who succumb to the "lure of litigation." If the constraints of the Constrained
Court view are correct, then courts can seldom produce significant social reform. Yet if groups advocating
such reform continue to look to the courts for aid, and spend precious resources in litigation, then the courts
also limit change by deflecting claims from substantive political battles, where success is possible, to
harmless legal ones where it is not. Even when major cases are won, the achievement is often more
symbolic than real. Thus, courts may serve an ideological function of luring movements for social reform
to an institution that is structurally constrained from serving their needs, providing only an illusion of
change.'
The plan would shift movement away from targeted legislative prison reform and
crush any hope of change – prison efforts now are key to ending the prohibition of
marijuana and reforming prisons directly
Tim Lynch, 2-9-2015, director of the Cato Institute’s Project on Criminal Justice. "2015 Can be the Year
of Criminal Justice Reform," Cato Institute, http://www.cato.org/publications/commentary/2015-canbe-year-criminal-justice-reform)//GV
Criminal justice reform appears to be one of the hot topics this year. Unlike most other policy areas, where President Obama
and Republicans remain at loggerheads, criminal justice reform holds much greater promise since both political
parties seem to agree that there are festering problems that need to be addressed. Let’s explore some of the most
pressing topics. Militarized policing The militarization of American policing has been under way since the early 1980s. Until recently, there has been very
little debate about its profound implications. And then, all of a sudden, the images that emerged on the evening news from the unrest in Ferguson, Mo., brought
scrutiny, at last, to the idea of militarized police. The Ferguson police looked like soldiers — helmets, camouflage, armored vehicles and M-16s. Since the equipment
and weaponry came from the Pentagon, Obama found himself on the defensive when asked a basic question: Why do local police departments need weapons of
war? In response to the growing criticism from both the Left and the Right, Obama ordered a “review” of the Pentagon program. The police and the military have
very different missions. The essence of the military mission is to kill the enemy. That’s what the rockets and bombs are designed for. The police, in contrast, are
supposed to be “peace officers.” Their mission is to respond to disturbances and crimes and restore the peace. We should expect the police to avoid the use of
force, if possible, or use the minimum amount of force necessary to bring suspects into a court of law where disputes can be resolved without further violence.
When the police confuse their mission with the military mission, one finds unnecessary confrontations
and unnecessary killings. The original idea behind the Special Weapons and Tactics team was to have a unit available for extraordinary events, such as
a hostage situation. As the years passed, several things happened. First, SWAT units started to pop up all around the country — even in small towns where there
was little criminal activity. Second, the mission of these units expanded to include ordinary policing assignments, such as the execution of search warrants in drug
cases. In recent years, SWAT teams have been used to raid medical marijuana clinics, poker games, and to conduct regulatory inspections of taverns. Third, the
Pentagon made surplus military equipment available to local police departments around the country, including armored vehicles, grenade launchers and even
bayonets. Sen. Rand Paul, R. Ky., observed that “Washington has incentivized the militarization of local police precincts by using federal dollars to help municipal
governments build what are essentially small armies.” Until
Ferguson and the intense media scrutiny that followed, there
had been little congressional oversight over the flow of weaponry to small-town police departments.
When the media queries came along, some local departments could not account for the weapons they had received in recent years. And the definition of “law
enforcement” was stretched so far that military weapons found their way to a harbor master in Massachusetts and the California Assembly’s sergeant-at-arms.
Hearings
were held and reform bills were introduced in the waning days of the last session of Congress.
Now-former Sen. Tom Coburn, R-Okla., introduced the Stop Militarizing Law Enforcement Act. In the House, Rep.
Chris Stewart, R-Utah, introduced the Regulatory Agency Demilitarization Act. That bill addresses a separate aspect of
the problem — the proliferation of paramilitary units from police agencies such as the FBI to regulatory agencies including the U.S. Food and Drug Administration. “
The political climate for criminal justice reform is superb.” “Having highly armed units within dozens of agencies is duplicative,
costly, heavy-handed, dangerous and destroys any sense of trust between citizens and the federal government,” Stewart said. It is hard to say whether
Congress will enact reform legislation on this subject in 2015. The giveaway program exists for a reason. The Pentagon
wants to rid itself of surplus vehicles and weapons, and local police departments want that stuff. If Obama
really wanted to do something about it, he could have issued an executive order halting the practice. Marijuana legalization The most dramatic
change in our criminal justice system has been the legalization of marijuana. Too many news reports miss the unfolding
impact of this because it is happening in small spurts. Unfortunately, news reports mostly marvel at the pot shops that have opened in Colorado and Washington.
Consider this: More than 20 million Americans use marijuana regularly. Millions more use it occasionally. From a criminal justice perspective, it is astonishing that, in
the eyes of the law, so many people are viewed as criminals. As
the legal status of marijuana changes, there will be sharp
reductions in the number of searches, arrests, detentions and prisoners. Last November, voters in Alaska, Oregon and
Washington, D.C., approved referenda to legalize recreational marijuana for adults. The politics of marijuana policy are changing as
politicians grasp the fact that voters are ready for a change — at least in some parts of the country. Even Texas Republican Gov.
Rick Perry says marijuana ought to be decriminalized. Voters in Nevada and California are expected to
approve legalization initiatives in 2016. Should that happen, momentum will surely move more states
in the same direction. Less dramatic reforms are occurring in American cities. New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio has directed the NYPD
to stop arresting people who are found to be possessing small amounts of marijuana. Instead of acquiring a
criminal record, such persons will instead receive a ticket. De Blasio recognized that blacks and Latinos were swept into a criminal justice system by the thousands
every year. The mayor’s policy has, in turn, prompted members of the state legislature to take up marijuana reform. Daniel Squadron, a Democratic state senator,
says de Blasio’s shift “is a big deal to undo a glaring injustice. But it shows we also
need to change state law to create fairness.” Since
the politics of marijuana are in flux, many members of Congress would rather avoid the topic altogether. That
may not be possible given the success of the marijuana legalization measure in the District of Columbia. Rep. Andy
Harris, R. Md., moved to kill the measure last month in a rider to a must-pass appropriations bill. The Harris rider would bar D.C. from spending any money to
implement its legalization initiative. Karl Racine, the city’s new attorney general, says the rider will prevent pot shops from opening but allow home cultivation of
marijuana and permit adults to possess small amounts of the drug. It will be interesting to see whether Harris can persuade the new Republican Congress to go
further and turn back marijuana reform in D.C. Sen. Rand Paul has said Congress should not override the D.C. legalization measure. Stay
tuned.
Sentencing reform One area where Obama and the GOP Congress are likely to find common ground is federal
sentencing reform. The federal prison population has ballooned over the past 30 years. Crime rates have, happily, been falling, but there seems to be a
bipartisan consensus that sentencing reform is necessary. Too many people are locked up and one of the reasons is that sentencing is too severe. Last year Sens.
