Special Needs Neg – CFFP Lab – UM Wave
2
Net Delusion K
1NC
Cyber utopianism strengthens authoritarians and fails to address the negatives of the
internet- results in tainted policy making
Morozov 2011 (Evgeny [visiting scholar at Stanford University and a Schwartz fellow at the New
America Foundation]; The Net Delusion; p 26-8; kdf)
Most disturbingly, a
dangerous self-negating prophecy is at work here: The more Western policymakers talk
up the threat that bloggers pose to authoritarian regimes, the more likely those regimes are to limit the
maneuver space where those bloggers operate. In some countries, such politicization may be for the better, as blogging
would take on a more explicit political role, with bloggers enjoying the status of journalists or human rights defenders. But in many other
countries such
politicization may only stifle the nascent Internet movement, which could have been be far
more successful if its advocacy were limited to pursuing social rather than political ends. Whether the West
needs to politicize blogging and view it as a natural extension of dissident activity is certainly a complex question that merits broad public
debate. But the
fact that this debate is not happening at the moment does not mean that blogging is not
being politicized, often to the point of no return, by the actions-as well as declarations-of Western policymakers.
Furthermore, giving in to cyber-utopianism may preclude policymakers from considering a whole range of
other important questions. Should they applaud or bash technology companies who choose to operate in authoritarian regimes,
bending their standard procedures as a result? Are they harbingers of democracy, as they claim to be, or just digital equivalents of Halliburton
and United Fruit Company, cynically exploiting local business opportunities while also strengthening the governments that let them in? How
should the West balance its sudden urge to promote democracy via the Internet with its existing commitments to other nondigital strategies for
achieving the same objective, from the fostering of independent political parties to the development of civil society organizations? What are
the best ways of empowering digital activists without putting them at risk? If
the Internet is really a revolutionary force that
could nudge all authoritarian regimes toward democracy, should the West go quiet on many of its other
concerns about the Internet-remember all those fears about cyberwar, cybercrime, online child
pornography, Internet piracy-and strike while the iron is still hot? These are immensely difficult questions; they are also
remarkably easy to answer incorrectly. While the Internet has helped to decrease costs for nearly everything, human folly is a commodity that
still bears a relatively high price. The oft-repeated mantra of the open source movement-"fail often, fail early" -produces excellent software,
but it is not applicable to situations where human lives are at stake. Western
policymakers, unlike pundits and academics,
simply don't have the luxury of getting it wrong and dealing with the consequences later. From the
perspective of authoritarian governments, the costs of exploiting Western follies have significantly decreased as well. Compromising the
security of just one digital activist can mean compromising the security-names, faces, email addresses-of everyone that individual kuows.
Digitization of information has also led to its immense centralization: One stolen password now opens data doors that used not to exist (just
how many different kinds of data-not to mention people-would your email password give access to, if compromised?). Unbridled
cyberutopianism is an expensive ideology to maintain because authoritarian governments don't stand still and
there are absolutely no guarantees they won't find a way to turn the Internet into a powerful tool of
oppression. If, on closer examination, it turns out that the Internet has also empowered the secret police, the
censors, and the propaganda offices of a modern authoritarian regime, it's quite likely that the process
of democratization will become harder, not easier. Similarly, if the Internet has dampened the level of antigovernment
sentiment-because people have acquired access to cheap and almost infinite digital entertainment or because they feel they need the
government to protect them from the lawlessness of cyberspace-it certainly gives the regime yet another source of legitimacy. If the Internet is
reshaping the very nature and culture of antigovernment resistance and dissent, shifting it away from real-world practices and toward
anonymous virtual spaces, it will also have significant consequences for the scale and tempo of the protest movement, not all of them positive.
That's an insight that has been lost on most observers of the political power of the Internet. Refusing
to acknowledge that the
Web can actually strengthen rather than undermine authoritarian regimes is extremely irresponsible
and ultimately results in bad policy, if only because it gives policymakers false confidence that the only
things they need to be doing are proactive-rather than reactive-in nature. But if, on careful examination, it turns out
that certain types of authoritarian regimes can benefit from the Internet in disproportionally more ways than their opponents, the focus of
Western democracy promotion work should shift from empowering the activists to topple their regimes
to countering the governments' own exploitation of the Web lest they become even more authoritarian.
There is no point in making a revolution more effective, quick, and anonymous if the odds of the
revolution's success are worsening in the meantime.
Morozov 2011 (Evgeny [visiting scholar at Stanford University and a Schwartz fellow at the New
America Foundation]; The Net Delusion; p xi-xiv; kdf)
But there is more to Obama's silence than just his reasonable attempt to present himself as anti-Bush. Most likely his silence is a sign of an
extremely troubling bipartisan malaise: the growing Western fatigue with the project of promoting
democracy. The project suffers
not just from bad publicity but also from a deeply rooted intellectual crisis. The resilience of authoritarianism in
places like Belarus, China, and Iran is not for lack of trying by their Western "partners" to stir things up with an expectation of a democratic
revolution. Alas, most such Western initiatives flop, boosting the appeal of many existing dictators, who excel at playing up the threat of foreign
mingling in their own affairs. To
say that there is no good blueprint for dealing with modern authoritarianism
would be a severe understatement. Lost in their own strategizing, Western leaders are pining for something that has guaranteed
effectiveness. Many of them look back to the most impressive and most unambiguous triumph of democracy in the last few decades: the
peaceful dissolution of the Soviet Union. Not surprisingly-and who can blame them for seeking to bolster their own self-confidence?-they tend
to exaggerate their own role in precipitating its demise. As a result, many
of the Western strategies tried back then, like smuggling
in photocopiers and fax machines, facilitating the flow of samizdat, and supporting radio broadcasts by Radio Free Europe and the
Voice of America, are given much more credit than they deserve. Such belated Cold War triumphalism results in an
egregious logical fallacy. Since the Soviet Union eventually fell, those strategies are presumed to have been extremely effective-in fact, crucial
to the whole endeavor. The
implications of such a view for the future of democracy promotion are
tremendous, for they suggest that large doses of information and communications technology are lethal
to the most repressive of regimes. Much of the present excitement about the Internet, particularly the
high hopes that are pinned on it in terms of opening up closed societies, stems from such selective and,
at times, incorrect readings of history; rewritten to glorify the genius of Ronald Reagan and minimize the role of structural
conditions and the inherent contradictions of the Soviet system. It's for these chiefly historical reasons that the Internet excites so many
seasoned and sophisticated decision makers who should really know better. Viewing
it through the prism of the Cold War,
they endow the Internet with nearly magical qualities; for them, it's the ultimate cheat sheet that could help the West
finally defeat its authoritarian adversaries. Given that it's the only ray of light in an otherwise dark intellectual tunnel of democracy promotion,
the Internet's prominence in . future policy planning is assured. And at first sight it seems like a brilliant idea.
It's like Radio Free
Europe on steroids. And it's cheap, too: no need to pay for expensive programming, broadcasting, and, if everything else fails,
propaganda. After all, Internet users can discover the truth about the horrors of their regimes, about the
secret charms of democracy; and about the irresistible appeal of universal human rights on their own, by turning to search engines
like Google and by following their more politically savvy friends on social networking sites like Facebook. In other words, let them tweet,
and they will tweet their way to freedom. By this logic, authoritarianism becomes unsustainable once
the barriers to the free flow of information are removed. If the Soviet Union couldn't survive a platoon of pamphleteers,
how can China survive an army of bloggers? · It's hardly surprising, then, that the only place where the West ( especially the United States) is
still unabashedly eager to promote democracy is in cyberspace. The Freedom Agenda is out; the Twitter Agenda is in. It's deeply symbolic that
the only major speech about freedom given by a senior member of the Obama administration was Hillary Clinton's speech on Internet freedom
in January 2010. It looks like a safe bet: Even
if the Internet won't bring democracy to China or Iran, it can still make the
Obama administration appear to have the most technologically savvy foreign policy team in history. The
best and the brightest are now also the geekiest. The Google Doctrine-the enthusiastic belief in the liberating power of technology
accompanied by the irresistible urge to enlist Silicon Valley start-ups in the global fight for freedom-is of growing appeal to many policymakers.
In fact, many of them are as upbeat about the revolutionary potential of the Internet as their colleagues in the corporate sector were in the late
Once burst, stock bubbles have few lethal
consequences; democracy bubbles, on the other hand, could easily lead to carnage. The idea that the
Internet favors the oppressed rather than the oppressor is marred by what I call cyber-utopianism: a
1990s. What could possibly go wrong here? As it turns out, quite a lot.
naive belief in the emancipatory nature of online communication that rests on a stubborn refusal to
acknowledge its downside. It stems from the starryeyed digital fervor of the 1990s, when former hippies, by this time ensconced in
some of the most prestigious universities in the world, went on an argumentative spree to prove that the Internet could deliver what the 1960s
couldn't: boost democratic participation, trigger a renaissance of moribund communities, strengthen associational life, and serve as a bridge
from bowling alone to blogging together. And if it works in Seattle, it must also work in Shanghai. Cyber-utopians ambitiously set out to build a
new and improved United Nations, only to end up with a digital Cirque du Solei!. Even if true-and that's a gigantic "if" -their theories proved
difficult to adapt to non-Western and particularly nondemocratic contexts. Democratically
elected governments in North
America and Western Europe may, indeed, see an Internet-driven revitalization of their public spheres
as a good thing; logically, they would prefer to keep out of the digital sandbox-at least as long as nothing
illegal takes place. Authoritarian governments, on the other hand, have invested so much effort into
suppressing any form offree expression and free assembly that they would never behave in such a
civilized fashion. The early theorists of the Internet's influence on politics failed to make any space for the state, let alone a brutal
authoritarian state with no tolerance for the rule of law or dissenting opinions. Whatever book lay on the cyber-utopian bedside table in the
early 1990s, it was surely not Hobbes's Leviathan.
Failing to anticipate how authoritarian governments would respond
to the Internet, cyber-utopians did not predict how useful it would prove for propaganda purposes, how
masterfully dictators would learn to use it for surveillance, and how sophisticated modern systems of
internet censorship would become. Instead most cyber-utopians stuck to a populist account of how
technology empowers the people, who, oppressed by years of authoritarian rule, will inevitably rebel,
mobilizing themselves through text messages, Facebook, Twitter, and whatever new tool comes along
next year. (The people, it must be noted, really liked to hear such theories.) Paradoxically, in their refusal to see the downside of the new
digital environment, cyber-utopians ended up belittling the role of the Internet, refusing to see that it
penetrates and reshapes all walks of political life, not just the ones conducive to democratization.
