Thursday Mini-debate – Terror Disad
Explanations
Background information
We will select one person to be neg… and one person to Aff. Most of you will wind up judging the
debate – but it will help the discussion if everyone prepares for the debate.
For this exercise, it might make more sense to initially prepare to be neg. In fact, given that the 1NC and
2AC are already written for you (below), it probably makes the most sense to prepare as though you are
the 2NC.
Modified Speech times
This is a mini-debate – so the speech times will be shortened.
We will also add cross-ex – so think about some questions that you might ask.
We will ask the 1NC to read to politics shell (below) – and we won’t time it. But, we will ask the students
that were not selected to flow.
After the 1NC finishes, the Aff student will cross-ex for 90 seconds.
The 2AC will read the answers (also below). We won’t time this either – but we’ll again ask everyone to
flow.
After the 2AC ends. The Neg student will cross-ex for 90 seconds.
From that point forward – here are the times:
 2NC – up to five minutes. For this mini-debate, the 2NC only needs to address the politics
disad.
 Cx of 2NC – 90 seconds
 1AR – up to 2 minutes.
 2NR – up to 2:30
 2AR (if we decide to go this far) – up to 2:30
Details on the 1AC
In this hypothetical, the Affirmative plan was from the packet materials. The plan text reads:
Bulk collection of domestic metadata by United States federal intelligence agencies – including
internet, email, and Skype data - should cease.
In this hypothetical, the Affirmative opponent read two advantages from the packet:
 The Privacy advantage (longer version)
 Global Internet Freedom Advantage (econ version).
1NC Shell
Uniqueness – Domestic surveillance successfully checks terror incidents now. Prefer
longitudinal studies.
Boot ‘13
Max Boot is a Senior Fellow in National Security Studies at the Council on Foreign Relations. In 2004, he was named by the
World Affairs Councils of America as one of "the 500 most influential people in the United States in the field of foreign policy."
In 2007, he won the Eric Breindel Award for Excellence in Opinion Journalism. From 1992 to 1994 he was an editor and writer at
the Christian Science Monitor. Boot holds a bachelor's degree in history, with high honors, from the University of California,
Berkeley and a master's degree in history from Yale University. Boot has served as an adviser to U.S. commanders in Iraq and
Afghanistan. He is the published author of Invisible Armies: An Epic History of Guerrilla Warfare from Ancient Times to the
Present. From the article: “Stay calm and let the NSA carry on” - LA Times – June 9th http://articles.latimes.com/2013/jun/09/opinion/la-oe-boot-nsa-surveillance-20130609
After 9/11, there was a widespread expectation of many more terrorist attacks on the United States. So far that hasn't
happened. We haven't escaped entirely unscathed (see Boston Marathon, bombing of), but on the whole we have been a lot safer than most
security experts, including me, expected. In light of the current controversy over the National Security Agency's monitoring of telephone calls and
emails, it is worthwhile to ask: Why is that? It is certainly not due to any change of heart among our enemies.
Radical Islamists still want to kill American infidels. But the vast majority of the time, they fail. The Heritage Foundation estimated last year that
50 terror attacks on the American
ist
homeland had been foiled since 2001. Some, admittedly, failed through sheer incompetence on the part of the would-be terrorists. For instance, Faisal Shahzad, a Pakistani American
jihadist, planted a car bomb in Times Square in 2010 that started smoking before exploding, thereby alerting two New Yorkers who in turn called police, who were able to defuse it. But it would be naive to adduce all of our security
more attacks would have succeeded absent the ramped-up counter-terrorism efforts
undertaken by the U.S. intelligence community, the military and law enforcement. And a large element of the intelligence community's
success lies in its use of special intelligence — that is, communications intercepts. The CIA is notoriously deficient in human intelligence — infiltrating spies into terrorist
success to pure serendipity. Surely
organizations is hard to do, especially when we have so few spooks who speak Urdu, Arabic, Persian and other relevant languages. But the NSA is the best in the world at intercepting communications.
That is the
most important technical advantage we have in the battle against fanatical foes who will not
hesitate to sacrifice their lives to take ours. Which brings us to the current kerfuffle over two NSA monitoring programs that
have been exposed by the Guardian and the Washington Post. One program apparently collects metadata on all telephone calls made in the United States. Another program provides access
to all the emails, videos and other data found on the servers of major Internet firms such as Google, Apple and
Microsoft. At first blush these intelligence-gathering activities raise the specter of Big Brother snooping on ordinary American
citizens who might be cheating on their spouses or bad-mouthing the president. In fact, there are considerable safeguards built into both programs
to ensure that doesn't happen. The phone-monitoring program does not allow the NSA to listen in on
conversations without a court order. All that it can do is to collect information on the time, date and
destination of phone calls. It should go without saying that it would be pretty useful to know if someone in the U.S. is calling a number in Pakistan or Yemen that is used by a terrorist organizer. As for
the Internet-monitoring program, reportedly known as PRISM, it is apparently limited to "non-U.S. persons" who are abroad and thereby enjoy no constitutional protections. These are hardly rogue operations. Both programs were
initiated by President George W. Bush and continued by President Obama with the full knowledge and support of Congress and continuing oversight from the federal judiciary. That's why the leaders of both the House and Senate
intelligence committees, Republicans and Democrats alike, have come to the defense of these activities.