Mike Lee, R-Utah, and Dick Durbin, D-Ill., co-sponsored the Smarter Sentencing Act. The bill would reduce mandatory minimum sentences in certain drug cases from
5-10-20 years to 2-5-10 years. When the Senate Judiciary Committee voted on the bill, Republican Sens. Ted Cruz of Texas and Jeff Flake of Arizona joined
Democrats in passing the measure by a 13-5 vote. Former federal prosecutor John Malcolm, who is now a scholar with the Heritage Foundation, explains why many
conservatives find merit in the bill: “I see each prison cell as very valuable real estate that ought to be occupied by individuals who pose the greatest threat to public
safety. In my opinion, under
our current system, too many relatively low-level drug offenders are locked up for
five, 10 and 20 years when lesser sentences would, in all likelihood, more than satisfy the legitimate penological goals of general
deterrence, specific deterrence and retribution.” Sens. Paul and Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., have co-sponsored a more far-reaching
sentencing measure called the Justice Safety Valve Act. If that bill were to become law, minimum
sentences would no longer be mandatory. That is, federal judges could hand down lighter sentences if they
decide less severe penalties are just and appropriate under the circumstances. Since November’s midterm elections, Obama has spoken quite a bit
about bypassing Congress and taking action on his own through executive orders. He could commute scores of unjust sentences all by himself, but he
clearly does not want to go that route. He has, however, repeatedly indicated support for sentencing reform. And now that his controversial Attorney
General Eric Holder is leaving office, the GOP leadership may allow sentencing reform to come up for a
vote. Regardless of what happens at the federal level, it is important to remember that most of the criminal
cases in our legal system occur at the state and local level. And many states have been adopting sentencing
reforms that offer alternatives to incarceration, such as drug courts and home detention. Even conservative states such as Texas and
Indiana are embracing reforms. Prisons are expensive to build and maintain, presenting painful choices to conservative policymakers. Some may not like the idea of
supporting reduced sentencing and may want to avoid being tagged as “soft on crime,” but neither do they want to vote for increased spending and taxes. And
when the experience of other states demonstrates no spike in crime following a reduction in their imprisonment rates, conservative support
for
sentencing reform grows further still. Civil asset forfeiture Many people are startled when they learn how civil forfeiture laws
work. Such laws permit police and prosecutors to seize property — cash, cars, boats, houses, land — from people who have not been convicted of a crime. In many
jurisdictions the presumption of innocence is turned on its head. That is, if an owner has had his property taken and wants to get it back, he must prove his
innocence to the satisfaction of the court. There
is a growing awareness of how unfair these procedures are — so
reform may be coming in 2015. There are two types of forfeiture: criminal and civil. Criminal forfeiture takes place after a person is convicted of a
crime. Ill-gotten gains can then be seized by the government. Civil forfeiture laws are controversial because they empower the police to seize property in situations
where there has been no conviction, or even, in some cases, an arrest. In addition to the due process problem, civil forfeiture laws commonly allow police
departments to keep the property they seize rather than deposit it in the government’s general treasury. That gives police a financial incentive to engage in
predatory behavior. Instead of devoting resources to enhance public safety, police may choose to pursue assets and profits. Reporters have found cases in which
homes were seized after teenagers sold pot from their front porches — unbeknownst to the parents. Federal agents seized a family owned motel after some
customers were caught with drugs in one of the rooms. Highway patrols seize cash from motorists on the hunch that it is drug money. Police like to say that cash
seizures are rarely contested in court. Strong proof, they say, that police are using the forfeiture laws against the criminal element, not innocent victims. A more
likely explanation is that it is very hard to fight city hall. As conservative columnist George Will observed, civil forfeiture “forces property owners of limited means to
hire lawyers and engage in protracted proceedings against a government with limitless resources just to prove their innocence.” Last year, Minnesota Gov. Mark
Dayton signed a civil forfeiture reform measure. Law enforcement strongly opposed the bill behind the scenes, but once it came up for a vote in the legislature,
there was very little opposition. In fact, it passed the state assembly unanimously. There
were several reform bills introduced last year.
one should expect the federal law enforcement
bureaucracy to roll over. There is too much money at stake. The Department of Justice has grown accustomed to a revenue stream
Now we will hear the argument that the problems have already been fixed. No
that is separate from and independent of the congressional appropriations process. When Obama’s nominee for attorney general, Loretta Lynch, appeared before
the Senate Judiciary Committee, she deflected questions about her receptiveness to more far-reaching forfeiture reforms. On Jan. 16, Holder announced that he
was ordering a curtailment of the Justice Department’s civil forfeiture policies, particularly the practice known as “adoption.” Adoption occurs when a local police
agency seizes property under state law, but then asks the feds to take over the case by relying upon federal law. After the federal adoption, they split the proceeds:
20 percent to the feds; 80 percent to the local agency. Why bother to involve the feds? It is all about the money. Since some states require that all forfeited assets
go into its general treasury fund, local departments get around those restrictions by seeking federal adoption. That way, the police agency can bypass local rules and
keep a good chunk of the forfeited assets. Holder’s new directive only affects a small part of the federal asset forfeiture operation. It may have been an attempt to
preempt reform legislation. Indigent defense reform The overwhelming
majority of cases in the criminal justice system
involve the poor. And the poor obviously cannot afford lawyers to represent them in court. In 1963, in a landmark ruling, the Supreme Court held that the
government must provide attorneys for indigent persons accused of serious crimes. The idea was to elevate the standard of justice, but indigent defense in America
today is in a state of crisis. One problem has been the crushing caseloads. Even good attorneys are incapable of doing good work if they are swamped with clients
pulling them in different directions, demanding their time to find supportive witnesses and research the law. For the indigent, the right to counsel too often has
been illusory. A 2011 report from the Justice Policy Institute offered a grim assessment: “In many jurisdictions across the country, defenders meet with clients only
minutes before their court appearance in courthouse hallways, often just presenting an offer for a plea bargain from the prosecution without ever conducting an
investigation into the facts of the case or the individual circumstances of the client.” Texas is about to shake things up. Instead of relying on the familiar public
defender system, the Texas Indigent Defense Commission has authorized a pilot program called “client choice.” The accused indigent will receive a voucher that he
can use to hire his own attorney. Like the school voucher concept, the idea is to bring choice and competition to the marketplace for criminal defense services. The
lawyers and firms that do good work will prosper and expand, and the lawyers that do lousy work will find fewer clients. Interestingly, this system has never been
tried in the United States, but it is used in countries such as Canada, England, and Scotland. The pilot program is just getting underway this month in Comal County
near San Antonio. If the program goes smoothly, it will be introduced in other Texas counties. Critics say that if overall funding for indigent defense is inadequate, it
will not matter which defense arrangement is in place. Supporters of client choice do not deny the importance of funding, but say whatever that level turns out to
be, vouchers will produce better outcomes for both the accused and the public. By better outcomes they mean fewer wrongful convictions and more just
sentencing. With more state governments controlled by the GOP, one can expect the defense voucher idea to move beyond Texas. The
political climate
for criminal justice reform is superb. Present low crime rates provide space for policymakers who are
inclined to address this compelling need. If there is no movement on reform now, we will all look back
on 2015 as a lost opportunity.
This turns and outweighs case---racist marijuana policies power the military industrial
complex – it affects millions and reform here is necessary for broader structural
change
Eugene Jarecki 14, a New York-based writer and film-maker. His Grierson, Emmy and Sundance-winning works include Why We Fight, The
Trials of Henry Kissinger and The House I Live In, “As the marijuana economy takes off, let's not forget the casualties of the US war on drugs”,
http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/aug/03/marijuana-economy-casualties-us-war-on-drugs-eugene-jarecki
official and unofficial systems of racial oppression have arisen, been
challenged, and then gone underground, shape-shifting themselves to return another day. In the
modern era, as lawyer Michelle Alexander has argued in her book The New Jim Crow, the drug war stepped in to become the latest
system. In 1971, as the gains of the civil rights movement for black Americans and other minorities
might have seemed to usher America into a post-racial age, the drug war renewed the nation's
commitment, however subtly, to the obstruction of black progress. Today as the marijuana economies in
Colorado and Washington begin to take flight, Alexander noted the inescapable undertow of
race that continues to haunt this moment of apparent progress at play: "Forty years of impoverished black
kids getting prison time for selling weed, and their families and futures destroyed … Now, white men are planning to get
rich doing precisely the same thing." Over those four decades, the war on drugs has failed abjectly in its stated mission – addressing a
Throughout America's history,
legitimate concern about rates of US addiction – but succeeded overwhelmingly in what would appear its de facto goals – making drug crime the primary
preoccupation of law enforcement, flooding the courts with drug cases and overcrowding prisons with the world's largest population of inmates, more than 50% on
drug-related charges. Taken together, these accomplishments have produced a system of mass incarceration that costs taxpayers an estimated $51bn a year,
black Americans represent more than 50% of those
sentenced for drug crimes, despite the fact that black people represent only 13% of the
population and do not use drugs more or less than white people. A decade ago, when I began investigating the drug
becoming one of the nation's leading employers. Within its walls,
war in what would become my documentary The House I Live In, acquaintances were intrigued. They knew I was neither a drug user nor a dealer. They also knew
the question would
arise about whether I was an advocate of marijuana legalisation, which had then become a
primary focus for most reformers. I responded always with indignation, saying that I did not
support legalising marijuana if that meant simply giving dreadlocked white snowboarders easier
access to weed. Rather, I was concerned with the drug war's implications for poor and minority
Americans, whose communities had been ravaged by the war's destructive machinery. I also
saw a philosophic error in separating marijuana from other drugs. Part of what is assumed by advocates of the drug
that I was a comfortable white American, and thus highly unlikely to have been affected by the drug war personally. Inevitably,
war is that the government has a legitimate role determining what substance an adult can choose to put in his or her body in the exercise of the right to life, liberty
Arguing that one drug should be legalised while others not seems to elide this
question of public policy. And this elision is dangerous, first because it enables the country to
avoid a deeper dialogue about the illegality of drugs per se and, second, because I feared it could
let steam out of the debate about the drug war more broadly, reducing public pressure for its
overhaul. Worse, I even feared that by going easy on weed we would tighten the screws on the
rest, keeping the system and its predations intact. I've since changed my mind on the
importance of marijuana as a target for reformers, owing to what I've learned about the role it
plays in driving the cycle of personal, family and community destruction on which the war
thrives. "Gateway drug" has been the term often used by drug warriors to suggest that, with one puff of a joint, a young person may find himself
and the pursuit of happiness.