The impact turns the aff—they are a marketing ploy that ostracizes the periphery all
the while diminishing the motives and coherence of the movements they attempt to
help
Morozov 2011 (Evgeny [visiting scholar at Stanford University and a Schwartz fellow at the New
America Foundation]; The Net Delusion; p 303-305; kdf)
As the Internet makes technological fixes cheaper, the temptation to apply them even more aggressively
and indiscriminately also grows. And the easier it is to implement them, the harder it is for internal critics to argue that such fixes
should not be tried at all. In most organizations, low cost-and especially in times of profound technological change is usually a strong enough
reason to try something, even if it makes little strategic sense at the time. When technology promises so much and demands so little, the urge
to find a quick fix is, indeed, irresistible. Policymakers
are not immune to such temptations either. When it's so easy
and cheap to start a social networking site for activists in some authoritarian country, a common gut
reaction is usually "It should be done:' That cramming personal details of all dissidents on one website
and revealing connections among them may outweigh the benefits of providing activists with a cheaper
mode of communication only becomes a concern retroactively. In most cases, if it can be done, it will be done. URLs will
be bought, sites will be set up, activists will be imprisoned, and damning press releases will be issued. Likewise, given the undeniable .
mobilization advantages of the mobile phone, one
may start singing its praises before realizing that it has also
provided the secret police with a unique way to track and even predict where the protests may break
out. The problem with most technological fixes is that they come with costs unknown even to their fiercest advocates. Historian of science
Lisa Rosner argues that "technological fixes, because they attack symptoms but don't root out causes, have
unforeseen and deleterious side effects that may be worse than the social problem they were intend d
to solve." It's hard to disagree, even more so in the case of the Internet. When digital activism is presented as the new platform for
campaigning And organizing, one
begins to wonder whether its side effects-further disengagement between
traditional oppositional forces who practice real politics, no matter how risky and boring, and the younger generation,
passionate about campaigning on Facebook and Twitter-would outweigh the benefits of cheaper and leaner
communications. If the hidden costs of digital activism include the loss of coherence, morality, or even
sustainability of the opposition movement, it may not be a solution worth pursuing. Another problem with
technological fixes is that they usually rely on extremely sophisticated solutions that cannot be easily
understood by laypeople. The claims of their advocates are, thus, almost impenetrable to external scrutiny, while their ambitious
promise-the elimination of some deeply entrenched social ill-makes such scrutiny, even If It IS possible, hard to mount. Not surprisingly, the
dangerous fascination with solving previously intractable social problems with the help of technology allows vested interests to disguise what
essentially amounts to advertising for their commercial products in the language of freedom and liberation. It's
not by coincidence
that those who are most vocal in proclaiming that the most burning problems of internet freedom can
be solved by breaking a number of firewalls happen to be the same people who develop and sell the
technologies needed to break them. Obviously they have no incentive to point out that one needs to be fighting other, nontechnological problems or to disclose problems with their own technologies. The founders of Haystack rarely bothered to highlight the flaws in
their own software-let alone disclose that it was still in the testing stage-and the media never bothered to ask. As the Haystack fiasco so clearly
illustrates, even being able to ask the right technological questions requires a good grasp of the sociopolitical context in which a given
technology is supposed to be used. This points to another commonly overlooked problem: Our growing commitment to the instruments we use
to implement "technological fixes" for what may be important global problems greatly restrains our ability to criticize those who own the rights
to those fixes. Every
new article or book about a Twitter Revolution is not a triumph of humanity; it is a
triumph of Twitter's marketing department. In fact, Silicon Valley's marketing geniuses may have a strong interest in misleading
the public about the similarity between the Cold War and today: The Voice of America and Radio Free Europe still enjoy a lot of goodwill with
policymakers, and having Twitter and Facebook be seen as their digital equivalents doesn't hurt their publicity.
Thus the alt- Vote negative to reject the affirmative for engaging in cyber-utopianism
The affirmative operates under a flawed methodology—paying attention to the tool
instead of the environment- voting negative allows for a realistic assessment the
internet
Morozov 2011 (Evgeny [visiting scholar at Stanford University and a Schwartz fellow at the New
America Foundation]; The Net Delusion; p xv-xvii; kdf)
It was tempting to throw my hands up in despair and give up on the Internet altogether. But this would have been the wrong lesson to draw from
these disappointing experiences. Similarly, it would be wrong for Western policymakers to simply dismiss the Internet as a lost cause and move
on to bigger, more important issues. Such digital
defeatism would only play into the hands of authoritarian
governments, who would be extremely happy to continue using it as both a carrot (keeping their populace
entertained) and a stick (punishing those who dare to challenge the official line). Rather, the lesson to be drawn is that the Internet is here to
stay, it will continue growing in importance, and those concerned with democracy promotion need not only grapple with it but also come up with
mechanisms and procedures to ensure that another tragic blunder on the scale of Abu Ghraib will never happen in cyberspace. This is not a farfetched scenario. How
hard is it to imagine a site like Face book inadvertently disclosing the private
information of activists in Iran or China, tipping off governments to secret connections between the
activists and the Western funders? To be truly effective, the West needs to do more than just cleanse itself of
cyber-utopian bias and adopt a more realist posture. When it comes to concrete steps to promote
democracy, cyber-utopian convictions often give rise to an equally flawed approach that I dub "Internetcentrism:' Unlike cyber-utopianism, Internet-centrism is not a set of beliefs; rather, it's a philosophy of action that informs how decisions,
including those that deal with democracy promotion, are made and how long-term strategies are crafted. While cyber-utopianism stipulates what
has to be done, Internet-centrism stipulates how it should be done.
Internet-centrists like to answer every question about
democratic change by first reframing it in terms of the Internet rather than the context in which that
change is to occur. They are often completely oblivious to the highly political nature of technology, especially the Internet, and like to
come up with strategies that assume that the logic of the Internet, which, in most cases, they are the only ones to perceive, will shape every
environment than it penetrates rather than vice versa. While most utopians are Internet-centrists, the latter are not necessarily utopians. In fact,
many of them like to think of themselves as pragmatic individuals who have abandoned grand theorizing about utopia in the name of achieving
tangible results. Sometimes, they are even eager to acknowledge that it takes more than bytes to foster, install, and consolidate a healthy
democratic regime. Their realistic
convictions, however, rarely make up for their flawed methodology, which
prioritizes the tool over the environment, and, as such, is deaf to the social, cultural, and political
subtleties and indeterminacies. Internet-centrism is a highly disorienting drug; it ignores context and
entraps policymakers into believing that they have a useful and powerful ally on their side. Pushed to its
extreme, it leads to hubris, arrogance, and a false sense of confidence, all bolstered by the dangerous
illusion of having established effective command of the Internet. All too often, its practitioners fashion themselves as
possessing full mastery of their favorite tool, treating it as a stable and finalized technology, oblivious to the numerous forces that are constantly
reshaping the Internet not all of them for the better. Treating the Internet as a constant, they fail to see their own responsibility in preserving its
freedom and reining in the ever-powerful intermediaries, companies like Google and Facebook. As the Internet takes on an even greater role in
the politics of both authoritarian and democratic states, the pressure to forget the context and start with what the Internet allows will only grow.
All by itself, however, the Internet provides nothing certain. In fact, as has become obvious in too many contexts, it empowers the strong and
disempowers the weak. It is impossible to place the Internet at the heart of the enterprise of democracy promotion without risking the success of
that very enterprise. The premise of this book is thus very simple: To salvage the Internet's promise to aid the fight against authoritarianism,
those of us in the West who still care about the future of democracy will need to ditch both cyberutopianism and Internet-centrism. Currently, we start with a flawed set of assumptions ( cyber-utopianism)
and act on them using a flawed, even crippled, methodology (Internet-centrism). The result is what I call the Net
Delusion. Pushed to the extreme, such logic is poised to have significant global consequences that may risk
undermining the very project of promoting democracy. It's a folly that the West could do without. Instead, we'll
need to opt for policies informed by a realistic assessment of the risks and dangers posed by the
Internet, matched by a highly scrupulous and unbiased assessment of its promises, and a theory of
action that is highly sensitive to the local context, that is cognizant of the complex connections between
the Internet and the rest of foreign policymaking, and that originates not in what technology allows but
in what a certain geopolitical environment requires. In a sense, giving in to cyber-utopianism and Internet-centrism is akin to
agreeing to box blindfolded. Sure, every now and then we may still strike some powerful blows against our authoritarian adversaries, but in
general this is a poor strategy if we want to win. The
struggle against authoritarianism is too important of a battle to
fight with a voluntary intellectual handicap, even if that handicap allows us to play with the latest fancy
gadgets.
Alt Extension/ AT: Perm
Cyber utopianism strengthens authoritarians and fails to address the negatives of the
internet- results in tainted policy making
Morozov 2011 (Evgeny [visiting scholar at Stanford University and a Schwartz fellow at the New
America Foundation]; The Net Delusion; p 26-8; kdf)
Most disturbingly, a
dangerous self-negating prophecy is at work here: The more Western policymakers talk
up the threat that bloggers pose to authoritarian regimes, the more likely those regimes are to limit the
maneuver space where those bloggers operate. In some countries, such politicization may be for the better, as blogging
would take on a more explicit political role, with bloggers enjoying the status of journalists or human rights defenders. But in many other
countries such
politicization may only stifle the nascent Internet movement, which could have been be far
more successful if its advocacy were limited to pursuing social rather than political ends. Whether the West
needs to politicize blogging and view it as a natural extension of dissident activity is certainly a complex question that merits broad public
debate. But the
fact that this debate is not happening at the moment does not mean that blogging is not
being politicized, often to the point of no return, by the actions-as well as declarations-of Western policymakers.