It's possible that, like all government programs, these could be
abused — see, for example, the IRS making life tough on tea partiers. But there is no evidence of abuse so far and plenty of evidence —
in the lack of successful terrorist attacks — that these programs have been effective in disrupting terrorist plots. Granted there is something inherently
creepy about Uncle Sam scooping up so much information about us. But Google, Facebook, Amazon, Twitter, Citibank and other companies know at least as much about us, because they use very similar data-mining programs to
track our online movements. They gather that information in order to sell us products, and no one seems to be overly alarmed. The NSA is gathering that information to keep us safe from terrorist attackers. Yet somehow its actions
have become a "scandal," to use a term now loosely being tossed around. The real scandal here is that the Guardian and Washington Post are compromising our national security by telling our enemies about our intelligencegathering capabilities. Their news stories reveal, for example, that only nine Internet companies share information with the NSA. This is a virtual invitation to terrorists to use other Internet outlets for searches, email, apps and all
to stop or scale back the NSA's special intelligence efforts would amount to
unilateral disarmament in a war against terrorism that is far from over.
the rest. No intelligence effort can ever keep us 100% safe, but
(Note to students: a “longitudinal study” is research carried out over an extended period of time. In this
case, several years.)
Link – curtailing surveillance boosts terror risks. That risk’s serious and
underestimated.
Lewis ‘14
James Andrew Lewis is a senior fellow and director of the Strategic Technologies Program at the Center for Strategic and
International Studies in Washington, D.C., where he writes on technology, security, and the international economy. Before
joining CSIS, he worked at the US Departments of State and Commerce as a Foreign Service officer and as a member of the
Senior Executive Service. His diplomatic experience included negotiations on military basing in Asia, the Cambodia peace
process, and the five-power talks on arms transfer restraint. Lewis received his Ph.D. from the University of Chicago.
“Underestimating Risk in the Surveillance Debate” - CENTER FOR STRATEGIC & INTERNATIONAL STUDIES - STRATEGIC
TECHNOLOGIES PROGRAM – December - http://csis.org/publication/underestimating-risk-surveillance-debate
Americans are reluctant to accept terrorism is part of their daily lives, but attacks have been planned or
attempted against American targets (usually airliners or urban areas) almost every year since 9/11. Europe faces even
greater risk, given the thousands of European Union citizens who will return hardened and radicalized from fighting in Syria and Iraq. The threat of attack
is easy to exaggerate, but that does not mean it is nonexistent. Australia’s then-attorney general said in August 2013 that
communications surveillance had stopped four “mass casualty events” since 2008. The constant planning and preparation for attack by terrorist groups is not
apparent to the public. The
dilemma in assessing risk is that it is discontinuous. There can be long periods with
no noticeable activity, only to have the apparent calm explode. The debate over how to reform
surveillance has discounted this risk. Communications surveillance is an essential law
enforcement and intelligence tool. There is no replacement for it. Some suggestions for alternative
communications
approaches to surveillance, such as the idea that the National Security Agency (NSA) only track known or suspected terrorists,
reflect wishful thinking, as it is the unknown terrorist who will inflict the greatest harm.
Vigilance link - Strong intel gathering’s key to discourages initiation of BW attacks.
Pittenger ‘14
US Rep. Robert Pittenger, chair of Congressional Task Force on Terrorism, “Bipartisan bill on NSA data collection protects both
privacy and national security” - Washington Examiner, 6/9/14, http://washingtonexaminer.com/rep.-robert-pittengerbipartisan-bill-on-nsa-data-collection-protects-both-privacy-and-nationalsecurity/article/2549456?custom_click=rss&utm_campaign=Weekly+Standard+Story+Box&utm_source=weeklystandard.com&
utm_medium=referral
This February, I took
that question to a meeting of European Ambassadors at the Organization for Security and Cooperation in
Europe. During the conference, I asked three questions: 1. What is the current worldwide terrorist threat? 2. What is America’s role in addressing and mitigating this
threat? 3. What
role does intelligence data collection play in this process, given the multiple platforms for attack
including physical assets, cyber, chemical, biological , nuclear and the electric grid? Each ambassador
acknowledged the threat was greater today than before 9/11, with al Qaeda and other extreme Islamist terrorists
stronger, more sophisticated, and having a dozen or more training camps throughout the Middle East and
Africa. As to the role of the United States, they felt our efforts were primary and essential for peace and
security around the world. Regarding the intelligence-gathering, their consensus was, “We want privacy,
but we must have your intelligence .” As a European foreign minister stated to me, “Without U.S. intelligence, we are blind.” We
cannot yield to those loud but misguided voices who view the world as void of the deadly and destructive
intentions of unrelenting terrorists. The number of terrorism-related deaths worldwide doubled between 2012 and
2013, jumping from 10,000 to 20,000 in just one year. Now is not the time to stand down. Those who embrace an altruistic
worldview should remember that vigilance and strength have deterred our enemies in the past.