has little or no basis in science. Yet marijuana is a
gateway drug for countless young Americans into a lifetime of involvement with the criminal
justice system. For many, an arrest for possession at a young age can start a chain reaction that
leads first to drastically reduced employability and then to a higher likelihood of becoming
engaged in the underground economy of drug distribution, often the only job available . Once this
happens, it becomes almost a fait accompli that that person will spend a serious portion of his life
rotating in and out of the system. The numbers speak volumes. Of the 2.2 million prisoners
serving in the US, nearly 25% were convicted of marijuana possession. Legalisation, were it retroactive,
would dramatically reduce prisoner numbers while profoundly stemming the tide .
hurtling down a road to hard drugs. Despite this notion's popularity, it
Case
Islamophobia
“Islamophobia” is a term used to primarily incriminate outsiders
Spencer 11 (Robert Spencer, “FIVE EASY STEPS TO END ‘ISLAMAPHOBIA’”, Frontpage Mag, 12/29/11,
Robert Spencer is the director of Jihad Watch and author of the New York Times bestsellers The
Politically Incorrect Guide to Islam (and the Crusades) and The Truth About Muhammad,
http://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/117562/five-easy-steps-end-islamophobia-robert-spencer,
7/31/15 AV)
This comedy show simply doesn't address the problem of jihad terrorism and Islamic supremacism. As David Horowitz and I show in our
pamphlet Islamophobia: Thoughtcrime of the Totalitarian Future, the term "Islamophobia" is
a politically manipulative
coinage designed to intimidate critics of Islamic supremacism and jihad into silence. Claire Berlinski explains how
Islamic supremacists from the Muslim Brotherhood devised it for precisely that purpose: Now here's a point you might deeply consider: The
neologism "Islamophobia" did not simply emerge ex nihilo. It was invented, deliberately, by a Muslim Brotherhood front organization, the
International Institute for Islamic Thought, which is based in Northern Virginia. If that name dimly rings a bell, it should: I've mentioned it
before, and it's particularly important because it was co-founded by Anwar Ibrahim--the hero of Moderate Islam who is now trotting around
the globecomparing his plight to that of Aung San Suu Kyi.Abdur-Rahman Muhammad, a former member of the IIIT who has renounced the
group in disgust, was an eyewitness to the creation of the word. "This
loathsome term," he writes, is nothing more than a
thought-terminating cliche conceived in the bowels of Muslim think tanks for the purpose of beating
down critics. And in fact, FBI statistics show that there is no "Islamophobia." In fact, many "anti-Muslim hate crimes" have
been faked by Muslims, and Jews are eight times more likely than Muslims to be the victims of hate
attacks. The Muslim Brotherhood is dedicated in its own words to "eliminating and destroying Western
civilization from within." One easy way to do that would be to guilt-trip non-Muslims into being
ashamed of resisting jihad activity and Islamic supremacism, for fear of being accused of
"Islamophobia." I doubt these comics are aware of this program, but they're useful tools for it. "Muslim American comics’ tneginour and
documentary," by Tara Bahrampour in the Washington Post, December 27 (thanks to James): Beware, America. The Muslims are coming, and
they look and act suspiciously like you. Sheesh. No one says they aren't. This is just a straw man designed to demonize opponents of jihad.
Islamophobia isn’t inherent in America
Spencer 11 (Robert Spencer, “FIVE EASY STEPS TO END ‘ISLAMAPHOBIA’”, Frontpage Mag, 12/29/11,
Robert Spencer is the director of Jihad Watch and author of the New York Times bestsellers The
Politically Incorrect Guide to Islam (and the Crusades) and The Truth About Muhammad,
http://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/117562/five-easy-steps-end-islamophobia-robert-spencer,
7/31/15 AV)
Negin Farsad, an Iranian American stand-up comic from California, wears eye-catching mini dresses, curses liberally and has awkward sex talks
with her mother (though hers sound more like alien encounters. Actual quote: “You had intergender flesh relations without the security of
external safety product?”). Then she has more to worry about from observant Muslims than she does from "Islamophobes." Such
conversations, painfully private in traditional Muslim societies, are public fodder for Farsad and three other Gen X and Gen Y Muslim comics
with whom she traveled to the deep South this past summer. The tour, which later extended to Western states and included other Muslim
comics, will form the backbone of “The Muslims Are Coming!,” a documentary film about Islamophobia in America that Farsad is working on
with Palestinian Italian American comedian Dean Obeidallah. This is going to be the usual victimhood-mongering and deflecting of attention
from the real causes of suspicion of Muslims in the U.S. Obeidallah contacted me and asked me to be interviewed for the piece, and assured me
he would give me a fair hearing. But then he went on Twitter and called Pamela Geller a "Muslim-hater" -- echoing the deceptive Islamic
supremacist claim that fighting for free speech and equality of rights for all people is "hate." His true agenda thus revealed, I bowed out of the
interview. The documentary, which includes interviews with comics such as Jon Stewart and Louis Black and commentators including CNN’s
Soledad O’Brien, explores freedom of religion and what it means to be a minority in America. Note the implication: that minorities have it so
tough in America. No mention will be made, no doubt, of the far more precarious position of non-Muslim minorities in Muslim societies.
Muslim American stand-up comedy is a relatively new phenomenon, the domain of second-generation immigrants who are American enough
to satirize the Muslim American experience, said Obeidallah, who lives in New York City.“We’re confident enough to do this,” he said. “An
immigrant would be less confident to use comedy to try to challenge perceptions of who we are. We’re confident enough in being Americans
and knowing what that means, that we can push against those who are exhibiting behavior which is less than consistent with the values of this
nation.” Note that in Obeidallah's world, the people who are "exhibiting behavior which is less than consistent with the values of this nation"
are those fighting for freedom and Constitutional rights, not Brotherhood-related groups dedicated to bringing to the U.S. elements of a legal
system that denies freedom of speech, freedom of conscience, and equality of rights for women and non-Muslims. A major factor driving
Muslim Americans toward comedy was the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks. “There were no Middle Eastern comics before 9/11 that anyone
knew about,” Obeidallah said. “The phenomenon really grew in the last 10 years, because of the [anti-Muslim] backlash. There was no backlash,
of course. Innocent
Muslims are not being victimized in the U.S. Muslims live better here than in many
Muslim countries. Obeidallah -- clueless or complicit? You be the judge. I think a lot of people in our community started doing it as a
form of political activism.” As they started appearing on national television, he said, “it spurred other Middle Eastern comedians to get
involved.” Now, he said, there are about 10 full-time professinals and a growing number of aspiring professionals.Going
to the South,
where anti-mosque demonstrations and anti-immigrant sentiment has made some Muslims feel
unwelcome, the comedians hoped to break through some of the cultural walls that have arisen since
Sept. 11. The point was to see “how would people in the heartland take to us?” Obeidallah said. “Would we
encounter angry people going, ‘Get out of here, you Muslims,’ or would they understand?” Traveling through Florida, Georgia,
Alabama, Mississippi and Tennessee, they gave free performances in cafes, community centers and
theaters. They set up tables in public places, with scripture-related guessing games and the opportunity for people to “Ask a Muslim”
anything they wanted. “I could kind of like Muslims, but why do you guys like terrorism so much?” some asked. “What do you think of 9/11?”
was another common question. How horrible! They got asked uncomfortable questions! Oh, the "Islamophobia"! On
the whole, the
public response was encouraging. While a few people drove by and yelled, “Go back to your country!”
the one-on-one encounters tended to be positive. Oh, the horror! They encountered some rude jerks! Almost as bad as
being Christians in Nigeria, eh? “Most people are more open-minded and not that concerned about Muslims,”
Obeidallah said. “It’s really the fringe that’s driving that narrative.”Maysoon Zayid, one of the comics on the tour, said people were surprised to
see that “I’m such a Jersey girl, I’m so accessible. . . . I think they are really surprised that I wasn’t this oppressed woman trying to convert
people.” The comedians acknowledged that they were unlikely to win the hearts of the most fervent anti-Muslim types. “A show called ‘The
Muslims Are Coming’ — people self-select to come see it,” Farsad said. “We’re never going to be able to touch the extreme haters. . . . We’re
trying to affect the people in the middle, people with questions, the ‘persuadables.’ ” Do Negin Farsad and Dean Obeidallah really want to
eradicate "Islamophobia"? As long as Islamic jihad and supremacism continue, a comedy tour will never do the trick. But here is an easy way.