Furthermore, giving in to cyber-utopianism may preclude policymakers from considering a whole range of
other important questions. Should they applaud or bash technology companies who choose to operate in authoritarian regimes,
bending their standard procedures as a result? Are they harbingers of democracy, as they claim to be, or just digital equivalents of Halliburton
and United Fruit Company, cynically exploiting local business opportunities while also strengthening the governments that let them in? How
should the West balance its sudden urge to promote democracy via the Internet with its existing commitments to other nondigital strategies for
achieving the same objective, from the fostering of independent political parties to the development of civil society organizations? What are
the best ways of empowering digital activists without putting them at risk? If
the Internet is really a revolutionary force that
could nudge all authoritarian regimes toward democracy, should the West go quiet on many of its other
concerns about the Internet-remember all those fears about cyberwar, cybercrime, online child
pornography, Internet piracy-and strike while the iron is still hot? These are immensely difficult questions; they are also
remarkably easy to answer incorrectly. While the Internet has helped to decrease costs for nearly everything, human folly is a commodity that
still bears a relatively high price. The oft-repeated mantra of the open source movement-"fail often, fail early" -produces excellent software,
but it is not applicable to situations where human lives are at stake. Western
policymakers, unlike pundits and academics,
simply don't have the luxury of getting it wrong and dealing with the consequences later. From the
perspective of authoritarian governments, the costs of exploiting Western follies have significantly decreased as well. Compromising the
security of just one digital activist can mean compromising the security-names, faces, email addresses-of everyone that individual kuows.
Digitization of information has also led to its immense centralization: One stolen password now opens data doors that used not to exist (just
how many different kinds of data-not to mention people-would your email password give access to, if compromised?). Unbridled
cyberutopianism is an expensive ideology to maintain because authoritarian governments don't stand still and
there are absolutely no guarantees they won't find a way to turn the Internet into a powerful tool of
oppression. If, on closer examination, it turns out that the Internet has also empowered the secret police, the
censors, and the propaganda offices of a modern authoritarian regime, it's quite likely that the process
of democratization will become harder, not easier. Similarly, if the Internet has dampened the level of antigovernment
sentiment-because people have acquired access to cheap and almost infinite digital entertainment or because they feel they need the
government to protect them from the lawlessness of cyberspace-it certainly gives the regime yet another source of legitimacy. If the Internet is
reshaping the very nature and culture of antigovernment resistance and dissent, shifting it away from real-world practices and toward
anonymous virtual spaces, it will also have significant consequences for the scale and tempo of the protest movement, not all of them positive.
That's an insight that has been lost on most observers of the political power of the Internet. Refusing
to acknowledge that the
Web can actually strengthen rather than undermine authoritarian regimes is extremely irresponsible
and ultimately results in bad policy, if only because it gives policymakers false confidence that the only
things they need to be doing are proactive-rather than reactive-in nature. But if, on careful examination, it turns out
that certain types of authoritarian regimes can benefit from the Internet in disproportionally more ways than their opponents, the focus of
Western democracy promotion work should shift from empowering the activists to topple their regimes
to countering the governments' own exploitation of the Web lest they become even more authoritarian.
There is no point in making a revolution more effective, quick, and anonymous if the odds of the
revolution's success are worsening in the meantime.
Morozov 2011 (Evgeny [visiting scholar at Stanford University and a Schwartz fellow at the New
America Foundation]; The Net Delusion; p 318-; kdf)
The way forward is not to keep coming up with new theories until they match one's existing biases about what the logic of the Internet is or
should be like. Instead, one
should seek to come up with a philosophy of action to help design policies that
have no need for such logic as their inputs. But while it's becoming apparent that policymakers need to
abandon both cyber-utopianism and Internet-centrism, if only for the lack of accomplishment, it is not yet clear what can
take their place. What would an alternative, more down-to-earth approach to policymaking in the digital
age-let's call it cyber-realism-look like? Here are some preliminary notes that future theorists may find
useful. Instead of trying to build a new shiny pillar to foreign policy, cyberrealists would struggle to find space for the
Internet in existing pillars, not least on the desks of regional officers who are already highly sensitive to
the political context in which they operate. Instead of centralizing decision making about the Internet in the hands of a select
few digerati who know the world of Web 2.0 start-ups but are completely lost in the world of Chinese or Iranian politics, cyber-realists
would defy any such attempts at centralization, placing as much responsibility for Internet policy on the
shoulders of those who are tasked with crafting and executing regional policy. Instead of asking the highly general,
abstract, and timeless question of"How do we think the Internet changes closed societies?" they would ask "How do we think the
Internet is affecting our existing policies on country X?" Instead of operating in the realm of the utopian and the
ahistorical, impervious to the ways in which developments in domestic and foreign policies intersect, cyber-realists would be
constantly searching for highly sensitive points of interaction between the two. They would be able to articulate
in concrete rather than abstract terms how specific domestic policies might impede objectives on the foreign policy front. Nor would they have
much tolerance for a black-and-white color scheme. As such, while they would understand the limitations of doing politics online, they wouldn't
label all Internet activism as either useful or harmful based solely on its outputs, its inputs, or its objectives. Instead, they
would
evaluate the desirability of promoting such activism in accordance with their existing policy objectives.
Cyber-realists wouldn't search for technological solutions to problems that are political in nature, and
they wouldn't pretend that such solutions are even possible. Nor would they give the false impression
that on the Internet concerns over freedom of expression trump those over energy supplies, when this
is clearly not the case. Such acknowledgments would only be factual rather than normative statements-it may well be that concerns
over freedom of expression should be more important than concerns over energy supplies-but cyber-realists simply would not accept that any
such radical shifts in the value system of the entire policy apparatus could or should happen under the pressure of the Internet alone. Now
would cyber-realists search for a silver bullet that could destroy authoritarianism-or even the next-to-silver-bullet, for the utopian dreams that
such a bullet can even exist would have no place in their conception of politics. Instead, cyber-realists would focus on optimizing their own
decision-malting and learning processes, hoping that the right mix of bureaucratic checks and balances, combined with the appropriate
incentive structure, would identify wicked problems before they are misdiagnosed as tame ones, as well as reveal how a particular solution to
an Internet problem might disrupt solutions to other, nonInternet problems. Most important, cyber-realists
wouldn't allow
themselves to get dragged into the highly abstract and high-pitched debates about whether the
Internet undermines or strengthens democracy. Instead, they would accept that the Internet is poised
to produce different policy outcomes in different environments and that a policymaker's chief objective
is not to produce a thorough philosophical account of the internet's impact on society at large but,
rather, to make the Internet ally in achieving specific policy objectives. Cyber-realists would
acknowledge that by continuing to flirt with Internet-centrism and cyber-utopianism, policymakers are
playing risky game. Not only do they squander plenty of small-scale opportunities for democratization
that the Internet has to offer because look from too distant a perspective, but they also inadvertently
bolden dictators and turn everyone who uses the Internet in authoritarian states into unwilling
prisoners. Cyber-realists would argue this is a terribly expensive and ineffective way to promote
democracy; worse, it threatens to corrupt or crowd out cheaper and more effective alternatives. For them,
the promotion of democracy would be too · important an activity to run it out of a Silicon Valley lab with a reputation for exotic experiments.
Above all, cyber-realists would believe that world made of bytes may defy the law of gravity but absolutely nothing dictates that it should also
defy the law of reason.
AT: Perm
The perm is no different than driving fuel efficient cars to save the environment—it
only delays the inevitable—The aff conceals the political and social underpinnings of
the problems they try to address—this aggravates the situation and results in infinite
technological fixes
Morozov 2011 (Evgeny [visiting scholar at Stanford University and a Schwartz fellow at the New
America Foundation]; The Net Delusion; p 305-8; kdf)
Perhaps most disturbingly, reframing
social problems as a series of technological problems distracts
policymakers from tackling problems that are non-technological in nature and cannot be reframed. As the
media keep trumping the role that mobile phones have played in fueling economic growth in Africa, policymakers cannot afford to
forget that innovation by itself will not rid African nations of the culture of pervasive corruption. Such an
achievement will require a great deal of political will. In its absence, even the fanciest technology would go to waste. The funds for the
computerization of Sudan would remain unspent, and computers would remain untouched, as long as many of the region's politicians are
"more used to carrying AK-47s and staging ambushes than typing on laptops," as a writer for the Financial Times so aptly put it. . On the
contrary, when we introduce a multipurpose technology like a mobile phone into such settings, it can often have side effects that only
aggravate existing social problems. Who could have predicted that, learning of the multiple money transfer opportunities offered by mobile
banking, corrupt Kenyan police officers would demand that drivers now pay their bribes with much-easier-to-conceal transfers of air time
rather than cash? In
the absence of strong political and social institutions, technology may only precipitate
the collapse of state power, but it is easy to lose sight of real-world dynamics when one is so enthralled
by the supposed brilliance of a technological fix. Otherwise policymakers risk falling into unthinking
admiration of technology as panacea which the British architect Cedric Price once ridiculed by
pondering, "Technology is the answer, but what was the question?" When technological fixes fail, their proponents
are usually quick to suggest another, more effective technological fix as a remedy-and fight fire with fire. That is, they want to fight technology's
problems with even more technology. This
explains why we fight climate change by driving cars that are more fuelefficient and protect ourselves from Internet surveillance by relying on tools that encrypt our messages and conceal our identity. Often this
only aggravates the situation, as it precludes a more rational and comprehensive discussion about the
root causes of a problem, pushing us to deal with highly visible and inconsequential symptoms that can be cured on the cheap instead.