That same commitment is required today to defeat those who seek to destroy us and our way of life. We must
make careful, prudent use of all available technology to counter their sophisticated operations if we are to maintain our
freedom and liberties.
Bioterror attacks cause extinction
Mhyrvold ‘13
Nathan, Began college at age 14, BS and Masters from UCLA, Masters and PhD, Princeton “Strategic Terrorism: A Call to
Action,” Working Draft, The Lawfare Research Paper Series Research paper NO . 2 – 2013
As horrible as this would be, such a pandemic is by no means the worst attack one can imagine, for several reasons. First, most
of the classic
bioweapons are based on 1960s and 1970s technology because the 1972 treaty halted bioweapons
development efforts in the United States and most other Western countries. Second, the Russians, although solidly
committed to biological weapons long after the treaty deadline, were never on the cutting edge of biological research. Third and most important, the
science
and technology of molecular biology have made enormous advances, utterly transforming the field in the last
few decades. High school biology students routinely perform molecular-biology manipulations that would
have been impossible even for the best superpower-funded program back in the heyday of biologicalweapons research. The biowarfare methods of the 1960s and 1970s are now as antiquated as the
lumbering mainframe computers of that era. Tomorrow’s terrorists will have vastly more deadly bugs to
choose from. Consider this sobering development: in 2001, Australian researchers working on mousepox, a nonlethal virus that infects mice (as chickenpox
does in humans), accidentally discovered that a simple genetic modification transformed the virus.10, 11 Instead of producing mild symptoms, the new virus killed
60% of even those mice already immune to the naturally occurring strains of mousepox. The new virus, moreover, was unaffected by any existing vaccine or
antiviral drug. A team of researchers at Saint Louis University led by Mark Buller picked up on that work and, by late 2003, found a way to improve on it: Buller’s
variation on mousepox was 100% lethal, although his team of investigators also devised combination vaccine and antiviral therapies that
were partially effective in protecting animals from the engineered strain.12, 13 Another saving grace is that the genetically altered virus is no
longer contagious. Of course, it is quite possible that future tinkering with the virus will change that
property, too. Strong reasons exist to believe that the genetic modifications Buller made to mousepox would work
for other poxviruses and possibly for other classes of viruses as well. Might the same techniques allow chickenpox or another poxvirus
that infects humans to
be turned into a 100% lethal bioweapon, perhaps one that is resistant to any known antiviral therapy?
I’ve asked this question of experts many times, and no one has yet replied that such a manipulation
couldn’t be done. This case is just one example. Many more are pouring out of scientific journals and conferences every
year. Just last year, the journal Nature published a controversial study done at the University of Wisconsin–Madison in which virologists enumerated the changes
one would need to make to a highly lethal strain of bird flu to make it easily transmitted from one mammal to another.14 Biotechnology
is advancing
so rapidly that it is hard to keep track of all the new potential threats . Nor is it clear that anyone is even trying. In addition to
lethality and drug resistance, many other parameters can be played with, given that the infectious power of an
epidemic depends on many properties, including the length of the latency period during which a person is
contagious but asymptomatic. Delaying the onset of serious symptoms allows each new case to spread to more
people and thus makes the virus harder to stop. This dynamic is perhaps best illustrated by HIV , which is very
difficult to transmit compared with smallpox and many other viruses. Intimate contact is needed, and even then, the infection rate is low. The
balancing
factor is that HIV can take years to progress to AIDS , which can then take many more years to kill the
victim. What makes HIV so dangerous is that infected people have lots of opportunities to infect others. This property has allowed HIV to claim more than 30
million lives so far, and approximately 34 million people are now living with this virus and facing a highly uncertain future.15 A
virus genetically
engineered to infect its host quickly, to generate symptoms slowly —say, only after weeks or months—and to spread easily
vastly more devastating than HIV . It could silently
penetrate the population to unleash its deadly effects suddenly . This type of epidemic would be
through the air or by casual contact would be
almost impossible to combat because most of the infections would occur before the epidemic became obvious.
A technologically sophisticated terrorist group could develop such a virus and kill a large part of humanity with
it. Indeed, terrorists may not have to develop it themselves: some scientist may do so first and publish the details. Given the
rate at which biologists are making discoveries about viruses and the immune system, at some point in the
near future, someone may create
artificial pathogens that could drive the human race to
extinction . Indeed, a detailed species-elimination plan of this nature was openly proposed in a scientific
journal. The ostensible purpose of that particular research was to suggest a way to extirpate the malaria mosquito, but similar
techniques could be directed toward humans.16 When I’ve talked to molecular biologists about this method, they are quick to point out that it
is slow and easily detectable and could be fought with biotech remedies. If you challenge them to come up with improvements to the suggested attack plan,
however, they have plenty of ideas. Modern
biotechnology will soon be capable, if it is not already, of
bringing about
the demise of the human race — or at least of killing a sufficient number of people to end high-tech
civilization and set humanity back 1,000 years or more. That terrorist groups could achieve this level of technological sophistication
may seem far-fetched, but keep in mind that it takes only a handful of individuals to accomplish these tasks. Never has lethal power of this potency been accessible
to so few, so easily. Even more dramatically than nuclear proliferation, modern biological science has frighteningly undermined the correlation between the lethality
of a weapon and its cost, a fundamentally stabilizing mechanism throughout history. Access to extremely lethal agents—lethal enough to exterminate Homo
sapiens—will be available to anybody with a solid background in biology, terrorists included.