They can call on Muslims in the U.S. to do these things: 1. Focus their indignation on Muslims committing violent acts in the name of Islam, not
on non-Muslims reporting on those acts. 2. Renounce definitively, sincerely, honestly, and in deeds, not just in comforting words, not just
"terrorism," but any intention to replace the U.S. Constitution (or the constitutions of any non-Muslim state) with Sharia even by peaceful
means. In line with this, clarify what is meant by their condemnations of the killing of innocent people by stating unequivocally that American
and Israeli civilians are innocent people, teaching accordingly in mosques and Islamic schools, and behaving in accord with these new teachings.
3. Teach, again sincerely and honestly, in transparent and verifiable ways in mosques and Islamic schools, the imperative of Muslims coexisting
peacefully as equals with non-Muslims on an indefinite basis, and act accordingly. 4. Begin comprehensive international programs in mosques
all over the world to teach sincerely against the ideas of violent jihad and Islamic supremacism. 5. Actively and honestly work with Western law
enforcement officials to identify and apprehend jihadists within Western Muslim communities. If Muslims do those five things, voila!
"Islamophobia" will evanesce!
No FBI Mosque surveillance
Chasmar 13 (Jessica Chasmar, “Mosques off-limits by government snooping since 2011, IBD editorial
claims”, the Washington Times, 6/13/13, Jessica Chasmar is a continuous news writer for The
Washington Times, covering topics on culture and politics. Originally from Palm Beach Gardens, Fla.,
Jessica graduated from the University of Florida where she received a bachelor's degree in journalism
and a master's degree in mass communication,
http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2013/jun/13/mosques-limits-government-snooping-2011-ibdeditor/, 7/30/15 AV)
An editorial posted in the Investor’s Business Daily on Wednesday had some scathing remarks for the Obama administration, after claiming that
despite the NSA’s sweeping PRISM program, mosques have been off-limits by FBI surveillance since
October 2011. “That’s right, the government’s sweeping surveillance of our most private communications excludes the jihad factories
where homegrown terrorists are radicalized,” the editorial reads.
– they can’t solve for the local level
Kane 13 (Alex Kane is an assistant editor for the news website Mondoweiss, which covers the Israel–Palestine conflict, and
the World section editor at AlterNet. His work has also appeared in Salon, The Daily Beast’s “Open Zion” blog, Vice, BBC Persian,
+972 magazine, the Electronic Intifada, Extra!, and Common Dreams, Kane is citing the book “Enemies Within” by Matt Apuzzo
and Adam Goldman, “Alex Kane on Enemies Within : Inside the NYPD’s Secret Spying Unit and bin Laden’s Final Plot Against
America”, October 24th, 2013, http://lareviewofbooks.org/review/raking-the-coals-islamophobia-surveillance-targeting-andthe-nypds-secret-spying-unit)
Like the NYPD, the FBI has used its own power to pressure Muslims into becoming informants in
exchange for help. According to the American Civil Liberties Union, the FBI has told Muslim-Americans
trapped abroad because of their inclusion on a no-fly list that they could get off easily — by spying on
their own communities back home in the US. For all the oversight of the FBI — something the NYPD
doesn’t have to contend with — parts of the federal agency still view Muslims as targets for spying
rather than partners in the fight against terrorism. Far from an aberration in America's post-9/11
landscape, the NYPD is merely the most extreme example of a law enforcement apparatus running
roughshod over the rights of Muslim Americans. What's also missing from Apuzzo and Goldman’s
otherwise excellent exposé of the NYPD is the larger political context in which the spying took place. The
NYPD's logic is Islamophobic at its core: all Muslims are deemed potential terrorists until they're proven
not to be, an inversion of how law enforcement is supposed to work. Yet there's little exploration of
how Islamophobic discourse from the media and elected officials contribute to the implementation and
acceptance of spying targeting Muslims. In the same year that Apuzzo and Goldman began reporting on
the NYPD's Intelligence Division, New York Republican Peter King set up House hearings to probe
“radicalization” among Muslim-Americans — a transparent attempt to cast aspersions on one particular
community. In 2010, anti-Muslim blogger Pamela Geller worked the national media into a frenzy over
what was inaccurately labeled the “Ground Zero mosque.” King, Geller and other prominent figures who
demonized Muslims directly after 9/11 opened up space for institutions with even more power, like the
police, to move a discourse of bigotry into policies of bigotry. In an atmosphere where anti-Muslim
sentiment largely went unchallenged, it's no surprise that hardly an eye was batted when the NYPD
hired CIA officials to implement an intelligence collection program aimed at law-abiding citizens. The
book presents an undeniably damning portrait of the NYPD’s surveillance operation. Now, it’s up to the
courts and lawmakers to decide whether these operations are legal or prudent. Three federal lawsuits
are being pursued in reaction to Apuzzo's and Goldman's groundbreaking investigations. The next New
York City mayor will have to grapple with the question of continuing or halting the spy operations.
Judges and elected officials will have a documented record on which to look back to decide these
weighty questions in the coming months: Enemies Within.
Solvency
Court’s don’t solve- lack of enforcement power
Rosenberg 08 (Gerald N. Rosenberg, Associate Professor of Political Science and Lecturer in Law at
UChicago, The Hollow Hope 2nd edition published 2008 , Kindle location 266)
For courts, or any other institution, to effectively produce significant social reform, they must have the
ability to develop appropriate policies and the power to implement them. This, in turn, requires a host of tools that
courts, according to proponents of the Constrained Court view, lack. In particular, successful implementation requires
enforcement powers. Court decisions, requiring people to act, are not self-executing. But as Hamilton pointed
out two centuries ago in The Federalist Papers (1787-88), courts lack such powers. Indeed, it is for this reason more than
any other that Hamilton emphasized the courts' character as the least dangerous branch. Assuaging
fears that the federal courts would be a political threat, Hamilton argued in Federalist 78 that the
judiciary "has no influence over either the sword or the purse; no direction either of the strength or of
the wealth of the society; and can take no active resolution whatever. It may truly be said to have neither FORCE nor
WILL, but merely judgment; and must ultimately depend upon the aid of the executive arm even for the efficacy of its judgments" (The
Federalist Papers 1961, 465). Unlike
Congress and the executive branch, Hamilton argued, the federal courts
were utterly dependent on the support of the other branches and elite actors. In other words, for Court
orders to be carried out, political elites, electorally accountable, must support them and act to
implement them. Proponents of the Constrained Court view point to historical recognition of this structural "fact" of American political
life by early Chief Justices John Jay and John Marshall, both of whom were acutely aware of the Court's limits.12 President Jackson recognized
these limits, too, when he reputedly remarked about a decision with which he did not agree, "John Marshall has made his decision, now let him
enforce it." More recently, the
unwillingness of state authorities to follow court orders, and the need to send
federal troops to Little Rock, Arkansas, to carry them out, makes the same point. Without elite support
port (the federal government in this case), the Court's orders would have been frustrated. While it is clear that
courts can stymie change (Paul 1960), though ultimately not prevent it (Dahl 1957; Nagel 1965; Rosenberg 1985), the Constitution, in
the eyes of the Constrained Court view, appears to leave the courts few tools to insure that their
decisions are carried out. If the separation of powers, and the placing of the power to enforce court decisions in the executive branch,
leaves courts practically powerless to insure that their decisions are supported by elected and administrative officials, then they are heavily
dependent on popular support to implement their decisions. If American citizens are aware of Court decisions, and feel duty-bound to carry
them out, then Court orders will be implemented. However, proponents
of the Constrained Court view point out that
survey data suggest that the American public is consistently uninformed of even major Supreme Court
decisions and thus not in a position to support them (Adamany 1973; Daniels 1973; Dolbeare 1967; Goldman and Jahnige
1976). If the public or political elites are not ready or willing to make changes, the most elegant legal
reasoning will be for naught. This constraint may be particularly powerful with issues of significant social
reform. It is likely that as courts deal with issues involving contested values, as issues of significant social reform do almost by definition,
they will generate opposition. In turn, opposition may induce a withdrawal of the elite and public
support crucial for implementation. Thus, proponents of the Constrained Court view suggest that the contested nature of
issues of significant social reform makes it unlikely that the popular support necessary for
implementation mentation will be forthcoming.