This creates a never-ending and extremely expensive cat-and-mouse game in which, as the problem gets worse, the public is forced to fund
even newer, more powerful tools to address it. Thus we avoid the search for a more effective nontechnological solution that, while being more
expensive (politically or financially) in the short-term, could end the problem once and for all. We
should resist this temptation to
fix technology's excesses by applying even more technology to them. How, for example, do most Western
governments and foundations choose to fight Internet censorship by authoritarian governments? Usually by funding and promoting technology
that helps circumvent it. This may be an appropriate solution for some countries-think, for example, ofNorth Korea, where Western
governments have very little diplomatic and political leverage-but this is not necessarily the best approach to handle countries that are
nominally Western allies. In such cases, a
nearly exclusive focus on fighting censorship with anticensorship tools
distracts policymakers from addressing the root causes of censorship, which most often have to do with
excessive restrictions that oppressive governments place on free speech. The easy availability of circumvention
technology should not preclude policymakers from more ambitious-and ultimately more effective-ways of engagement. Otherwise, both
Western and authoritarian governments get a free pass. Democratic leaders pretend that they are once again heroically destroying the Berlin
Wall, while their authoritarian counterparts are happy to play along, for they have found other effective ways to control the Internet. In an
ideal world, the Western campaign to end Internet censorship in Tunisia or Kazakhstan would primarily revolve around exerting political
pressure on their West-friendly authoritarian rulers and would deal with the offline world of newspapers and magazines as well. In many of
these countries, muzzling journalists would continue to be the dominant tactic of suppressing dissent until, at least, more of their citizens get
online and start using it for more activities than just using email or chatting with their relatives abroad. Allowing a handful of bloggers in
Tajikistan to circumvent the government's system of lnternet controls means little when the vast majority of the population get their news from
radio and television. Except for his ruminations about hydrogen bombs and war, Weinberg did not discuss how technological fixes might affect
foreign policy. Nevertheless, one can still trace how a tendency to frame foreign policy problems in terms of technological fixes has affected
Western thinking about authoritarian rule and the role that the Internet can play in undermining it. One of the most peculiar features of
Weinberg's argument was his belief that the easy availability of clear-cut technological solutions can help policymakers better grasp and
identify the problems they face. "The [social] problems are, in a way, harder to identify just because their solutions are never clear-cut;' wrote
Weinberg. "By contrast, the availability of a crisp and beautiful technological solution often helps focus on the problem to which the new
technology is the solution:' In other words, just because policymakers have "a crisp and beautiful technological solution'' to break through
firewalls, they tend to believe that the problem they need to solve is, indeed, that of breaking firewalls, while often this is not the case at all.
Similarly, just
because the Internet-that ultimate technological fix-can help mobilize people around certain
causes, it is tempting to conceptualize the problem in terms of mobilization as well. This is one of those
situations in which the unique features of technological fixes prevent policymakers from discovering the
multiple hidden dimensions of the challenge, leading them to identify and solve problems that are easily
solvable rather than those that require immediate attention. Many calls to apply technological fixes to complex social
problems smack of the promotion of technology for technology's own sake-a technological fetishism of an extreme variety-which policymakers
should resist. Otherwise, they
run the risk of prescribing their favorite medicine based only on a few common
symptoms, without even bothering to offer a diagnosis. But as it is irresponsible to prescribe cough medicine for someone
who has cancer, so it is to apply more technology to social and political problems that are not technological in nature.
AT: 2AC answers
The affirmative operates under a flawed epistemology—in order to feel better about
themselves and to coopt the alternative and discredit true movements
Morozov 2011 (Evgeny [visiting scholar at Stanford University and a Schwartz fellow at the New
America Foundation]; Facebook and Twitter are just places revolutionaries go;
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2011/mar/07/facebook-twitter-revolutionaries-cyberutopians; kdf
Tweets were sent. Dictators were toppled. Internet = democracy. QED. Sadly, this is the level of nuance in
most popular accounts of the internet's contribution to the recent unrest in the Middle East. It's been
extremely entertaining to watch cyber-utopians – adherents of the view that digital tools of social networking such as
Facebook and Twitter can summon up social revolutions out of the ether – trip over one another in an effort to put
another nail in the coffin of cyber-realism, the position I've recently advanced in my book The Net Delusion. In my book, I
argue that these digital tools are simply, well, tools, and social change continues to involve many painstaking, longer-term efforts to
engage with political institutions and reform movements. Since
the internet's cheerleaders can't bury cyber-realism
any more than they can secede from history, they've had to design their own straw-man interpretation
of the cyber-realist position, equating it with a view that the internet doesn't matter. This is a caricature of
the cyber-realist worldview that doesn't really square with parts of my book that very explicitly state – here is just one quote – that
"the internet is more important and disruptive than [its greatest advocates] have previously theorised". Or take the ongoing
persecution of Malcolm Gladwell, who is increasingly painted as some kind of a neo-Luddite. In an online chat that Gladwell did for
the New Yorker's website shortly after his infamous attack on the notion of "Twitter Revolution" was published last October, he
explicitly stated (no less than three times) that
the internet can be an effective tool for political change when
used by grassroots organisations (as opposed to atomised individuals). Thus, simply showing that the internet was used to
publicise, and even organise protests in the Middle East does nothing to counter his argument (which, by the way, I do not entirely
endorse). To refute it, cyber-utopians would need to establish that there was no coordination of these protests by networks of
grassroots activists – with leaders and hierarchies – who have forged strong ties (online or offline or both) prior to the protests. What
the principal organisers of Egypt's Facebook movement may not be
revolutionary leaders in the conventional understanding of the term. (And how could they be, given the grim
we have seen so far suggests otherwise. True,
track-record that former president Hosni Mubarak compiled – with Washington's complicity – in dispatching such leaders?) However,
they did exercise leadership and acted strategically – even going into hiding a few days before the actual protests – just as leaders
of a revolutionary cell would. The collaborations between Tunisian and Egyptian cyber-activists – so widely celebrated in the press –
were not virtual, either. In the space of a week in May 2009, I crashed two (independently organised) workshops in Cairo, where
bloggers, techies, and activists from both countries were present in person, sharing tips on how to engage in advocacy and
circumvent censorship; one of the attendees was the Tunisian blogger Slim Amamou, who went on to become Tunisia's minister of
sport and youth. One of these events was funded by the US government and the other by George Soros's Open Society
Foundations (with which I'm affiliated). There were many more events like this – not just in Cairo, but also in Beirut and Dubai. Most
of them were never publicised, since the security of many participants was at risk, but they effectively belie the idea that the recent
Those who believe that these networks were
purely virtual and spontaneous are ignorant of the recent history of cyber-activism in the Middle East –
to say nothing of the support that it's received, sometimes successful but most often not, from western
governments, foundations and corporations. In September 2010, to take just one recent example, Google brought a
dozen bloggers from the region to the freedom of expression conference the company convened in Budapest. Tracing the
evolution of these activist networks would require more than just studying their Facebook profiles; it
would demand painstaking investigative work – on the phone and in the archives – that cannot happen
overnight. One reason we keep talking about the role of Twitter and Facebook is that the immediate aftermath of the Middle
protests were organised by random people doing random things online.
Eastern spring has left us so little else to talk about; thoroughgoing political analysis of the causes of these revolutions won't be
available for a few years. This points us to the real reason why so many cyber-utopians got angry with Gladwell: in a follow-up
blog post to his article that appeared as the crowds were still occupying Tahrir Square, he dared
to suggest that the
grievances that pushed protesters into the streets deserve far more attention than the tools by which
they chose to organise. This was akin to spitting in the faces of the digerati – or, perhaps worse still, on their iPads – and they
reacted accordingly. And yet Gladwell was probably right: today, the role of the telegraph in the 1917 Bolshevik revolution – just like
the role of the tape-recorder in the 1979 Iranian revolution and of the fax machine in the 1989 revolutions – is of interest to a handful
of academics and virtually no one else. The fetishism of technology is at its strongest immediately after a revolution but tends to
subside shortly afterward. In his 1993 bestseller The Magic Lantern, Timothy Garton Ash, one of the most acute observers of the
1989 revolutions, proclaimed that "in Europe at the end of the 20th century, all revolutions are telerevolutions" – but in retrospect,
the role of television in those events seems like a very minor point. Will history consign Twitter and Facebook to much the same fate
20 years down the road? In all likelihood, yes. The current fascination with technology-driven accounts of political change in the
Middle East is likely to subside, for a number of reasons. First of all, while the recent round of uprisings may seem spontaneous to
western observers – and therefore as magically disruptive as a rush-hour flash mob in San Francisco – the
actual history of
popular regime change tends to diminish the central role commonly ascribed to technology. By
emphasising the liberating role of the tools and downplaying the role of human agency, such accounts
make Americans feel proud of their own contribution to events in the Middle East. After all, the argument
goes, such a spontaneous uprising wouldn't have succeeded before Facebook was around – so Silicon Valley deserves a lion's
share of the credit. If, of course, the uprising was not spontaneous and its leaders chose Facebook simply because that's where
everybody is, it's a far less glamorous story. Second, social media – by the very virtue of being "social" – lends itself to glib, punditstyle overestimations of its own importance. In 1989, the fax-machine industry didn't employ an army of lobbyists – and fax users
didn't feel the same level of attachment to these clunky machines as today's Facebook users feel toward their all-powerful social
network. Perhaps
the outsize revolutionary claims for social media now circulating throughout the west
are only a manifestation of western guilt for wasting so much time on social media: after all, if it helps to
spread democracy in the Middle East, it can't be all that bad to while away the hours "poking" your
friends and playing FarmVille. But the recent history of technology strongly suggests that today's vogue for Facebook and
Twitter will fade as online audiences migrate to new services. Already, tech enthusiasts are blushing at the memory of the serious
academic conferences once devoted to the MySpace revolution. Third,
the people who serve as our immediate
sources about the protests may simply be too excited to provide a balanced view. Could it be that the
Google sales executive Wael Ghonim – probably the first revolutionary with an MBA – who has emerged as the public face of
Egypt's uprising, vowing to publish his own book about "Revolution 2.0", is slightly overstating the role of technology,
while also downplaying his own role in the lead-up to the protests? After all, the world has yet to meet a Soviet
dissident who doesn't think it was the fax machine that toppled the Politburo – or a former employee of Radio Free Europe or Voice
of America who doesn't think it was western radio broadcasting that brought down the Berlin Wall. This is not to suggest that neither
of these communications devices played a role in these decades-old uprisings – but it is to note that the people directly involved
may not have the most dispassionate appraisals of how these watershed events occurred. If they don't want to condemn
themselves to a future of tedious bar-room arguments with the grizzled, and somewhat cranky holdouts from the 1989 fax glory
days, or the true believers of the Radio Free Europe Revolution, then today's cyber-utopians need to log off their Facebook
accounts and try a little harder.
Link: American Propaganda
The affirmative is a rouse to spread American propaganda and to turn activists into
passive consumers
Sussman in 2010 (Gerald [Prof of Urban Studies @ Portland State Univ]; Branding Democracy; p. 182; kdf)
In the broader context of a pervasive industrial, commercial, capitalist economy, promotional culture has entered public life as never before.