The Disad turns the case via rollback and new civil liberty violations. Status Quo
detection is key.
Clarke ‘13
(et al; This is the Final Report and Recommendations of The President’s Review Group on Intelligence and Communications
Technologies. President Obama ordered a blue-ribbon task force to review domestic surveillance. This report releases the
findings of that group. The report was headed by five experts – including Richard Alan Clarke, who is the former National
Coordinator for Security, Infrastructure Protection, and Counter-terrorism for the United States. Other expert contributors
include Michael Joseph Morell, who was the deputy director of the Central Intelligence Agency and served as acting director
twice in 2011 and from 2012 to 2013 and Cass Robert Sunstein, who was the Administrator of the White House Office of
Information and Regulatory Affairs in the Obama administration and is currently a Professor of Law at Harvard Law School.
“LIBERTY AND SECURITY IN A CHANGING WORLD” – December 12th, 2013 – Easily obtained via a google search.
https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=1&cad=rja&uact=8&ved=0CB4QFjAA&url=https%3A%2F
2Fwww.whitehouse.gov%2Fsites%2Fdefault%2Ffiles%2Fdocs%2F2013-12
12_rg_final_report.pdf&ei=Db0yVdDjKIKdNtTXgZgE&usg=AFQjCNH0S_Fo9dckL9bRarVpi4M6pq6MQ&bvm=bv.91071109,d.eXY)
The September 11 attacks were a vivid demonstration of the need for detailed information about the
activities of potential terrorists. This was so for several reasons. First, some information, which could have been useful, was
not collected and other information, which could have helped to prevent the attacks, was not shared among departments. Second, the scale of damage that 21st-century terrorists can inflict is far greater than
anything that their predecessors could have imagined. We are no longer dealing with threats from firearms and conventional explosives, but with the
possibility of
w
eapons of
m d
ass
estruction,
including nuclear devices and biological and chemical agents. The damage that such attacks could inflict on the nation,
measured in terms of loss of life, economic and social disruption, and the consequent sacrifice of civil liberties, is extraordinary. The events of September 11 brought this home with crystal clarity. Third, 21st-century terrorists
operate within a global communications network that enables them both to hide their existence from outsiders and to communicate with one another across continents at the speed of light. Effective safeguards against terrorist
attacks require the technological capacity to ferret out such communications in an international communications grid. Fourth, many of the international terrorists that the United States and other nations confront today cannot
realistically be deterred by the fear of punishment. The conventional means of preventing criminal conduct—the fear of capture and subsequent punishment—has relatively little role to play in combating some contemporary
terrorists. Unlike the situation during the Cold War, in which the Soviet Union was deterred from launching a nuclear strike against the United States in part by its fear of a retaliatory counterattack, the terrorist enemy in the 21stcentury is not a nation state against which the United States and its allies can retaliate with the same effectiveness. In such circumstances, detection in advance is essential in any effort to “provide for the common defence.” Fifth,
the threat of massive terrorist attacks involving nuclear, chemical, or biological weapons can generate a chilling and destructive environment of fear and anxiety among our nation’s citizens.
If Americans came
to believe that we are infiltrated by enemies we cannot identify and who have the power to bring death, destruction, and chaos to our lives on a massive scale, and that preventing
such attacks is beyond the capacity of our government , the quality of national life would be
greatly imperiled. Indeed, if a similar or even more devastating attack were to occur in the future, there would almost
surely be an impulse to increase the use of surveillance technology to prevent further strikes, despite the potentially
corrosive effects on individual freedom and self-governance.
2AC frontline for practice speeches
( ) Empirically false – 215 program once temporarily ENDED. That didn’t cause the
disad – neither will the Aff.
Globe and Mail ‘15
Globe editorial – “The end of US ‘bulk telephony collection,’ and the lessons for Canada” - The Globe and Mail - Jun. 14, 2015 http://www.theglobeandmail.com/globe-debate/editorials/the-end-of-us-bulk-telephony-collection-and-the-lessons-forcanada/article24948261/
For a few days, there was a happily yawning gap in the U.S. N ational S ecurity A gency ’s ability to surveil
American citizens. Congress could not agree on how – or whether – to renew the section of the foolishly
named Patriot Act that had allowed the government to scoop up and hold all the metadata (identifying both callers
and addressees) of all cellphone calls in the U.S. The Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court would then grant or, at least sometimes, not grant,
access to the actual contents of the conversations – in other words, a search warrant. The
upshot – under the new U.S.A. Freedom
Act (officially, the “Uniting and Strengthening America by Fulfilling Rights and Ensuring Effective Discipline Over Monitoring Act of 2015”) – is
that phone companies, not the NSA and the FBI, will record and store all the metadata for all phone calls. Those agencies
will no longer be able to get at that kind of data at will, indiscriminately. The security agencies will have to apply to the FISC court for metadata,
There is, by the way, no sign that terrorists
attacked the United States in the unsurveilled interval between the Patriot Act
section and the Freedom Act.
too. That’s progress, though FISC may be a bit of a rubber stamp.