Courts don’t solve- inability to hear cases about the underlying issue and
decreasing public support
Rosenberg 08 (Gerald N. Rosenberg, Associate Professor of Political Science and Lecturer in Law at
UChicago, The Hollow Hope 2nd edition published 2008 , Kindle location 231)
The view of courts as unable to produce significant social reform has a distinguished pedigree reaching back to the founders. Premised on the
institutional structure of the American political system and the procedures and belief systems created by American law, it suggests that the
conditions required for courts to produce significant social reform will seldom exist. Unpacked, packed, the
Constrained Court view maintains that courts will generally not be effective producers of significant social reform for three reasons: the
limited nature of constitutional rights, the lack of judicial independence, and the judiciary's inability to
develop appropriate policies and its lack of powers of implementation. The Limited Nature of Rights The
Constitution, and the set of beliefs that surround it, is not unbounded. Certain rights are enshrined in it
and others are rejected. In economic terms, private control over the allocation and distribution of resources, the use of property, is
protected (Miller 1968). "Rights" to certain minimums, mums, or equal shares of basic goods, are not. Further, judicial discretion is
bound by the norms and expectations of the legal culture. These two parameters, believers in the
Constrained Court view suggest, present a problem for litigators pressing the courts for significant social
reform because most such litigation is based on constitutional claims that rights are being denied.; An individual or group comes
into a court claiming it is being denied some benefit, fit, or protection from arbitrary and discriminatory
action, and that it is entitled to this benefit or that protection. Proponents of the Constrained Court view
suggest that this has four important consequences for social reformers. First, they argue, it limits the sorts of
claims that can be made, for not all social reform goals can be plausibly presented in the name of
constitutional rights. For example, there are no constitutional rights to decent housing, adequate levels of welfare,
or clean air, while there are constitutional rights to minimal governmental interference in the use of one's property. This may mean that
"practically significant but legally irrelevant policy matters may remain beyond the purview of the court" (Note 1977, 436). Further, as Gordon
(1984, 111) suggests, "the legal forms we use set limits on what we can imagine as practical outcomes."
Thus, the nature of rights in
the U.S. legal system, embedded in the Constitution, may constrain the courts in producing significant
social reform by preventing them from hearing many claims. A second consequence from the Constrained Court
perspective is that, even where claims can be made, social reformers must often argue for the establishment
of a new right, or the extension of a generally accepted right to a new situation. In welfare rights
litigation, for example, the Court was asked to find a constitutional right to welfare (Krislov 1973). This need to
push the courts to read the Constitution in an expansive or "liberal" way creates two main difficulties. Underlying these difficulties
is judicial awareness of the need for predictability in the law and the politically exposed nature of judges
whose decisions go beyond the positions of electorally accountable officials. First, the Constitution, lawyers, judges,
and legal academics form a dominant legal culture that at any given time accepts some rights and not others and sets limits on the
interpretation and expansion of rights. Judicial
discretion is bound by the beliefs and norms of this legal culture,
and decisions that stray too far from them are likely to be reversed and severely criticized. Put simply, courts,
and the judges that compose them, even if sympathetic to social reform form plaintiffs, may be unwilling to risk crossing this nebulous yet real
boundary.' Second,
and perhaps more important, is the role of precedent and what Justice Traynor calls the
"continuity scripts of the law" (Traynor 1977, 11). Traynor, a justice of the California Supreme Court for twenty-five years, Chief
Justice from 1964 to 1970, and known as a judge open to new ideas, wrote of the "very caution of the judicial process" (1977, 7). Arguing that
"a judge must plod rather than soar," Traynor saw that the "greatest judges" proceed "at the pace of a tortoise that steadily makes advances
though it carries the past on its back" (1977, 7, 6). Constrained
by precedent and the beliefs of the dominant legal
culture, judges, the Constrained Court view asserts, are not likely to act as crusaders. Third, supporters of the
Constrained Court view note, as Scheingold (1974) points out, that to claim a right in court is to accept the procedures and
obligations of the legal system. These procedures are designed, in part, to make it difficult for courts to
hear certain kinds of cases. As the Council for Public Interest Law (CPIL) puts it, doctrines of standing and of class actions, the socalled political question doctrine, the need to have a live controversy, and other technical doctrines can
"deter courts from deciding cases on the merits" (CPIL 1976, 355) and can result in social reform groups
being unable to present their best arguments, or even have their day in court. Once in court, however, the legal
process tends to dissipate significant social reform by making ing appropriate remedies unlikely. This can occur, McCann (1986, 200) points out,
because policy-based litigation aimed at significant social reform is usually "disaggregate(di ... into discrete conflicts among limited actors over
specific individual entitlements." Remedial decrees, it has been noted, "must not confuse what is socially or judicially desirable with what is
legally required" (Special Project 1978, 855). Thus, litigation
seldom deals with "underlying issues and problems" and
is "directed more toward symptoms than causes" (Harris and Spiller 1976, 26). Finally, it has long been argued that
framing issues in legally sound ways robs them of "political and purposive appeal" (Handler 1978, 33). In the
narrow sense, the technical nature of legal argument can denude issues of emotional, widespread appeal. More broadly, there is the
danger that litigation by the few will replace political action by the many and reduce the democratic
nature of the American polity. James Bradley Thayer, writing in 1901, was concerned that reliance on litigation would sap
the democratic process of its vitality. He warned that the "tendency of a common and easy resort" to
the courts, especially in asking them to invalidate acts of the democratically accountable branches,
would "dwarf the political capacity of the people" (Thayer 1901, 107). This view was echoed more recently by McCann, who
found that litigation-prone activists' "legal rights approach to expanding democracy has significantly
narrowed their conception of political action itself" (McCann 1986, 26). Expanding the point, McCann argued that "legal
tactics not only absorb scarce resources that could be used for popular mobilization ... [but also] make it
difficult to develop broadly based, multiissue grassroots roots associations of sustained citizen
allegiance" (McCann 1986, 200). For these reasons, the Constrained Court view suggests that the nature of rights in the U.S. constrains
courts from being effective producers of significant social reform. Thus, Constraint I: The bounded nature of constitutional
rights prevents courts from hearing or effectively acting on many significant social reform claims, and
lessens the chances of popular mobilization.
Even if the courts rule progressive, they will not and cannot enact actual social
change – they will leave loopholes and lower institutions will refuse to comply –
legal history analysis proves – litigation is a hollow hope
Rosenberg 5 (Dr. Gerald Rosenberg, Associate Professor of Political Science and Lecturer in Law,
University of Chicago, B.A., Dartmouth College, 1976; M.A., Oxford University, 1979; J.D., 1983,
University of Michigan; Ph.D., 1985, Yale University, “Courting Disaster: Looking for Change in All the
Wrong Places”, 54 Drake Law Review 795 (2005),
http://chicagounbound.uchicago.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=2922&context=journal_articles) //RL
III. THE ILLUSION OF PROGRESS An obvious response to the discussion of the historic role of the Court as
a protector of privilege is that history is not destiny. Merely because the Court has acted in defense of
privilege for most of its history does not mean it is destined to always so act. Indeed, many people
believe the role of the Court fundamentally changed in the post-World War II era. The Court, many
claim, became a great defender of the relatively disadvantaged. While history may not determine the
future, structural constraints limit it. 86 That is, it is more likely than not that the Court will consistently,
over time, support conservative outcomes. This is the case for four main reasons. First, the appointment
process means that federal judges, and particularly Supreme Court Justices, must be broadly acceptable.