Older notions of propaganda do not suffice to explain the applications of advertising, marketing, public relations, and other forms of selling,
because societies, especially in the West, and most particularly in the United States, have never before experienced the current level of
promotionalism in social, political, and cultural interaction and the tools that are now available for that purpose. The key to this analysis is that
propaganda is no longer simply a tactic employed for specific commercial or state projects but is rather systemic. Promotional
tasks are
now embedded in most aspects of daily life via broadcasting, computer software, Internet, cell phones,
iphones, Twitter, . email, chat rooms, and the seemingly unending hybrid technologies and programs that are being sold (or
given away) for communicative exchange. Almost all forms of electronic communication are accompanied
by some form of advertising, turning citizens into not only consumers but also uncompensated
promoters of commodities and services. This systemic basis for promotional culture has deeply penetrated formal politics, public
policy, public administration, and foreign policy, usually rationalized as serving the public's informational interests. But politics organized
through media-driven "public opinion;' which is typically the way public participation is constructed, is a
sacrilege against the ideal of a rational, deliberative, participatory democracy. The energy and ingenuity mobilized
in developing a brand campaign in support of a politician and then polling the results are not genuinely about seeking the
public's interest in policy outcomes as much as testing the effectiveness of propaganda, creating a momentum
for the candidate and using the results of the poll to influence the "voting" outcome. In the United States, and more commonly in other countries,
electioneering and other types of campaigns have become a matter of winning by any means necessary. In politics, as in commerce, the United
States is a nation of sellers and, with its neoliberal allies, has tutored other nations, with varying degrees of success, to follow in its footsteps
Link: Social Networks
Social networks are not inherently good as the affirmative assumes—they sweep the
ill effects under the rug
Morozov 2011 (Evgeny [visiting scholar at Stanford University and a Schwartz fellow at the New America Foundation]; The Net
Delusion; p 254-6; kdf)
But are social networks really goods to be treasured in themselves? After all, the mafia, prostitution and
gambling rings, and youth gangs are social networks, too, but no one would claim that their existence
the physical world is a net good or that it shouldn't be regulated. Ever since Mitch Kapor, one of the founding fathers of
cyber-utopianism proclaimed that "life in cyberspace seems to be shaping up exactly like Thomas Jefferson would have wanted: founded on the
primacy of individual liberty and a commitment to pluralism, diversity, and community" in 1993, many policymakers have been under the
impression that the only networks to find homes online would be those promoting peace and prosperity. But Kapor hasn't read his Jefferson
close!~ enough, for the latter was well aware of the antidemocratic spirit many civil associations, writing that "the mobs of the great cities add
just so much to the support of pure government as sores do to the strength of the human body." Jefferson, apparently, was not persuaded by
the absolute goodness of the "smart mobs;' a fancy term to describe social groups that have been organized spontaneously, usually with the
help of technology. As Luke Allnut, an editor with Radio Free Europe, points out " w
h ere the techno-utopianists are limited in
their vision is that in this great mass of internet users all capable of great things in the name of
democracy, they see only a mirror image of themselves: progressive, philanthropic, cosmopolitan. They
don't see the neo-Nazis, pedophiles, or genocidal maniacs who have networked, grown, and prospered
on the Internet:' The problem of treating all networks as good in themselves is that it allows
policymakers to ignore their political and social effects, delaying effective response to their otherwise
harmful activities. "Cooperation;' which seems to be the ultimate objective of Clinton's network building, is too ambiguous of a term to
build meaningful policy around. A brieflook at history-for example, at the politics of Weimar Germany, where increased civic engagement
helped to delegitimize parliamentary democracy-would reveal that an increase in civic activity does not necessarily deepen democracy.
American history in the post Tocqueville era offers plenty of similar cues as well. The
Ku Klux Klan was also a social network,
after all. As Ariel Armony, a political scientist at Colby College in Maine, puts it, "civic involvement may ... be linked to undemocratic
outcomes in state and society, the presence of a 'vital society' may fail to prevent outcomes inimical to democracy, or it may contribute to such
results:' It's political and economic factors, rather than the ease of forming associations, that primarily set the tone and the vector in which
social networks contribute to democratization; one would be naive to believe that such factors would always favor democracy. For example, if
online social networking tools end up over-empowering various nationalist elements within China, it is quite obvious that the latter's influence
on the direction of China's foreign policy will increase as well. Given the rather peculiar relationship between nationalism, foreign policy, and
government legitimacy in China, such developments may not necessarily be particularly conducive to democratization, especially if they lead to
more confrontations with Taiwan or Japan. Even Manuel Castells, a prominent Spanish sociologist and one of the most enthusiastic promoters
of the information society, has not been sold on the idea of just "letting a thousand networks bloom:' "The Internet is indeed a technology of
freedom;' writes Castells, "but it can make the powerful free to oppress the uninformed" and "lead to the exclusion of the devalued by the
conquerors of value:' Robert Putnam, the famed American political theorist who lamented the sad state of social capital in America in his bestselling Bowling Alone, also cautioned against the "kumbaja interpretation of social capital:' "Networks and associated norms of reciprocity are
generally good for those inside the network;' he wrote, "but the external effects of social capital are by no means always positive:' From the
perspective of American foreign policy, social networks may, indeed, be net goods, but only as long as they don't include anyone hiding in the
caves of Waziristan. When senator after senator deplores the fact that YouTube has become a second home to Islamic terrorists, they hardly
sound like absolute believers in the inherent democratic nature of the networked world. One
can't just limit the freedom to
connect to the pro-Western nodes of the Web, and everyone-including plenty of anti-Western nodes
stands to profit from the complex nature of the Internet. When it comes to democracy promotion, one
major problem with a networked society is that it has also suddenly overempowered those who oppose
the very process of democratization, be they the church, former communists, . or fringe political
movements. As a result, it has become difficult to focus on getting things done, for it's not immediately obvious if the new, networked
threats to democracy are more ominous than the ones the West originally thought to fight. Have the non-state enemies of democracy been
empowered to a greater degree than the previous enemy (i.e., the monolith authoritarian state) has been disempowered? It certainly seems
like a plausible scenario, at least in some cases; to assume anything otherwise is to cling to an outdated conception of power that is
incompatible with the networked nature of the modern world "People routinely praise the Internet for its decentralizing tendencies.
Decentralization and diffusion of power, however, is not the same thing as less power exercised over human beings. Nor is it the same thing as
democracy .... The
fact that no one is in charge does not mean that everyone is free," writes Jack Balkin of Yale Law
School. The authoritarian lion may be dead, but now there are hundreds of hungry hyenas swirling around
the body.
Link: Question Aff Claims
All of the affirmatives claims should be evaluated skeptically
Morozov 2011 (Evgeny [visiting scholar at Stanford University and a Schwartz fellow at the New
America Foundation]; The Net Delusion; p 268-270; kdf)
For all intents and purposes, navigating
tile new "democratized" public spaces created by the Internet is
extremely difficult. But it's even more difficult to judge whether the segments that we happen to see are
representative of the entire population. It's never been easier to mistake a few extremely
unrepresentative parts for the whole. This in part explains why our expectations about the transformative power of the
Internet in authoritarian states are so inflated and skewed toward optimism: The people we usually hear from are
those who are already on the frontlines of using new media to push for democratic change in authoritarian societies. Somehow, the Chinese
bloggers who cover fashion, music, or pornography-even though those subjects are much more popular in the Chinese blogosphere than
human rights or rule of law-never make it to congressional hearings in Washington. The media is not helping either. Assuming
they
speak good English, those blogging for the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt may simply have no intention
of helping BBC or CNN to produce yet another report about the power of the blogosphere. That's why
the only power Western media cover is usually secular, liberal, or pro-Western. Not surprisingly, they
tell us what we wanted to hear all along: Bloggers are fighting for secularism, liberalism, and Westernstyle democracy. This is why so many Western politicians fall under the wrong impression that bloggers
are natural allies, even harbingers, of democracy. "If it's true that there are more bloggers per head of population in Iran
than any other country in the world, that makes me optimistic about the future of Iran;' said then UK's foreign minister, David Miliband, while
visiting Google's headquarters. Why this should be the case-given that Iran's conservative bloggers, who are often more hard-line than the
government and are anything but a force for democracy, equality, and justice, are a formidable and rapidly expanding force in the Iranian
blogosphere-is unclear. Chances are that Miliband's advisors simply never ventured beyond a handful of pro-Western Iranian blogs that
dominate much of the media coverage of the country. It's hard to say what Miliband would make of certain groups of Chinese nationalists who,
when they're not making anti-Western or anti-CNN videos, are busy translating books by Western philosophers like Leibniz and Husser!.
Things get worse when Western policymakers start listening to bloggers in exile. Such bloggers often
have a grudge against their home country and are thus conditioned to portray all domestic politics as an
extension of their own struggle. Their livelihoods and careers often depend on important power brokers in Washmgton, London,
and Brussels making certain assumptions about the Internet. Many of them have joined various new media NGOs or even created a few of their
own should the mainstream assumptions about the power of blogging shift many of these newly created NGOs are likely to go under. Not
surprisingly, people who get grants to harness the power of the Internet to fight dictators are not going to tell us that they are not succeeding.
It's as if we've produced a few million clones of Ahmed Chalabi, that notoriously misinformed Iraqi exile who gave a highly inaccurate picture of
Iraq to those who were willing to listen, and hired them to tell us how to fix their countries. Of course, the influence of exiles on foreign policy is
a problem that most governments have had to deal with in the past, but bloggers, perhaps thanks to the inevitable comparisons to Soviet
dissidents and the era of samizdat, are often not subjected to the level of scrutiny they deserve.
Impact: Cooption
Providing the internet guarantees that the movement is coopted—even at its best the
internet accounts for little change
Sussman in 2010 (Gerald [Prof of Urban Studies @ Portland State Univ]; Branding Democracy; p. 191; kdf)
The availability of the Internet represents a degree of potential support for or even extension of free
speech rights. However, it would be naive to assume that present rights of access will necessarily remain
intact or that anything close to a majority of people are using the Internet for political education or
radical social change. Already, the telecommunications industry is planning to develop tiered access in the way that cable television is
delivered, which is being challenged by the demand for "net neutrality" (guaranteeing that the Internet network will continue to function as a
public carrier without price discrimination). Another concern
that has to be addressed by believers in "electronic
democracy" is the reality of government and industry surveillance and the fact that anyone's web use
can easily be monitored, which has stifling effects on dissent. With such unfettered opportunities for government spying,
would people with connections to radical organizations dare to post ideas and information online? Does the Web force conformity to structural
inequality and permit dissent only within virtual "protest zones" -and confined to what Chomsky calls "the spectrum of thinkable thought"?