( ) US losing the war on terror
Miller ‘15
Internally quoting Director of National Intelligence James R. Clapper Jr. - Greg Miller - Intelligence reporter for the Washington
Post; former national security correspondent for the Los Angeles Times and co-author of The Interrogators: Inside the Secret
War against al Qaeda - “In campaign against terrorism, U.S. enters period of pessimism and gloom” – Washington Post - March
7 - http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/in-campaign-against-terrorism-us-enters-period-of-pessimismand-gloom/2015/03/07/ca980380-c1bc-11e4-ad5c-3b8ce89f1b89_story.html
In congressional testimony recently, Director of National Intelligence James R. Clapper Jr. went beyond the usual litany of threats to say that terrorism
trend lines were worse “than at any other point in history.” Maj. Gen. Michael Nagata, commander of U.S.
Special Operations forces in the Middle East, told participants on a counter-terrorism strategy call that he regarded the Islamic State as a greater menace than alQaeda ever was. Speaking at a New York police terrorism conference, Michael Morell, former deputy director of the CIA, said he had come to doubt that he would
live to see the end of al-Qaeda and its spawn. “This is long term,” he said. “My children’s generation and my grandchildren’s generation will still be fighting this
fight.” The
assessments reflect a pessimism that has descended on the U.S. counterterrorism community
over the past year amid a series of discouraging developments. Among them are the growth of the Islamic
State, the ongoing influx of foreign fighters into Syria, the collapse of the U.S.-backed government in Yemen and the downward
spiral of Libya’s security situation. The latest complication came Saturday, when the terrorist group Boko Haram in Nigeria carried out a series of suicide
bombings and reportedly declared its allegiance to the Islamic State. Unlike the waves of anxiety that accompanied the emergence of new terrorist plots over the
past decade, the latest shift in mood seems more deep-seated. U.S. officials depict a bewildering landscape in which al-Qaeda and the brand of Islamist militancy it
inspired have not only survived 14 years of intense counterterrorism operations but have also spread. Officials emphasize that their campaign has accomplished
critical goals. In particular, most officials and experts now see the risk of a Sept. 11-scale attack as infinitesimal, beyond the reach of al-Qaeda and its scattered
affiliates. Still, the
adjusted outlook contrasts sharply with the surge of optimism that followed the killing of Osama
bin Laden in 2011 and the dawn of the Arab Spring, which was initially seen as a political awakening across the Middle East that might render al-Qaeda and its
archaic ideology irrelevant. Within months of bin Laden’s death, then-Defense Secretary Leon E. Panetta said he was convinced “that we’re within reach of
strategically defeating al-Qaeda.” President Obama echoed that view in subsequent years by saying that al-Qaeda was on “a path to defeat” and, more recently,
that the then-nascent Islamic State was analogous to a junior varsity sports team. Such
upbeat characterizations have all but
evaporated.
( ) Turn – Arab-American coop:
o mass surveillance kills law enforcement coop with US-Arab Americans –
that’s key to check terror.
Risen ‘14
(Internally quoting Vanda Felbab-Brown, a senior fellow on foreign policy at the Brookings Institution. Tom Risen is a reporter
for U.S. News & World Report. “Racial Profiling Reported in NSA, FBI Surveillance” - U.S. News & World Report - July 9, 2014 http://www.usnews.com/news/articles/2014/07/09/racial-profiling-reported-in-nsa-fbi-surveillance)
The National Security Agency and the FBI have reportedly been overzealous trying to prevent terrorist attacks to the point
that anti-Islamic racism in those agencies led to the surveillance of prominent Muslim-Americans,
revealing a culture of racial profiling and broad latitude for spying on U.S. citizens. An NSA document leaked by
former agency contractor Edward Snowden to reporter Glenn Greenwald shows 202 Americans targeted among the approximately 7,485 email addresses
monitored between 2002 and 2008, Greenwald’s news service The Intercept reports. To monitor Americans, government agencies must first make the case to the
Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court that there is probable cause that the targets are terrorist agents, foreign spies or “are or may be” abetting sabotage,
espionage or terrorism. Despite this filter The Intercept identified five Muslim-Americans with high public profile including civil rights leaders, academics, lawyers
and a political candidate. Racial profiling of Muslims by security officers has been a controversy since the terrorist attacks of 2001 spiked fears about al-Qaida
trainees preparing more attacks. The New York Police Department has disbanded its unit that mapped New York’s Muslim communities that designated surveillance
of mosques as “terrorism enterprise investigations” after pressure from the Justice Department about aggressive monitoring by police. A 2005 FBI memo about
surveillance procedures featured in The Intercept story uses a fake name “Mohammed Raghead” for the agency staff exercise. This latest report about email
surveillance of successful Muslim-Americans is akin to “McCarthyism” that fed paranoia about communist spies during the Cold War, says Reza Aslan, a professor at
the University of California, Riverside. “The
notion that these five upstanding American citizens, all of them prominent public individuals,
represent a threat to the U.S. for no other reason than their religion is an embarrassment to the FBI and an
affront to the constitution,” Aslan says. There is a risk of radicalization among citizens Americans, evidenced by some who have gone to
fight jihads in Syria and Somalia, but mass shootings carried out by U.S. citizens of various racial backgrounds occurs much more often, says Vanda
Felbab-Brown, a senior fellow on foreign policy at the Brookings Institution. Since 1982, there have been at least 70 mass
shootings across the U.S. “We
have seen very little domestic terrorism in the U.S.,” Felbab-Brown says. This lack of
terrorism is due in part to the willingness of the Islamic community to cooperate with
law enforcement to identify possible radical threats , out of gratitude that the U.S. is a stable, secure country
compared with the Middle East, she says. “ That could go sour if law enforcement becomes too aggressive, too
extreme ,” she says.
