Alec Stratton
SCFI 2013
Negative Case
Value: Morality
Value Criterion: Autonomy
Autonomy is necessary for morality, autonomy gives us the power to self
determine morals
Daniel Callahan, Senior Research Scholar and President Emeritus of the Center, Senior Lecturer at the Harvard Medical School and is now
a Senior Scholar at Yale. He received his B.A. from Yale and a Ph.D in philosophy from Harvard. 10/1986, A Moral Good, Not a Moral
Obsession, The Hastings Center, Vol. 14, No. 5, Autonomy, Paternalism, and Community, Date Accessed- 7/21/2013
A major attraction of the concept of autonomy is that it helps to establish moral independence. Not
only does it entail that, as an individual, I am to be treated by others as a moral end rather than a
moral means, it also requires that they allow me to pursue my own moral goods. Autonomy can thus
be understood as the basis for moral enfranchisement, establishing my standing as an equal in the
community and my liberty to pursue my own ends. In the context of medicine, it is a value that has served to establish the
rights of patients over physicians, and the right to be spared the paternalistic interventions of those who think they understand my welfare
better than I do. The
purpose of autonomy is to make me my own moral master. But if autonomy may serve me in
some fundamental ways, what would it be like to live in a community for which autonomy was the central value? What kind of a medical
practice might emerge with patient autonomy as the sole goal? Let me try to answer that question by first reviewing some of the benefits of
giving moral priority to autonomy. Among them are a recognition of the rights of individuals and of their personal dignity; the erection of a
powerful bulwark against moral and political despotism; a becoming humility about the sources or certainty of moral claims and demands;
and a foundation for the protection of unpopular people and causes against majoritarian domination. Those are powerful benefits, to be
meddled with only at our peril. Nonetheless, I believe that if autonomy is made the moral goal of a society, or of medical care within that
society, then we are equally at peril in our common life together.
Analysis: So what?
Removing autonomy makes moral action by US citizens impossible.
Autonomy is valuable because it allows moral actions to take place. By removing autonomy from United
States citizens, the United States essentially eliminates all possibly of moral action taken in the united
states. This is inherently immoral, because the action of removing autonomy destroys the possibility of
countless other moral actions.
Alec Stratton
SCFI 2013
Contention 1: Lack of Privacy Impacts Autonomy
In a world with spying we damage autonomy.
Ron Watson, Department of Political Science, Washington University., “The Ethics of Domestic Government Spying” March 2013¶
http://rewatson.wustl.edu/The%20Ethics%20of%20Domestic%20Government%20Spying.pdf
So widespread intuitions support the principle of just cause for Domestic Government Spying. Let us
turn to the¶ consequentialist case for just cause. The sophisticated consequentialist, I suggested in the¶
introduction, would endorse a simple set of principles for DGS. But which principles would¶ she
endorse? She obviously could not endorse a principle permitting all DGS, since the con-¶ sequences
would be dire. If government agents were always at liberty to spy, people could¶ not develop stable expectations about where,
when, and by whom they are being observed¶ without expending considerable resources on countermeasures, nor could they conceal their¶
personal information. People's enjoyment of goods requiring even a modicum of privacy¶ would rapidly diminish. People's autonomy
would be gravely threatened, since the pressures¶ to conform to social norms would be virtually
unchecked. The liberal democratic culture of¶ free thought, free speech, and free action would be
stifled.¶ Further, the benefits of such a permissive policy would be minimal. Some grave harms¶ might
be prevented. But permitting all spying is more likely to lead to ineffective and even¶ harmful spying.
Spying for political gain and to protect bureaucratic turfs, for example,¶ would likely be rampant.
Privacy is needed in order to retain autonomy
DANIEL J.
SOLOVE, 2002, Assistant Professor, Seton Hall Law School, DIGITAL DOSSIERS AND THE DISSIPATION OF FOURTH
AMENDMENT PRIVACY, http://www-bcf.usc.edu/~usclrev/pdf/075502.pdf
government information-gathering can severely constrain democracy and individual selfdetermination. Paul Schwartz illustrates this with his theory of “constitutive privacy.”99 According to Schwartz, privacy is essential
to both individuals and communities: “[C]onstitutive privacy seeks to create boundaries about
personal information to help the individual and define terms of life within the community.”100 As a form
of regulation of information flow, privacy shapes “the extent to which certain actions or expressions of identity
are encouraged or discouraged.”101 Schwartz contends that extensive government oversight over an
individual’s activities can “corrupt individual decision making about the elements of one’s identity.”