Impact: Authoritarianism
The affirmative over simplifies the problem—this only strengthens the current regime
Morozov 2011 (Evgeny [visiting scholar at Stanford University and a Schwartz fellow at the New
America Foundation]; The Net Delusion; p 310-11; kdf)
The essay contained more than a taxonomy of various planning problems. It also contained a valuable moral prescription: Rittel and Webber
thought that the task of the planner was not to abandon the fight in disillusionment but to acknowledge its challenges and find ways to
distinguish between tame and wicked problems, not least because it was "morally objectionable for the planner to treat a wicked problem as
though it were a tame one:' They argued that the planner, unlike the scientist, has no right to be wrong: "In the world of planning ... the aim is
not to find the truth, but to improve some characteristic of the world where people live. Planners are liable for the consequences of the actions
they generate:' It's a formidable moral imperative. Even though Rittel and Webber wrote the essay with highly technical domestic policies in
mind, anyone concerned with the future of democracy promotion and foreign policy in general would do well to heed their advice.
Modern
authoritarianism, by its very constitution, is a wicked, not a tame, problem. It cannot be "solved" or "engineered
away" by a few lines of genius computer code or a stunning iPhone app. The greatest obstacle that
Internet-centric initiatives like Internet freedom pose to this fight is that they misrepresent uber-wicked
problems as tame ones. They thus allow policymakers to forget that the very act of choosing one
solution over another is pregnant with political repercussions; it is not a mere chess game they are playing. But while it is
hard to deny that wicked problems defy easy solutions, it doesn't mean that some solutions wouldn't be more effective (or at least less
destructive) than others. From this perspective, a "war on authoritarianism" -or its younger digital sibling, a
"war for Internet
freedom" -is as misguided as a "war on terror:' Not only does such terminology mask the wicked nature of many problems
associated with authoritarianism, concealing a myriad of complex connections between them, it suggests-falsely-that such a war can be won if
only enough resources are mobilized. Such
aggrandizement is of little help to a policy planner, who instead should
be trying to grasp how exactly particular wicked problems relate to their context and what may be done
to isolate and tackle them while controlling for side effects. The overall push, thus, is away from the
grandiose and the rhetorical-qualities inherent in highly ambiguous terms like "Internet freedom'' -and
toward the miniscule and the concrete. Assuming that wicked problems lumped under the banner of Internet freedom could be
reduced to tame ones won't help either. Western policymakers can certainly work to undermine the information
trinity of authoritarianism-propaganda, censorship, and surveillance-but they should not lose sight of
the fact that all of them are so tightly interrelated that by fighting one pillar, they may end up
strengthening the other two. And even their perception of this trinity may simply be a product of their own cognitive limitations,
with their minds portraying the pillars they can fight rather than the pillars they should fight. Furthermore, it's highly doubtful that wicked
problems can ever be resolved on a global scale; some local accomplishments-preferably not only of the rhetorical variety-is all a policymaker
can hope for. To build on the famous distinction drawn by the Austrian philosopher Karl Popper, policymakers should not, as a general rule,
preoccupy themselves with utopian social engineering-ambitious, ambiguous, and often highly abstract attempts to remake the world
according to some grand plan-but rather settle for piecemeal social engineering instead. This approach might be less ambitious but often more
effective; by
operating on a smaller scale, policymakers can still stay aware of the complexity of the real
world and can better anticipate and mitigate the unintended consequences.
Impact: No Solvency
The aff operates under half-baked predictions—sweeping future social and political
problems under the rug
Morozov 2011 (Evgeny [visiting scholar at Stanford University and a Schwartz fellow at the New
America Foundation]; The Net Delusion; p 314-5; kdf)
Hannah Arendt, one of America's most treasured public intellectuals, was aware of this problem back in the 1960s, when the "scientifically
minded brain trusters" -Alvin Weinberg was just one of many; another whiz kid with a penchant for computer modeling, Robert McNamara,
was put in charge of the Vietnam War-were beginning to penetrate the corridors of power and influence government policy. "The trouble [with
such advisers] is not that they are cold-blooded enough to 'think the unthinkable,"' cautioned Arendt in "On Violence," "but that they do not
'think:" "Instead of indulging in such an old-fashioned, uncomputerizable activity," she wrote, "they reckon with the consequences of certain
hypothetically assumed constellations without, however, being able to test their hypothesis against actual occurrences:' A
cursory
glimpse at the overblown and completely unsubstantiated rhetoric that followed Iran's Twitter
Revolution is enough to assure us that not much has changed. It was more than just the constant
glorification of technical, largely quantitative expertise at the expense of erudition that bothered
Arendt. She feared that increased reliance on half-baked predictions uttered by self-interested
technological visionaries and the futuristic theories they churn out on an hourly basis would prevent
policymakers from facing the highly political nature of the choices in front of them. Arendt worried that
"because of their inner consistency ... [such theories J have a hypnotic effect; they put to sleep our common sense:' The ultimate irony of
the modern world, which is more dependent on technology than ever, is that, as technology becomes
ever more integrated into political and social life, less and less attention is paid to the social and political
dimensions of technology itself. Policymakers should resist any effort to take politics out of technology;
they simply cannot afford to surrender to the kind of apolitical hypnosis that Arendt feared. The Internet is too
important a force to be treated lightly or to be outsourced to know-all consultants. One may not be able to predict its impact on a particular
country or social situation, but it would be foolish to deny that some impact is inevitable. Understanding how exactly various stakeholderscitizens, policymakers, foundations, journalists-can influence the way in which technology's political future unfolds is a quintessential question
facing any democracy. More than just politics lies beyond the scope of technological analysis; human nature is also outside its grasp.
Proclaiming that societies have entered a new age and embraced a new economy does not
automatically make human nature any more malleable, nor does it necessarily lead to universal respect
for humanist values. People still lust for power and recognition, regardless of whether they accumulate it by running for office or
collecting Facebook friends. As James Carey, the Columbia University media scholar, put it: "The 'new' man and woman of the 'new age' strikes
one as the same mixture of greed, pride, arrogance and hostility that we encounter in both history and experience:' Technology changes all the
time; human nature hardly ever. The fact that do-gooders usually mean well does not mitigate the disastrous consequences that follow from
their inability (or just sheer lack of ambition) to engage with broader social and political dimensions of technology. As the German psychologist
Dietrich Dorner observed in The Logic of Failure, his masterful account of how decision-makers' ingrained psychological biases could aggravate
existing problems and blind them to the far more detrimental consequences of proposed solutions, "it's far from clear whether 'good intentions
plus stupidity' or 'evil intentions plus intelligence' have wrought more harm in the world:' In reality, the fact that we mean well should only give
us extra reasons for scrupulous self-retrospection, for, according to Dorner, "incompetent people with good intentions rarely suffer the qualms
of conscience that sometimes inhibit the doings of competent people with bad intentions:'
Counterplans
Congress CP
1NC
The United States federal government should pass the Driver Privacy Act.
The CP is the only effective way to solve the third-party doctrine
Cover 2015 (Avidan Y [Assistant Professor of Law, Case Western Reserve University School of Law;
Director, Institute for Global Security Law and Policy]; Corporate Avatars and the Erosion of the Populist
Fourth Amendment; 100 Iowa L. Rev. 1441; kdf)
Courts may be burdened by more litigation brought by individual users over government requests for
their data. But statutory clarity through legislation such as the Driver Privacy Act should guide the
Executive and Judicial branches in determining what level of protection particular kinds of data require.
Increased litigation is, however, the necessary cost of reinserting the individual in the conversation and
negotiation with the government over her data. The Fourth Amendment must be first and foremost the people's right against
unreasonable searches and seizures, not the right of the corporation. [*1501] VII. Conclusion The viability of corporate avatars as
an answer to the third-party doctrine's flaws nears a crossroads. The 2014 term witnessed the Supreme Court's growing
recognition of privacy's fragility in the big data era and its continuing expansion of corporations' rights. In Riley v. California, the Court
acknowledged big data's encroachment on the Fourth Amendment, holding that a cell phone search required a warrant due to the phone's vast
trove of data and the intimate details that information might reveal. n375 In Burwell v. Hobby Lobby Stores, Inc., the Court gave further scope
to corporate rights, holding that the government's contraceptive mandate impermissibly burdened a corporation's free exercise of religion.
n376 The two lines of cases may ultimately intersect or collide. The Court will have to confront corporate avatars and their legitimacy as
guardians of the Fourth Amendment. A more robust corporate Fourth Amendment right might appear to strengthen corporations' ability to
resist government requests for user data. The purpose of extending a constitutional right to a corporation is, after all, as the Hobby Lobby
majority held, to protect the rights of its people, its members. n377 But the
many practical reasons set forth in this Article
suggest corporations are unlikely and unable to effectively challenge the government in the majority of
requests for their users' data. Moreover, the Bill of Rights' populist origins and the Framers' distrust of corporate power militate
against the maintenance of the corporate avatar dynamic. Government surveillance and use of big data will increasingly implicate an
individual's Fourth Amendment right, requiring that she be permitted to challenge the government. To
achieve the Fourth
Amendment's privacy and government oversight objectives, individuals should normally receive notice
of government surveillance and acquisition of their data. Notice may be justified on a number of grounds. First, the
third-party doctrine should be limited to allow for Fourth Amendment protection of non-content data
and data that are now indispensable to participate in society. Second, people should be afforded a
proprietary right in much of their data. Congress may extend that right to various data, attaching to that right
notice, as well as limits on incentives for corporate acquiescence to government requests for individuals'
data. Finally, people may communicate their desired privacy and notice to both corporations and government through machine-to-machine
technology, affording some level of ex ante clarity to the government for surveillance and pushing corporations to comport with individuals'
preferences. By so [*1502] restoring agency to individuals in their relationship with the government, the Fourth Amendment can become again
"the right of the people."