o The turn’s unique – relations are low now. We also control the vital internal
link:
Ramirez ‘4
(et al; Deborah A. Ramirez, Professor of Law at Northeastern University. She holds a JD from Harvard University, "Developing
partnerships between law enforcement and American Muslim, Arab, and Sikh communities: a promising practices guide"
(2004). Partnering for Prevention & Community Safety Initiative Publications. Paper 4. http://hdl.handle.net/2047/d20004127)
For all these reasons, in a post-September 11th world, it
is critical for law enforcement and the Muslim, Arab, and Sikh
communities in this country to strengthen their relationships. Historically, these relationships have not
existed in any significant way. Prior to September 11th, law enforcement primarily focused their community policing efforts on
other communities of color – Latinos, Asians, African-Americans, etc. Similarly, hate crime enforcement efforts mostly focused on crimes
against the gay community, Jews, Latinos, Asians and African-Americans. Consequently few state, local or federal law enforcement agencies
had any significant contact with the Arab, Muslim, or Sikh communities prior to September of 2001. It is the premise of the Partnering for
Prevention and Community Safety Initiative that Americans
will only truly be safe from terrorist attacks when law
enforcement agencies adopts a strategy focused on building trust and strengthening relationships with
the Muslim, Arab, and Sikh communities. This paradigm is not only more consistent with our
constitutional ideals, it also represents our best hope for securing our homeland.
( ) No link – targeted warrants, which plan allows, solve the terror disad just as well.
Wyden ‘14
(et al; This amicus brief issued by three US Senators - Ron Wyden, Mark Udall and Martin Heinrich. Wyden and Udall sat on the
Senate Select Committee on Intelligence and had access to the meta-data program. “BRIEF FOR AMICI CURIAE SENATOR RON
WYDEN, SENATOR MARK UDALL, AND SENATOR MARTIN HEINRICH IN SUPPORT OF PLAINTIFF-APPELLANT, URGING REVERSAL
OF THE DISTRICT COURT” – Amicus Brief for Smith v. Obama – before the United States Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals - Appeal
from the United States District Court District of Idaho The Honorable B. Lynn Winmill, Chief District Judge, Presiding Case No.
2:13-cv-00257-BLW – Sept 9th, 2014 – This Amicus Brief was prepared by CHARLES S. SIMS from the law firm PROSKAUER ROSE
LLP. Amici” means “friend of the court” and – in this context - is legal reference to Wyden, Udall, etc. This pdf can be obtained
at: https://www.eff.org/document/wyden-udall-heinrich-smith-amicus)
As members of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, amici Senators Wyden and Udall have for years
participated in the oversight of government surveillance conducted under the Patriot Act that they knew would astonish
most Americans. They sought to warn the public about those activities as best they could without disclosing classified information. They also co-sponsored an
amendment to the Patriot Act’s reauthorization that sought to address the problem of government officials “secretly reinterpret[ing] public laws and statutes” and
“describ[ing] the execution of these laws in a way that misinforms or misleads the public.” See 157 Cong. Rec. S3360 (daily ed. May 25, 2011) (introducing SA 384 to
S. 990, 112th Cong. § 3 (2011)); see also 157 Cong. Rec. S3386 (daily ed. May 26, 2011) (statement of Sen. Wyden) (“The fact is anyone can read the plain text of the
PATRIOT Act. Yet many Members of Congress have no idea how the law is being secretly interpreted by the executive branch.”); 157 Cong. Rec. S3258 (daily ed. May
24, 2011) (statement of Sen. Udall) (“Congress is granting powers to the executive branch that lead to abuse, and, frankly, shield the executive branch from
accountability”). Now that the government’s bulk call-records program has been documented and exposed, the
executive branch has retreated
from frequently repeated claims about its necessity and expressed an intent to end government bulk collection under section 215. Press Release,
FACT SHEET: The Administration’s Proposal for Ending the Section 215 Bulk Telephony Metadata Program (Mar. 27, 2014), http://www.whitehouse.gov/the-pressoffice/2014/03/27/fact-sheet-administration-s-proposal-ending-section-215-bulk-telephony-m (“White House Press Release”). While Senators Udall, Heinrich and
Wyden broadly support a policy aimed at ending the government’s indiscriminate collection of telephony metadata, they share a concern that there is no plan to
suspend the bulk collection of Americans’ phone records in the absence of new legislation, which is not necessarily imminent. Meanwhile, the government
continues to defend its bulk call-record collection program vigorously against statutory and constitutional challenges in the courts. Amici
submit this
brief to respond to the government’s argument that its collection of bulk call records is necessary to defend the nation
against terrorist attacks. Amici make one central point: as members of the committee charged with overseeing the
National Security Agency’s surveillance, amici have reviewed this surveillance extensively and have seen no evidence that the bulk
collection of Americans’ phone records has provided any intelligence of value that could not have been gathered
through means that caused far less harm to the privacy interests of millions of Americans. The government has at its disposal a
number of authorities that allow it to obtain the call records of suspected terrorists and those in contact with suspected terrorists. It appears to amici that these
more targeted authorities could have been used to obtain the information that the government has
publicly claimed was crucial in a few important counterterrorism cases.