Presidents are unlikely to nominate radical Progressives and the Senate is even less likely to confirm
such nominees. This is because Progressives lack the political support that would make their
appointments broadly acceptable. Second, the Constitution is a conservative document. It protects
private control over the allocation and distribution of resources. It does not provide for basic Progressive
rights such as employment, health care, decent housing, adequate levels of welfare, or clean air. Third,
the Court is constrained from pushing too far ahead of the positions of the other branches because it
needs their support to implement its decisions and is susceptible to sanctions. Fourth, the Court lacks
the power to implement its decisions. Thus, even if it overcomes the first three constraints and issues an
opinion that furthers the Progressive agenda, that decision is unlikely to be implemented. This point is
illustrated with brief discussion of three important cases. 86. argument. See ROSENBERG, supra note 4, at
9-41 for further development of this [Vol. 54 HeinOnline -- 54 Drake L. Rev. 808 2005-2006 Courting
Disaster A. The Victory That Wasn't: Brown v. Board of Education 87 Brown v. Board of Education may
be the most well-known and widely celebrated case in Supreme Court history. 88 In declaring that racial
segregation of public schools was unconstitutional, the Court repudiated its prior, pro-segregation
approach to the Constitution. This was clearly for the good but the question for Progressives is whether
Brown made a difference in ending race-based segregation in public schools in particular, and racial
discrimination more broadly. The answer is no. On the most straight-forward level, public schools
remained segregated after Brown. A decade after Brown virtually nothing had changed for AfricanAmerican students living in the eleven states of the former Confederacy that required race-based
school segregation by law. For example, in the 1963-1964 school year, barely one in one hundred (1.2%)
of these African-American children was educated in a nonsegregated school. 89 That means that for
nearly ninety-nine of every one hundred African-American children in the South a decade after Brown,
the finding of a constitutional right changed nothing.90 Change did come to the South, but that occurred
only after the Congress acted-providing monetary incentives for desegregation and threatening to cut
off federal funds if segregation was maintained. 91 More subtly, there is little or no evidence that
supports the claims that Brown gave civil rights salience, pressed political elites to act, pricked the
consciences of whites, legitimated the grievances of blacks, or inspired the activists of the civil rights
movement. What Brown did do was energize civil rights opponents and channel resources away from
building the civil rights movement.92 In the wake of Brown, resistance to ending segregation increased
in all areas, not merely in education but also in voting, transportation, and the use of public places.
Brown "unleashed a wave of 87. Brown v. Bd. Of Educ., 349 U.S. 294 (1954). 88. For an extensive
exploration of Brown's lack of efficacy, see ROSENBERG, supra note 4, at 42-169. 89. Gerald Rosenberg,
Substituting Symbol for Substance: What Did Brown Really Accomplish?, PS: POLITICAL SCIENCE &
POLITIcs 205,205, Apr. 2004, at 205. 90. Id. 91. Id. at 205-06. 92. Id. at 207. 2006] HeinOnline -- 54 Drake
L. Rev. 809 2005-2006 Drake Law Review racism that reached hysterical proportions."93 By stiffening
resistance to civil rights and raising fears before the activist phase of the civil rights movement was in
place, Brown may actually have delayed the achievement of civil rights. Litigation may also have delayed
the achievement of civil rights by channeling resources toward litigation and away from political
organizing. Progressive reformers always have scarce resources. There was great hostility over both
fundraising and tactics between the NAACP and the groups that led the activist wing of the civil rights
movement. As Martin Luther King, Jr. complained: "to accumulate resources for legal actions imposes
intolerable hardships on the already overburdened. ' " 94 In sum, Brown's constitutional mandate that
racial segregation in public schools end confronted a culture opposed to that change. The American
judicial system, constrained by the need for both elite and popular support, was unable to overcome this
opposition. B. The Decision That Didn't: Roe v. Wade 95 In many ways Roe fared better than Brown.
That is, the number of legal abortions increased in the years following Roe-though at a slower rate-both
numerically and percentage-wise, than in the years immediately preceding the decision. But they did so
unevenly, with abortion services widely available in some states and virtually unobtainable in others.
What explains both the increase in the number of legal abortions and the uneven availability of the
constitutional right Roe proclaimed? The number of legal abortions increased after Roe because there
was public support for legal access to abortion, and demand for the service. A national abortion repeal
movement was flourishing with widespread support among relevant professional elites and rapidly
growing public support. By the eve of the Court's decisions, eighteen states had reformed their
restrictive abortion laws to some degree. Indeed, in 1972, the year before the decision, there were
nearly 600,000 legal abortions performed in the U.S.96 To the extent that Roe increased women's access
to legal 93. ADAM FAIRCLOUGH, To REDEEM THE SOUL OF AMERICA: THE SOUTHERN CHRISTIAN
LEADERSHIP CONFERENCE AND MARTIN LUTHER KING, JR. 21 (1987). 94. MARTIN LUTHER KING, JR.,
WHY WE CAN'T WAIT 157 (1963). 95. Roe v. Wade, 410 U.S. 113 (1973). For an extensive exploration of
Roe's mixed record of efficacy, see ROSENBERG, supra note 4, at 175-201. 96. ROSENBERG, supra note 4,
at 180 tbl.6.1. [Vol. 54 HeinOnline -- 54 Drake L. Rev. 810 2005-2006 Courting Disaster abortion it did so
because a grass-roots political movement had won many legislative victories and had dramatically
influenced both elite and public opinion. On the other hand, Roe faced the same problem as Brown-the
existing institutions necessary to implement the decisions (hospitals in the case of abortion) refused to
do so. Indeed, the overwhelming majority of both public and private, short-term, non-Catholic hospitals,
have never performed an abortion.97 Like public schools and desegregation, the existing institutions
ignored the law. Constitutional rights were protected under law, but denied in practice. However, in
Doe v. Bolton,98 the companion case to Roe, the Court struck down Georgia's requirement that all
abortions be performed in accredited hospitals. 99 This allowed market forces to meet the demand for
abortion services by opening abortion clinics. Pro-choice activists, feminists, and doctors, who wanted to
expand their practices, were relatively free to respond to the demand. Clinics could and did open to
implement the decision. The problem with market mechanisms is that they implement rights unevenly.
This is principally because they are dependent on local beliefs and culture. In places where political
leaders or large segments of the population oppose abortion, it is less likely that such clinics will open.
Thus, the availability of abortion services varies widely across the country. Considering that the Court
has held that women have a fundamental constitutional right to obtain abortions, the drawbacks to the
market mechanism as a way to implement constitutional rights are important. The availability of a
market mechanism can help implement Court decisions, but cannot guarantee them. In addition to only
providing limited access to legal abortion, Roe, like Brown, appears to have strengthened the losers in
the case-the antiabortion forces-and weakened the winners. The fledgling anti-abortion movement grew
enormously after Roe and the pro-choice movement that had been able to change laws in eighteen
states collapsed. One of the results of the collapse was the lack of pressure on local institutions to
provide abortion services. This history suggests that if Roe is overturned there may be a massive
mobilization of pro-choice forces. While at least some states may prohibit abortion, these are likely to be
states where, under Roe, abortion services are virtually impossible to obtain. 97. Id. at 190. 98. Doe v.
Bolton, 410 U.S. 179 (1973). 99. Id. at 194. 2006] HeinOnline -- 54 Drake L. Rev. 811 2005-2006 Drake Law
Review In sum, the finding of a constitutional right to terminate a pregnancy has not guaranteed access
to abortion for women. It derailed the prochoice movement and energized its opponents. As the
executive director of a Missoula, Montana, abortion clinic destroyed by arson in 1993 put it: "It does no
good to have the [abortion] procedure be legal if women can't get it."''° C. The Opinion That Backfired:
Goodridge v. Department of Public Health1 01 Goodridge, perhaps more than any other modern case,
highlights the folly of Progressives turning to litigation in the face of legislative hostility. In Goodridge,
the Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts held that the state could not deny marriage licenses to
same-sex couples. 0 This decision followed an earlier decision of the Hawaii Supreme Court that the
state's refusal to recognize same-sex marriages, absent a compelling justification, violated the state
constitution's guarantee of equal protection of the laws,103 and a decision of the Vermont Supreme
Court that essentially forced the Vermont legislature to enact civil unions. 1°4 The result of these judicial
victories has been nothing short of disastrous for the right to same-sex marriage. The people of Hawaii
effectively overturned their court's decision by constitutional amendment. Then, in 1996, the U.S.