Further, inadequate protection of privacy threatens deliberative democracy by inhibiting people from
engaging in democratic activities. This can occur unintentionally; even if government entities are not
attempting to engage in social control, their activities can have collateral effects that harm democracy
and self-determination.
Invasions of privacy causes loss of autonomy, human dignity
Ron Watson, Department of Political Science, Washington University., “The Ethics of Domestic Government Spying” March 2013¶
http://rewatson.wustl.edu/The%20Ethics%20of%20Domestic%20Government%20Spying.pdf
This line of argument is supported by a further set of responses that people
might have¶ to learn how their government
regulates domestic spying. When principles unfairly or¶ unequally target certain groups, they can
demean, humiliate, and disrespect members of¶ those groups when they become public. Principles
can also have these effects if they signal¶ to people their chosen pursuits are unworthy, shameful, or
depraved. People's self-respect¶ often depends on the existence of spaces for action free from
Alec Stratton
SCFI 2013
government intrusion. Further,¶ when citizens worry that they are under covert observation by their
government, there are a¶ range of activities that can become less enjoyable because they are less
private. Finally, when¶ citizens suspect that the government spies on them, they may lose trust in their government¶ and its institutions
Contention 2: Digital Surveillance doesn’t stop terrorists
The US surveillance progams aren’t effective at stopping terrorists-they can’t gain access to
their covert communications.
Bershidsky, Leonid. Staff Editor. Jun 23, 2013. U.S. Surveillance Is Not Aimed at Terrorists.
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-06-23/u-s-surveillance-is-not-aimed-at-terrorists.html.
Accessed 7/16/2013.
“People
who radicalise under the influence of jihadist websites often go through a number of stages,” the Dutch
report said. “Their virtual activities increasingly shift to the invisible Web, their security awareness increases and their activities
become more conspiratorial.” ¶ Radicals who initially stand out on the “surface” Web quickly meet people, online or offline, who
drag them deeper into the Web underground. “For many, finally finding the jihadist core forums feels like a warm bath after
their virtual wanderings,” the report said. ¶ When information filters to the surface Web from the core forums, it’s
often by accident. Organizations such as al-Qaeda use the forums to distribute propaganda videos, which careless participants or their
friends might post on social networks or YouTube. ¶ Communication on the core forums is often encrypted. In 2012, a
French court found nuclear physicist Adlene Hicheur guilty of, among other things, conspiring to commit an act of terror for distributing and
using software called Asrar al-Mujahideen, or Mujahideen Secrets. The program employed various cutting-edge encryption methods,
including variable stealth ciphers and RSA 2,048-bit keys. ¶ The NSA’s Prism, according to a classified PowerPoint
presentation published by the Guardian, provides access to the systems of Microsoft Corp. (and therefore Skype), Facebook Inc., Google, Apple
Inc. and other U.S. Internet giants. Either these companies have provided “master keys” to decrypt their traffic - - which they deny -- or the NSA
complete access to these servers brings U.S. authorities no closer to the
core forums. These must be infiltrated by more traditional intelligence means, such as using agents posing as jihadists
or by informants within terrorist organizations. ¶ Similarly, monitoring phone calls is hardly the way to catch terrorists.
They’re generally not dumb enough to use Verizon. Granted, Russia’s special services managed to kill Chechen separatist
leader Dzhokhar Dudayev with a missile that homed in on his satellite-phone signal. That was in 1996. Modern-day terrorists are
generally more aware of the available technology. ¶ At best, the recent revelations concerning Prism and
has somehow found other means. Even
telephone surveillance might deter potential recruits to terrorist causes from using the most visible parts of the
Internet. Beyond that, the government’s efforts are much more dangerous to civil liberties than they
are to al-Qaeda and other organizations like it.
Encrypted communications are practically impossible to crack
Ou, Geore. 2006 (Network engineer. “Is encryption really crackable?”. 30 Apr. Accessed 17 July 13.