( ) Bioterror risk is low and wouldn’t kill many people anyway.
Keller 13
(Rebecca, 7 March 2013, Analyst at Stratfor, “Bioterrorism and the Pandemic Potential,” Stratfor,
http://www.stratfor.com/weekly/bioterrorism-and-pandemic-potential)
The risk of
an accidental release of H5N1 is similar to that of other infectious pathogens currently being
studied. Proper safety standards are key, of course, and experts in the field have had a year to determine
the best way to proceed, balancing safety and research benefits. Previous work with the virus was conducted at
biosafety level three out of four, which requires researchers wearing respirators and disposable gowns to work in pairs in a negative pressure
environment. While many of these labs are part of universities, access is controlled either through keyed entry or even palm scanners. There
are roughly 40 labs that submitted to the voluntary ban. Those wishing to resume work after the ban was lifted must comply with guidelines
requiring strict national oversight and close communication and collaboration with national authorities. The
risk of release either
through accident or theft cannot be completely eliminated, but given the established parameters the
risk is minimal . The use of the pathogen as a biological weapon requires an assessment of whether a
non-state actor would have the capabilities to isolate the virulent strain, then weaponize and distribute
it. Stratfor has long held the position that while terrorist organizations may have rudimentary capabilities regarding
biological weapons, the likelihood of a successful attack is very low . Given that the laboratory
version of H5N1 -- or any influenza virus, for that matter -- is a contagious pathogen, there would be two
possible modes that a non-state actor would have to instigate an attack. The virus could be refined and
then aerosolized and released into a populated area, or an individual could be infected with the virus
and sent to freely circulate within a population. There are severe constraints that make success using
either of these methods unlikely. The technology needed to refine and aerosolize a pathogen for a
biological attack is beyond the capability of most non-state actors. Even if they were able to develop a
weapon, other factors such as wind patterns and humidity can render an attack ineffective. Using a
human carrier is a less expensive method, but it requires that the biological agent be a contagion. Additionally,
in order to infect the large number of people necessary to start an outbreak, the infected carrier must
be mobile while contagious, something that is doubtful with a serious disease like small pox. The
carrier also cannot be visibly ill because that would limit the necessary human contact.
( ) Terrorist can’t obtain and correctly deploy bioweapons
Ouagrham-Gormley 14
Sonia Ben Ouagrham-Gormley is Assistant Professor of Public and International Affairs at George Mason University. She worked
for a decade at the Monterey Institute for International Studies. She was for two years research director of the James Martin
Center for Nonproliferation Studies office in Kazakhstan and was founding editor of the International Export Control Observer,
Cornell University Press, November 2014, “Barriers to Bioweapons”,
http://www.cornellpress.cornell.edu/book/?GCOI=80140100857780
In both the popular imagination and among lawmakers and national security experts, there exists the belief that with sufficient
motivation and material resources, states or terrorist groups can produce bioweapons easily, cheaply,
and successfully. In Barriers to Bioweapons, Sonia Ben Ouagrham-Gormley challenges this perception by showing that bioweapons
development is a
difficult , protracted , and expensive endeavor, rarely achieving the expected results
whatever the magnitude of investment. Her findings are based on extensive interviews she conducted with former U.S.
and Soviet-era bioweapons scientists and on careful
analysis of archival data and other historical documents related to various state and terrorist
bioweapons programs. Bioweapons development relies on living
organisms that are sensitive to their environment and handling
conditions, and therefore behave unpredictably. These features place a greater premium on specialized
knowledge. Ben Ouagrham-Gormley posits that lack of access to such intellectual capital constitutes the greatest barrier to
the making of bioweapons. She integrates theories drawn from economics, the sociology of science, organization, and management with her empirical
research. The resulting theoretical framework rests on the idea that the pace and success of a bioweapons development program can be measured by its ability to
ensure the creation and transfer of scientific and technical knowledge. The
specific organizational, managerial, social, political,
and economic conditions necessary for success are difficult to achieve, particularly in covert programs where
the need to prevent detection imposes managerial and organizational conditions that conflict with knowledge production.
No rollback — Boston bombing proves fear won’t spike out of control.