Congress passed the so-called Defense of Marriage Act denying all the federal benefits of marriage to
same-sex couples.10 5 Many states followed suit, and as of the 2004 election, at least thirty-nine states
had adopted measures designed to prevent the recognition of samesex marriage. 106 Even worse, there
was a movement to limit marriage to heterosexual couples by amending both the federal and state
constitutions. While a federal amendment has yet to be passed by Congress, every constitutional
amendment presented to state voters has been approved-in 100. Gerald N. Rosenberg, The Real World
of Constitutional Rights: The Supreme Court and the Implementation of the Abortion Decisions, in
CONTEMPLATING COURTS 390, 417 (Lee Epstein ed., 1995) (quotation and emphasis omitted). 101.
Goodridge v. Dep't of Pub. Health, 798 N.E.2d 941 (Mass. 2003). For an extensive exploration of the
impact of the attempt to win the right to same-sex marriage through litigation, see GERALD N.
ROSENBERG, THE HOLLOW HOPE (2d. ed. forthcoming 2007). 102. Goodridge, 798 N.E.2d at 948. 103.
Baehr v. Lewin, 852 P.2d 44, 67-68 (Haw. 1993). 104. Baker v. State, 744 A.2d 864, 867 (Vt. 1999). 105.
28 U.S.C. § 1738C (2000). 106. See, e.g., ALA. CODE § 30-1-19 (LexisNexis Supp. 2005). [Vol. 54
HeinOnline -- 54 Drake L. Rev. 812 2005-2006 Courting Disaster almost all cases by lopsided majorities.
As 2004 came to a close, more than one-third of all states, representing close to one-quarter of the
American population, had banned same-sex marriage by constitutional amendment. With several
constitutional amendments on ballots in 2006, and perhaps in 2008, more states are likely to join the
list. What happened? The answer is simple. Same-sex marriage proponents had not built a successful
movement that could persuade their fellow citizens to support their cause and pressure political leaders
to change the law. Without such a movement behind them, winning these court cases sparked an
enormous backlash. They confused a judicial pronouncement of rights with the attainment of those
rights. The battle for same-sex marriage would have been better served if they had never brought
litigation, or had lost their cases. Now, they must either convince majorities in more than one-third of
the states to remove the constitutional prohibitions on same-sex marriage that have just been added or
hope that the U.S. Supreme Court will strike down prohibitions on same-sex marriage as
unconstitutional. This is a daunting task-one that ought not to have been faced. IV. WHEN WILL THEY
EVER LEARN? RETURNING TO PAST UNDERSTANDINGS The sad story of the turn to litigation by samesex marriage proponents illustrates the current Progressive failure to understand that successful social
change requires building social movements. From Brown to Roe to Goodridge the Progressive agenda
was hijacked by a group of elite, well-educated and comparatively wealthy lawyers who uncritically
believed that rights trump politics and that successfully arguing before judges is equivalent to building
and sustaining political movements. Litigation is an elite, class-based strategy for change. 107 It is
premised on the notion that it is easier to persuade similarly educated and wealthy lawyers who
happen to be judges of certain liberal principles than to organize everyday citizens. That might be true
but without broad citizen support change will not occur. Litigation substitutes symbols for substance.
The collapse of the pro- 107. As Alexis de Tocqueville noted more than a century and a half ago, lawyers
are elitist by training. He wrote: "hidden at the bottom of a lawyer's soul one finds some of the tastes
and habits of an aristocracy.... [American lawyers] conceive a great distaste for the behavior of the
multitude and secretly scorn the government of the people." ALEXIS DE TOCQUEVILLE, DEMOCRACY IN
AMERICA 243 (J.P. Mayer & Max Lerner eds., George Lawrence trans., Harper & Row 1966) (1848). 20061
HeinOnline -- 54 Drake L. Rev. 813 2005-2006 Drake Law Review choice movement after Roe is a perfect
illustration as it remains the case that for many women abortion services are difficult to find. Similarly,
the growing re-segregation of the nation's public schools is occurring at a time when Brown has achieved
almost mythical, symbolic status. The danger of celebrating a symbol is that it can lead to a sense of selfsatisfaction and insensitivity to actual practice. Seen in this light, Brown is "little more than an ornament,
or golden cupola, built upon the roof of a structure found rotting and infested, assuring the gentlefolk
who only pass by without entering that all is well inside. '10 8 Celebrating legal symbols encourages us to
look to legal solutions for political and cultural problems. Without political support, court decisions will
not produce social change. To valorize lawyers and courts encourages reformers to litigate for social
change. But if political support is lacking, the effect of this vision is to limit change by deflecting claims
for reform away from substantive political battles, where success is possible, to harmless legal ones
where it is not. In this way, courts play a deeply conservative ideological function in defense of the status
quo. When social reformers succumb to the "lure of litigation" they forget that deep-seated social
conflicts cannot be resolved through litigation. Today, there is some hope that Progressives may be
turning away from litigation as a strategy for change. The cause, alas, is not a re-learning of historical
lessons and an understanding of the limitations on courts and the need for political mobilization. Rather,
it is a realization that the current Supreme Court is unlikely to promote progressive principles. If this
were the only effect of a conservative Court it would be a good thing. The problem, of course, is that
even if courts are limited in their ability to help Progressives, they have more room to do damage. Courts
are not symmetrically constrained from furthering both progressive and conservative change. This is
because typically Progressives are asking courts to require change while Conservatives are supporting
the status quo. Further, it is easier to dismantle Progressive programs than to create them. For example,
with Justice Alito replacing Justice O'Connor, affirmative action plans may be found to be
unconstitutional. We are now in a position where courts can be an obstacle to change. None of this
means that law is irrelevant or that courts can never further the goals of the relatively disadvantaged.
For the civil rights 108. Michael E. Tigar, The Supreme Court 1969 Term-Foreword: Waiver of
Constitutional Rights: Disquiet in the Citadel, 84 HARV. L. REV. 1, 7 (1970). Tigar wrote these words
specifically about the Warren Court's criminal rights decisions but they are more generally applicable.
[Vol. 54 HeinOnline -- 54 Drake L. Rev. 814 2005-2006 Courting Disaster movement, for example, courts
played an important role in keeping the sitin movement going, ending the Montgomery bus boycott by
providing the boycotters with leverage, furthering school desegregation by threatening to cut off federal
funds under Title VI, and upholding affirmative action programs. But in each case courts were effective
because a political movement was supporting change. The analysis does mean that courts acting alone,
as in Brown or Goodridge, are structurally constrained from furthering the goals of the relatively
disadvantaged. As Progressives look to the future, they must understand that American courts are not
all-powerful institutions. They were designed with severe limitations and placed in a political system
of divided powers. To rely on litigation rather than political mobilization, as difficult as it may be,
misunderstands both the limits of courts and the lessons of history. It substitutes symbols for substance
and clouds our vision with a naive and romantic belief in the triumph of rights over politics. And while
romance and even naivete have their charms, they are no substitute for substantive change.
No online islamophobia solvency
Spence 14 (Duncan Spence, “Why online Islamophobia is difficult to stop”, CBC News, 11/1/14,
Duncan Spence is an author for CBC News, http://www.cbc.ca/news/why-online-islamophobia-isdifficult-to-stop-1.2810242, 7/31/15 AV)
Islamophobia has been an ongoing concern in the west since 9/11, but a number of recent incidents in Britain
have given rise to a new wave of hatred that experts say is finding a breeding ground online. Part of the problem,
researchers say, is that right-wing groups can post anti-Islamic comments online without fear of legal prosecution.