http://www.zdnet.com/blog/ou/is-encryption-really-crackable/204)
The problem is compounded by the fact that much of the misinformation out there actually sounds somewhat believable and many people just
don't know what to believe. So to settle this once and for all, let's look at the facts. One of the things that make these myths plausible is the fact
that "128-bit" WEP encryption used in 802.11 Wireless LANs is so pathetically weak. The inside scoop is that WEP was designed during the late
90s during a time when USA export laws were extremely tight. Fearing 802.11 devices would be banned by US export laws, good encryption
algorithms were deliberately passed up by the 802.11 group in favor of a weaker one. The WEP algorithm was fundamentally flawed and the
Alec Stratton
SCFI 2013
802.11 standards body knew full well that it wasn't a strong encryption algorithm when they selected it. However, WEP's glaring weaknesses
are not characteristic of any properly implemented symmetric encryption algorithms used in SSL or VPN implementations. To give you an idea
of how good something like DES is, DES
is 30 years old and no one has found any weakness or shortcut for cracking it yet
though it can be brute forced. Brute force techniques are considered impractical because modern encryption
algorithms are 128 to 256 bits long.¶ Further propelling the myth that encryption is worthless is that I often hear people saying
that they heard that a 512 bit RSA key was broken. The truth of the matter is that 512 bit (and recently even 660 bit) RSA keys have been
broken by the University of Bonn in Germany but that is has absolutely nothing to do with the type of encryption that's used for ordinary bulk
encryption. Furthermore, RSA's inventors were well aware of the fact that it takes a much larger key to be secure which is why typical
implementations are at a minimum 768 bits and can easily go up to 2048 bits and beyond. To give you an idea what it takes to
break an
RSA 1620 bit key, you would need a computer with 120 Terabytes of memory before you can even
think about attempting it and the memory requirement virtually rules out massively distributed
cracking methods. Some may ask why use RSA keys when it's many orders of magnitude slower and requires so many more bits to be
secure, the reason is that RSA encryption has the special property of being able to do secure key exchanges in plain sight of an adversary who is
trying to break in but still remain safe. For this reason, RSA keys are strictly used for the initial phases of a secure communication session for the
purpose of Authentication (where one entity proves who they are) and for secure key exchanges (used for bulk symmetric encryption). Once
the initial transaction is complete, the key that was exchanged during the initial RSA phase can now be used for SSL or VPN bulk encryption with
algorithms like RC5, 3DES, or AES.¶ The last big factor in encryption myths and bit size inflation is salesmen and marketers because bigger
numbers always sound nicer. I've had salesmen come in to my office and try to tell me that RSA or AES encryption was worthless and that I
should be using their product which uses some kind of 1000 bit wonder-crypto solution. All it takes is one company to try and out do their
competitors and pitch their products using 4096-bit RSA and the next company will come along and pitch 16384-bit RSA keys in their product.
Many IT consultants will shy away from quoting smaller bit sizes because they're afraid to be out done by their competitors. ¶ Ah, but what
about the dreaded massively distributed cracking brute force method for attacking something like 128 bit RC5 encryption? There
are
massive zombie farms of infected computers throughout the world and some may have gotten as big as 1 million
infected computers. What if that entire army was unleashed upon the commonly used 128 bit RC5
encryption? Surprisingly, the answer is not much. For the sake of argument, let's say we unleash 4.3 billion computers
for the purpose of distributed cracking. This means that it would be 4.3 billion or 2 to the 32 times faster than a single
computer. This means we could simply take 2 to the 128 combinations for 128-bit encryption and divide
it by 2 to the 32 which means that 2 to the 96 bits are left. With 96 bits left, it's still 4.3 billion times
stronger than 64 bit encryption. 64 bit encryption happens to be the world record for the biggest RC5
bit key cracked in 2002 which took nearly 5 years to achieve for a massive distributed attack. ¶ Now that
we know that the distributed attacks will only shave off a few bits, what about Moore's law which historically meant that computers roughly
doubled in speed every 18 months? That means in 48 years we can shave another 32 bits off the encryption armor which means 5 trillion future
computers might get lucky in 5 years to find the key for RC5 128-bit encryption. But with 256-bit AES encryption, that moves the date out
another 192 years before computers are predicted to be fast enough to even attempt a massively distributed attack. To
give you an
idea how big 256 bits is, it's roughly equal to the number of atoms in the universe!¶ Once some of these basic
facts on encryption become clear, "is encryption crackable" isn't the right question because the real question is "when can it be cracked and will
it matter then". This is just like Bank safes which are rated by the time it takes an attacker to crack it open and never sold as "uncrackable".
Encryption strength and the number of bits used are selected based on how many decades the data needs to be kept safe. For a secure ECommerce transaction, the data being transmitted is moot after a few decades which is why 128-bit encryption is perfectly suitable since it's
considered unbreakable for the next few decades. For top secret classified data that needs to remain secret for the next 100 years, the
Government uses NIST certified 256-bit AES encryption. So
the next time someone tells you that encryption is
crackable, ask him if he'll be around on this earth to see it demonstrated.
Alec Stratton
Analysis:
SCFI 2013
Because of the fact that violations of privacy make moral action by those observed
impossible, prioritizing national security over privacy directly links into destroying all semblance or
moral action in the entirety of the United States.