Hayes 13
Danny Hayes, associate professor of political science at George Washington University, focusing on political communication and
political behavior; co-author of Influence from Abroad, a book about Americans' views toward U.S. foreign policy, 2013 (“Why
the Boston Marathon bombing won’t erode civil liberties,” Wonkblog, The Washington Post, April 28 th, Available Online at
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/wonkblog/wp/2013/04/28/why-the-boston-maraton-bombing-wont-erode-civilliberties/, Accessed 06-21-2013)
From the moment that Boston bombing suspect Dzhokhar Tsarnaev was pulled out of a boat in Watertown, Mass., the
debate over civil liberties and domestic anti-terrorism policies, largely dormant in recent years, was reignited. Noting that “the
homeland is the battlefield,” Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) urged the Obama administration to designate Tsarnaev, an American citizen, as an enemy combatant.
Civil liberties groups then objected when authorities decided not to read Miranda rights to the Boston Marathon bombing suspect, invoking a public safety
exception. Speculation also arose
that police might now find it easier to persuade the public to support the use of
surveillance technology and domestic drones. “After Boston,” Ryan Gallagher wrote this week in Slate, “the balance in the struggle between privacy
and security may swing back in their favor.” But research conducted shortly after 9/11, combined with some recent polling
data, suggests that Americans may be unlikely to trade civil liberties for a greater sense of security as a
result of the bombing. That’s because the attack hasn’t made the public significantly more fearful of
future domestic terrorism, and because trust in government is low . After 9/11, concern over terrorism
skyrocketed. In a Gallup survey fielded in the days before the attack, less than one-half of one percent of Americans said terrorism was the country’s most
important problem. But in October 2001, 46 percent did. These worries boosted support for legislation, such as the USA PATRIOT Act,
that expanded law enforcement’s power to investigate suspected terrorism, even as those measures were criticized for eroding civil liberties protections. In a survey
conducted between November 2001 and January 2002, political scientists Darren Davis and Brian Silver designed a series of questions to explore the tradeoffs
between security and civil liberties. They began by asking people whether they agreed more with the statement that “in order to curb terrorism in this country, it
will be necessary to give up some civil liberties” or that “we should preserve our freedoms above all, even if there remains some risk of terrorism.” Forty-five
percent of Americans chose the first option, indicating a willingness to give up some freedoms in exchange for greater security. When respondents were asked
about the tradeoffs involving specific measures, there was wide variation. Davis and Silver found that very few Americans – eight percent – believed that the
government should have the power to investigate people who participate in nonviolent protests. And just 18 percent said they supported racial profiling. But when
asked, for instance, whether they agreed that “high school teachers have the right to criticize America’s policies toward terrorism” or that “high school teachers
should defend America’s policies in order to promote loyalty to our country,” 60 percent said teachers should back the government. Perhaps not surprisingly, the
biggest influence on whether people were willing to offer pro-security over pro-civil liberties responses was their fear of a second attack. Respondents who believed
another terrorist act was imminent were more likely to support tradeoffs in favor of security. Importantly, Davis and Silver found that the relationship was strongest
among people who expressed high levels of political trust: People who believe the government typically does the right thing and who were fearful of another
terrorist attack were the most willing to relinquish civil liberties protections. Those findings are consistent with a series of studies by Stanley Feldman, Leonie Huddy
and their colleagues at Stony Brook University. In one survey conducted between October 2001 and March 2002, the researchers found that 86 percent of
Americans said they were “very” or “somewhat” concerned about another domestic terrorist act. The greater the concern, the more likely respondents were to
support the use of government-issued ID cards and allowing authorities to monitor phone calls and e-mail. But in
contrast to 9/11, polling since
the Boston Marathon suggests that the bombing has made Americans only slightly more fearful of future
terrorist attacks than they were beforehand. Fifty-eight percent of respondents in a Pew poll conducted April 18-21 said they were “very” or
“somewhat” worried about another attack on the United States. That was no higher, however, than when the same question was asked in November 2010. And it
was significantly lower than the 71 percent who said they were worried in October 2001. A slightly different question in a Washington Post poll taken April 17-18
found that 69 percent of Americans said that the possibility of a major terrorist attack worried them either “a great deal” or “somewhat.” That figure was only a few
percentage points higher than when the same question was asked in 2007 and 2008. In
addition, political trust is lower today than it
was in 2001, when public confidence in government rose sharply after the terrorist attacks. If Davis and Silver’s findings are
correct, then greater
skepticism of government – produced in part by the struggling economy – should limit the public’s
willingness to give law enforcement more latitude . Ultimately, the scope of the Boston tragedy was smaller than 9/11,
which could help explain its limited effect on the public. It may also be that because
Americans believe terrorist attacks are now a
fundamental part of life in the United States , any single event will have a more muted effect
on public opinion . And because the Tsarnaev brothers have not been connected to any known terrorist organizations, Americans may feel less
under siege than they did when al-Qaeda and Osama bin Laden were identified as the perpetrators of the 2001 attacks. Regardless of the reason, all
of this
suggests that policymakers are likely to face a more difficult task than they did after 9/11 in persuading the public
to support additional security measures that infringe on Americans’ freedoms.