2NC CP Solves
CP Solves the case
Cover 2015 (Avidan Y [Assistant Professor of Law, Case Western Reserve University School of Law;
Director, Institute for Global Security Law and Policy]; Corporate Avatars and the Erosion of the Populist
Fourth Amendment; 100 Iowa L. Rev. 1441; kdf)
4. Automated Big Data Popular Notice Regime In the big data era, an individual cannot know all the data that private corporations and the
government have and what they do with it. Lessig therefore concludes that "architecture must enable machine-to-machine negotiations about
privacy so that individuals can instruct their machines about the privacy they want to protect." n371 Building on Lanier's monetization of
privacy rights and the privacy preference profiles of the President's Council may better realize the populist, government-limiting objectives of
the Fourth Amendment. Rather than attaching a financial component to the data, I propose a regime in which individuals would instead select
in advance whether to receive notice when the government requests their data from a third-party company. Instead of
setting a price
for the data, an individual would choose what forms of data collection and analysis would require
notice. The best route toward clarifying what data surveillance requires notice to the individual user is
through legislation. As the driver data ownership laws suggest, n372 Congress may decide what data merit
a proprietary relationship and, therefore, privacy protection. But any data about which Congress finds that
surveillance would implicate privacy concerns should require notice to the individual, a cause of action
for the individual, and limits on immunity afforded tech companies. Even with congressional action, however, [*1500]
unaddressed instances will arise that call into question whether the government may obtain a person's data. A person's notice profile would
permit an individual selection of only corporations' services and devices that provide notice to the user upon government requests for their
data. A
person might not want notice of every request. An individual may deem inoffensive the collection
of telephony metadata for purposes of aggregate analysis and not request notice before such collection.
The collection of CSLI, on the other hand, might induce concern and prompt a notice preference. Because, however, there may be forms of data
analysis, with resulting revelations about personal behavior or conduct, that have yet to be discovered, general categories of data and analysis
should be included within a person's notice profile. Even without judicial or congressional endorsement of notice profiles, the market could
precipitate a move toward increased notice to the individual user. As with general privacy preferences concerning the sale of one's data to
particular private entities, individual preferences for notice could serve as an adjunct to limiting government surveillance by prompting
companies to provide such notice to the users. Notice also might be facilitated through future technological developments such as Lanier's
proposed "Nelsonian network" - a two-way system that would record the provenance of all data. n373 The government would know in advance
when a person wants notice and the person would receive notice each time the government seeks her data. n374
2NC Courts Bad
Vote neg on presumption, plan wont be enforced
Slobogin 2014 (Christopher [Milton Underwood Prof of Law, Vanderbilt U Law School]; Panvasive
Surveillance, Political Process Theory, and the Nondelegation Doctrine; 102 Geo. L.J. 1721; kdf)
Unless the ban on general warrants is violated, the version of political process theory developed in this Article avoids second-guessing
legislative decisions about panvasive surveillance that are made by representatives of the groups the surveillance affects and that assure the
executive branch will implement legislative intent in an across-the-board manner. Conversely, panvasive
surveillance is suspect if
it is not authorized legislatively, or it is authorized by a political process that has denied the affected
groups an opportunity to participate in the legislative debate, or it is carried out in a discriminatory or
standardless fashion. Thus, even if the Fourth Amendment does not apply to panvasive surveillance, political process theory can provide
a potent means of regulating it. The legislation, representation, and executive-constraint criteria required by political process theory pose
significant obstacles to panvasive surveillance that has not been subject to the democratic process or that is implemented unevenly. Each of the
panvasive surveillance programs discussed in this Article might be challengeable on political process theory grounds. Fusion centers are often
not legislatively authorized at all. Camera and drone surveillance may be aimed at areas not represented in the legislative body. And all three of
these programs, as well as the NSA's metadata surveillance practices, may run afoul of the [*1776] executive-constraint criterion if the
legislation fails on intelligible principle or oversight grounds or the implementing regulations fail to meet administrative law's reason-giving,
reasonableness, or promulgation-procedure principles. In contrast, under
the Supreme Court's jurisprudence, none of the
panvasive surveillance programs are subject to judicial regulation because they do not implicate the
Fourth Amendment at all. Even if the Court changed direction and redefined "searches" to encompass
these programs, they would likely remain unregulated by the Fourth Amendment because of the Court's
highly deferential special needs doctrine. Alternatively, those programs deemed to be aimed at ordinary
crime control would be completely prohibited as a constitutional matter given the fact that, by
definition, they are not based on individualized probable cause determinations. Thus, political process theory's
application to the panvasive-surveillance setting occupies a middle ground between a regime that would essentially prohibit panvasive
surveillance of any sort and the current carte blanche approach that either renders the Fourth Amendment irrelevant or permits virtually any
panvasive government program meant to accomplish something other than a narrowly defined crime-control objective. Political process theory
does not demand as much from the political branches as the Fourth Amendment's general warrant prohibition would require if it applied with
full force. But given
the Supreme Court's ungenerous construction of the Fourth Amendment, political
process theory would ensure that the courts' role in regulating panvasive actions would be much more
powerful than it is today.
Despite Supreme Court ruling, the NSA still continues to gather data- Congress is key
to solve this issue
Whitney 2007 (Justin Whitney, FISA's Future: An Analysis of Electronic Surveillance in
Light of the Special Needs Exception to the Fourth Amendment, 47 Washburn L.J. 127
gcb)
Congress cut off funding for the TIA, but there is no indication that the NSA has given up on data-mining to
fight terrorism. n41 In May 2006, the NSA disclosed that it is compiling phone records from the major U.S.
telecommunications firms to aid in fighting terrorism. n42 Phone records may not be the extent of the NSA's data-mining.
Databases can be comprised of bank transactions, airline ticket purchases, Google internet searches, and
credit card purchases. For example, the Department of the Treasury maintains a database called the Financial Crimes Enforcement
Network. n43 Unusually suspicious transactions, such as international funds transfers or cash deposits exceeding $ 10,000, are flagged, stored,
and shared with multiple law enforcement agencies. n44 Media reports and recent cases have unearthed the details of the TSP. In
Hepting
v. AT&T Corp., n45 the plaintiffs sought a preliminary injunction of NSA wiretapping alleged to be taking
place at AT&T's [*132] San Francisco office. n46 The plaintiffs supported the motion with documents obtained by Mark Klein, a former
employee of AT&T. n47 Klein described witnessing workers constructing a new room next to a switch room for wiretapping at the direction of
an NSA agent. n48
The Hepting court began its analysis by recognizing admissions from President Bush's radio address on December 17, 2005. n49 In that address,
the President admitted that in the weeks after September 11, 2001, he "authorized the National
Security Agency ... to intercept the international communications of people with known links to al
Qaeda and related terrorist organizations." n50 He also said, "Before we intercept these communications, the government
must have information that establishes a clear link to these terrorist networks." n51 President Bush further revealed that the
Attorney General reviews the surveillance activities every forty-five days and that leaders in Congress
are not updated on the program. n52 The court also took judicial notice of a public statement President Bush made on May 11,
2006. n53 He said that the government's "international activities strictly target al Qaeda and their known affiliates," and that the government is
"not mining or trolling through the personal lives of millions of innocent Americans." n54 The court also took notice of Attorney General Alberto
Gonzalez's comments on the subject. n55 Gonzalez revealed in a December 19, 2005 press briefing that the surveillance program intercepts
Solves Deference
Use of Congress is key to prevent separation of powers concerns
Whitney 2007 (Justin Whitney, FISA's Future: An Analysis of Electronic Surveillance in
Light of the Special Needs Exception to the Fourth Amendment, 47 Washburn L.J. 127
gcb)
If, however, the NSA's controversial Terrorist Surveillance Program (TSP) did play a key role in thwarting the attack, it is now unclear
whether the TSP will survive to help deter future attacks. Merely six days after the unraveling of the U.K. terror plot, a federal judge issued an
injunction against the TSP and declared it unconstitutional. n11 The constitutionality of the TSP has gained media attention since the
New York Times released details of the TSP in December 2005. n12 In response to the court decision and the media controversy, on January 17,
2007, Attorney General Alberto Gonzalez announced that the NSA's warrantless surveillance, generally referred to as the TSP, will cease and
the NSA will now conduct future surveillance with court approval under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act of 1978 (FISA). n13
Opponents of warrantless surveillance argue that Congress strictly limited the means for conducting it by enacting FISA.
Critics maintain the TSP lacks congressional approval similar to the Supreme Court ruling that the President's military tribunals lacked
congressional approval in Hamdan v. Rumsfeld. n14 This article suggests that analyzing warrantless executive
surveillance in terms of congressional approval is good because it reduces separation of powers
concerns.
Use of the Supreme Court allows for abuse of power by the president
Whitney 2007 (Justin Whitney, FISA's Future: An Analysis of Electronic Surveillance in
Light of the Special Needs Exception to the Fourth Amendment, 47 Washburn L.J. 127)
Article II, section 1
of the Constitution imposes a duty on the President to "preserve, protect and defend
the Constitution of the United States." n62 Because of that duty, the Supreme Court has stated that the
President has implicit authority to protect our system of government from subversion. n63 The Fourth
Amendment, however, restricts the President's duty to protect the nation's security and guarantees by
protecting U.S. persons from unreasonable searches and seizures absent a warrant based on probable
cause. n64 The conflict between national security and the Fourth Amendment unfolded in United States v. U.S. District Court (Keith). n65 In
the Keith case, the defendant allegedly bombed the CIA office in Ann Arbor, Michigan with dynamite. n66 The defense sought disclosure of
wire-tap evidence obtained against the defendant. n67
The Attorney General admitted to the court that he had
approved government agents to conduct warrantless electronic surveillance on the defendant as necessary to
guard against "attempts of domestic organizations to attack and subvert" [*134] the government. n68 The Supreme Court set out to define
the limits of the Presidential power to protect national security with warrantless domestic wire-tapping, a practice that the Court recognized
the executive branch had conducted for at least twenty-five years. n69 The Keith Court recognized the President's implicit constitutional power
to conduct surveillance on foreign powers and on domestic powers. n70 The Court, however, held that warrantless surveillance over purely
domestic powers violates the Fourth Amendment. n71 The
Court made clear that its holding did not limit the
President's power to conduct surveillance "with respect to activities of foreign powers or their agents."