“If they were to say, ‘Black people are evil, Jamaicans are evil,’ they could be prosecuted,” says Fiyaz Mughal, founder of Islamophobia
reporting web site TellMamaUK.org. But because religious hatred isn't covered legally in the same way that racism is,
Mughal says "the extreme right are frankly getting away with really toxic stuff.” Researchers believe the rise of
the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS) and incidents such as the murder of British soldier Lee Rigby and the recent sexual
exploitation scandal in the town of Rotherham have contributed to a spike in online anti-Muslim sentiment in the UK. Imran
Awan, deputy director of the Centre for Applied Criminology at Birmingham City University, noticed the trend when he was working on a paper
regarding Islamophobia and Twitter following Rigby's death. Rigby was killed in the street in southeast London in 2013 by two Islamic
extremists who have since been convicted. Awan says the anonymity of social media platforms makes them a popular venue for hate speech,
and that the results of his report were “shocking, to say the least.” Of the 500
tweets from 100 Twitter users Awan examined,
75 per cent were Islamophobic in nature. He cites posts such as "'Let's go out and blow up a mosque' and 'Let’s get together and kill
the Muslims," and says most of these were linked to far-right groups. Awan’s findings echo those of Tell MAMA UK, which has compiled data on
anti-Muslim attacks for three years. (MAMA stands for "Measuring Anti-Muslim Attacks.") Tell MAMA's Mughal says anti-Muslim bigotry is "felt
significantly," and adds that "in our figures, we have seen a year-by-year increase." Researchers believe far-right advocates are partly
responsible for a spike in online hate speech. “There’s been a real increase in the far right, and in some of the material I looked at online, there
were quite a lot of people with links to the English Defence League and another group called Britain First,” says Awan. Both Mughal and Awan
believe that right-wing groups such as Britain First and the EDL become mobilized each time there is an incident in the Muslim community. The
Twitter profile of the EDL reads: “#WorkingClass movement who take to the streets against the spread of #islamism & #sharia #Nosurrender
#GSTQ.” Below it is a link to their Facebook page, which has over 170, 000 likes. Below that page, a caption reads, “Leading the Counter-Jihad
fight. Peacefully protesting against militant Islam.” EDL spokesperson Simon North dismisses accusations that his group is spreading hate,
emphasizing that Muslims are often the first victims of attacks carried out by Islamic extremists. “We address things that are in the news the
same way newspapers do,” says North. Experts in far-right groups, however, say their tendency to spread hateful messages around high-profile
cases is well established. North allows that some Islamophobic messages might emanate from the group's regional divisions. But they do not
reflect the group’s overall thinking, he says. “There are various nuances that get expressed by these organizations,” North says. “Our driving
line is set out very clearly in our mission statement.” According to EDL's web site, their mission statement is to promote human rights while
giving a balanced picture of Islam. Awan argues online Islamophobia should be taken seriously and says police and legislators need to make
more successful prosecutions of this kind of hate speech and be more “techno-savvy when it comes to online abuse.” Prosecuting online
Islamophobia, however, is rare in the UK, says Vidhya Ramalingam of the European Free Initiative, which researches far-right groups. That's
because groups like Britain First, which have over 400,000 Facebook likes, have a fragmented membership and do not have the traditional topdown leadership that groups have had in the past. Online Islamophobia is also flourishing in Canada. The National Council of Canadian Muslims
(NCCM) is receiving a growing number of reports. But there are now fewer means for prosecuting online hate speech in Canada. Section 13 of
the Canadian Human Rights Act protected against the wilful promotion of hate online, but it was repealed by Bill C-304 in 2012. “It’s kind of
hard to say what the impact is, because even when it existed, there weren’t a lot of complaints brought under it,” says Cara Zwibel of the
Canadian Civil Liberties Association. Though there is a criminal code provision that protects against online hate
speech, it requires the attorney general’s approval in order to lay charges — and that rarely occurs, says Zwibel.
Section 319 of the Criminal Code of Canada forbids the incitement of hatred against “any section of the public distinguished by colour, race,
religion, ethnic origin or sexual orientation." A judge can order online material removed from a public forum such as social media if it is severe
enough, but if it is housed on a server outside of the country, this can be difficult. Ihsaan Gardee, executive director of NCCM, says without
changes, anti-Muslim hate speech will continue to go unpunished online, which he says especially concerns moderate Muslims. “They worry
about people perceiving them as sharing the same values these militants and these Islamic extremists are espousing.”
French leaders want mosque surveillance
Associated Press 1-16 (Associated Press, “French far right leader wants mosque surveillance”, San
Diego Union Tribune, 1/16/15, http://www.sandiegouniontribune.com/news/2015/jan/16/french-farright-leader-wants-mosque-surveillance/, 7/30/15 AV)
NANTERRE, France (AP) — French far right leader Marine Le Pen wants a tough response to last week's terrorist attacks,
including surveillance of mosques and military service for children to stop youth radicalization. Le Pen's National Front party, which
has long denounced what it calls the "Islamization" of France, has seen its support rise steadily in recent years. After attacks by radical French
gunmen last week, she told journalists Friday that France is facing an enemy from within. She
urged a global response, including
"immediate" suspension of Europe's border-free travel accords, monitoring of mosques and sermons, as well as school uniforms
and military service for boys and girls. Many in France's 5-million-strong Muslim community fear a backlash after the attacks by the gunmen,
who claimed allegiance to al-Qaida and the Islamic State group.
Saudi Arabia surveilling mosques now
Toumi 6-29 (Habib Toumi, “Saudi Arabia to install surveillance cameras in major mosques”, Gulf News,
6/29/15, Habib Toumi is the bureau chief of Gulf News, http://gulfnews.com/news/gulf/saudiarabia/saudi-arabia-to-install-surveillance-cameras-in-major-mosques-1.1542550, 7/30/15 AV)
Manama: Saudi Arabia is drawing up plans to install surveillance cameras in major mosques throughout the kingdom.
Cameras will be fixed within the mosques as well as outside to ensure that all angles are covered in a bid to boost security and
ensure the safety of worshippers, particularly on Fridays, Saudi daily Okaz reported on Monday. The Ministry of Islamic Affairs is now working
on identifying the mosques where the surveillance cameras will be installed in the first phase of the massive project. The major mosques in all
provinces will be first on the list to be drawn up by the ministry. The decision follows two deadly attacks on two consecutive Fridays in two
mosques in the Eastern Province and an attack in a mosque in Kuwait on Friday. The three attacks were carried out by suicide bombers who
blew themselves up in their attempt to kill the highest number of worshippers. Two of the bombs were triggered inside mosques, while the
third attack happened just outside a mosque after the bomber’s attempt to enter the prayer hall was foiled.
Islamophobia is inherent, but the affirmative’s plan does not solve for it – IT DOES THE
OPPOSITE
Inter Islam 01, Inter-Islam, 1998-2001, Islamophobia, http://www.interislam.org/Miscellaneous/islamophobia.htm
Islamophobia is a very interesting term which has become more prevalent since the 11 September
terror strikes. Home minister John Denham referred to the term as a cancer. But what is
Islamophobia? It is the fear of Islam, a behaviour in some people when they hear about Islam. This
leads to the intolerance of Muslims because of their religion. It can be caused by the negative image
that is being portrayed of Islam. The impacts of Islamophobia have affected the global community
especially the Muslims. Ever since the events of 11 September, the intolerance of Muslims and hatred
towards them has escalated - there has been a big rise in physical attacks on Muslims in Britain
including attacks on places of worship. This includes men, women and children being harassed in the
streets, schools and at the work place. I have listed below some of the findings of the European
Monitoring Center on Racism and Xenophobia (EUMC) below:
(Examples of the attacks on Muslims in UK)





Windows smashed at Glasgow 's Central Mosque.
10 Pigs' heads left outside an Essex Mosque
Afghan Taxi driver paralysed in an attack during which the attacker referred to 11 September
Women and Children chased into own home by men who called them terrorists
Asian Woman attacked with a hammer on a train by a man who shouted: “You want killing for
what you did in America .”
How can we end the affects of Islamophobia? What measures need to be taken to tackle the
problem? What is the way forward? As a result of my research, I have discovered a number of issues
that I feel, are the key factors in fuelling Islamophobia. I will also present steps that I believe will be
effective in eliminating the cancer of Islamophobia.