n72 Thus, the Court limited the holding to the President's constitutional power to conduct surveillance
over domestic powers meaning, "composed of citizens of the United States and which has no significant
connection with a foreign power, its agents or agencies." n73 Keith's limited holding did not answer whether the President
has Article II power to conduct electronic surveillance on citizens possessing a significant connection to a foreign power or its agents. n74
Solves Privacy
The CP is key to preventing further violations of the Fourth Amendment
Whitney 2007 (Justin Whitney, FISA's Future: An Analysis of Electronic Surveillance in
Light of the Special Needs Exception to the Fourth Amendment, 47 Washburn L.J. 127
gcb)
Law enforcement can deviate from FISA and remain within constitutional bounds through the special needs exception to the Fourth
Amendment. n83 While surveillance
related to general crime prevention requires a warrant under the Fourth
Amendment, courts relax the warrant requirement if necessary to monitor a specific threat. n84 The
special needs exception to the Fourth Amendment constitutionally authorizes the President to conduct
warrantless surveillance in response to specific threats from foreign powers. n85In United States v. Truong, n86
the United States Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit addressed the President's constitutional
authority to monitor the specific threat that foreign powers pose within the U.S. n87 The government monitored
David Truong, a Vietnamese citizen, with electronic surveillance upon suspicion that he was transmitting classified information to Vietnam. n88
The government bugged Truong's apartment and phone for almost one year continuously without court authorization. n89 Upon his conviction
for espionage, Truong argued that the surveillance violated the Fourth Amendment. n90 The Truong court interpreted Keith to imply
that the President can constitutionally conduct warrantless surveillance for foreign intelligence
purposes. n91 It held that the need for foreign intelligence information is too great to justify a uniform [*136] warrant requirement. n92
Such a requirement would frustrate the executive's ability to counter foreign threats. n93 The Truong court recognized that countering foreign
threats necessitates speed and secrecy. n94 The hurdles of a warrant requirement limit the executive branch's flexibility and increase the time
required to respond to a foreign threat. n95
According to the court, a warrant requirement would increase the
chance of leaking sensitive executive information. n96 Equally important to the Truong court was recognition that the
executive branch has expertise in surveillance decisions that the judiciary lacks. n97 District courts lack the knowledge to assess and weigh the
importance of foreign intelligence information relevant to a probable cause determination. n98 This analysis is better left in the hands of the
executive branch, comprised of the intelligence community and military, which is better equipped to assess external threats. n99 Putting aside
the impracticalities of a warrant requirement for foreign surveillance, the
court recognized that the Constitution mandates
the executive branch to be the "pre-eminent authority in foreign affairs." n100 In upholding Truong's conviction,
the court stated that separation of powers demands that conducting domestic security surveillance is
the President's principal responsibility. n101 Truong distinguished between foreign intelligence surveillance and crime
investigation surveillance. n102 If the primary purpose of surveillance was to gather foreign intelligence, then the special needs exception was
triggered, and the warrant requirement was relaxed. n103 If the primary purpose was criminal prosecution, the surveillance was subject to the
usual warrant requirements. n104 The Truong court drew a bright line as to when the purpose of surveillance becomes primarily criminal. n105
Moreover, the Truong court left an
impression in law enforcement that the surveillance became primarily
criminal at the moment the agency's criminal division assumed the lead role. n106 This framework resulted in the
FBI transferring criminal investigations to other government agencies to ensure there was no overlap between criminal and foreign intelligence
[*137] purposes that would require a warrant. n107 The Truong test resulted in a compartmentalized approach that erected a wall within the
Justice Department. n108 This wall analogy surfaced in testimony before Congress regarding the failure to prevent the 9/11 attack. n109 A New
York FBI agent testified that senior FBI officials prohibited agents from initiating a criminal investigation into two of the 9/11 hijackers because
they feared a criminal investigation would require a warrant. n110 Out of frustration, one agent infamously predicted in a letter to FBI
headquarters: "Someday someone will die - and wall or not - the public will not understand why we were not more effective and throwing
every resource we had at certain "problems.' ... The biggest threat to us now, [Usama Bin Laden], is getting the most "protection.'" n111 The
holding from In re Sealed Case n112 criticized the compartmentalized approach from Truong. n113 Recently, the Supreme Court has indicated
that the threat of terrorism might be a valid special needs exception to the Fourth Amendment. In City of Indianapolis v. Edmond, n114 the
Court invalidated a suspicionless highway checkpoint created to detect drug transportation. n115 The
Court ruled that the primary
purpose of drug prosecution was insufficient to justify a suspicionless search. n116 Rather, suspicionless
searches require a purpose beyond criminal prosecution such as protecting citizens against special
hazards like unsafe drivers. n117 According to the Court, thwarting an imminent terrorist plot would
justify a suspicionless search. n118
AT: Perm do Both
The plan and CP are incompatible. Perm do both would include the use of the
Supreme Court or the severing of the negative. This is a unique reason to vote neg.
Whitney 2007 (Justin Whitney, FISA's Future: An Analysis of Electronic Surveillance in
Light of the Special Needs Exception to the Fourth Amendment, 47 Washburn L.J. 127
gcb)
The [*142] Supreme Court granted certiorari on November 7, 2005. n167 The Hamdan Court carefully ruled that the
military commissions exceeded the authority granted by Congress to conduct military commissions
without addressing whether the commissions were within the sole constitutional authority of the
President. n168 The Court explained that the executive's authority to run military commissions consists of authority found in the
Constitution and authority granted to the executive by another branch. n169 The Supreme Court decided Hamdan on the later and
left the former unaddressed. The Constitution expressly states that Congress, not the President,
possesses the power to "make Rules concerning Captures on Land and Water." n170 Pursuant to this authority,
Congress has enacted Article 21 of the UCMJ granting the President power to conduct military tribunals but only for offenses that Congress
deems may be tried in a military tribunal by statute or by the law of war. n171 Although the Constitution's text reserves this authority for
Congress, precedent suggests that the President also possesses this authority in "cases of a controlling necessity." n172 Instead of deciding if
the commissions fall within the President's constitutional authority, the Court held that the military commissions exceeded the authority
Further, the Court refused to find that the AUMF expanded the
President's authorization to conduct military commissions under the UCMJ. n174 This narrow reading of the AUMF
Congress granted the President under the UCMJ. n173
conflicts with the Hamdi decision, which held that the detention of enemy combatants was within the scope of the AUMF because it was such a
fundamental incident of war. n175
AT: Court override
Congress has authority to enact legislation that eliminates Supreme Court jurisdiction
over certain cases - empirics
Dinh 2008 (Viet D; 2008; Threats to judicial independence, real & imagined; Viet D. Dinh is professor of
law and codirector of the Asian Law and Policy Studies Program at Georgetown University Law Center;
http://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/pdf/10.1162/daed.2008.137.4.64; 7-10-15; mbc)
Criticism of courts comes in many forms, and recent years have witnessed many if not all of the
variations. But if we compare the nature and intensity of today’s criticisms with the vitriol direct-ed at judges in years past, it becomes apparent that they are not unique. Indeed, public critiques of federal judges have been commonplace throughout Ameri-can history and, when
done thoughtfully and honestly, they contribute both to a healthy democracy and to judicial inde¬pendence.7 Congress
has attempted
to enact legislation that restricts or eliminates the jurisdiction of federal courts to hear certain types of
cases. Congress’s power to do so derives from the Exceptions Clause,8 which provides that “the
supreme Court shall have appellate Jurisdiction, both as to Law and Fact, with such Exceptions, and
under such Regulations as the Congress shall make.” The best-known of these limitations concerns
review by federal courts of prior adjudications by other bodies, such as administrative agencies or state
courts. In the early 1990s, the public (and some members of Congress) grew increasingly frustrated with what was perceived as federal
courts’ penchant for allowing state convicts to relitigate their cases in the federal system. In re-sponse to these and other concerns (in-cluding
fears about terrorism), Congress
in 1996 enacted the Anti-Terrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act (AEDPA).9
Among other things, AEDPA limits the ability of federal courts to consider habeas challenges to statecourt criminal convictions. Similar concerns led Congress (also in 1996) to enact the Illegal Immigration
Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act (IIRIRA).10 The IIRIRA prevents federal courts from reviewing a final order of the
Immigration and Naturalization Service to deport a person with a criminal record, and expands the class of crimes that constitute an aggravated
fel-ony, including terrorism. More
recently, in December 2005, just months before the Supreme Court was
scheduled to hear the Hamdan v. Rumsfeld case, Congress passed and the president signed the Detainee
Treatment Act (DTA),11 which purported to remove from the federal courts jurisdiction to hear challenges
brought by suspected terrorists to their detention and treatment at Guantánamo Bay. After the Supreme Court
held in Hamdan that the DTA did not strip the courts of jurisdiction over habeas petitions pending during the DTA’s enactment, Congress and
the president tried again. They passed the Military Commissions Act of 2006, which stripped federal courts of jurisdiction over Guantánamo
detainees’ cases, including those that were pending. The 109th Congress was asked to re-move federal court jurisdiction to re view the
constitutionality of hot-button issues, like abortion. The Marriage Pro-tection Act of 2005 intended to strip federal courts of jurisdiction to
consider the constitutionality of the Defense of Marriage Act, which declares that no state shall be required to recognize legally same-sex
marriages performed in another state.12
Other proposals aimed to deny courts jurisdiction to assess the
constitutionality of the Pledge of Alle-giance13 and public displays of the Ten Commandments.14 While all of these measures
failed to secure final passage by Congress, they have been reintro-duced in the 110th Congress.
Minimization CP
1NC
The United States federal government should amend the Foreign Intelligence
Surveillance Act minimization procedures so that evidence collected on Americans is
destroyed, if deemed impertinent
This solves their privacy internal links and avoids the DA
Correia 2014 (Evan RC [JD Candidate, 2015 @ Temple]; PULLING BACK THE VEIL OF SECRECY:
STANDING TO CHALLENGE THE GOVERNMENT'S ELECTRONIC SURVEILLANCE ACTIVITIES; 24 Temp. Pol.
& Civ. Rts. L. Rev. 185; kdf)
1. The Minimization Process The structural separation within the FISA context is derived from minimization procedures and the preference for
immediate, non-supervised destruction, rather than retention of any gathered non-foreign intelligence information. n215 Minimization
procedures under the FISA were adopted by the Attorney General and "designed in light of the purpose
and technique of the [*206] particular surveillance, to minimize the acquisition and retention, and
prohibit the dissemination, of information unavailable to the public concerning non-consenting United
States persons consistent with the need of the United States to obtain, produce, and disseminate
foreign intelligence information." n216 Borrowed from the concept of minimization in Title III, n217 these procedures attempt to
safeguard the privacy rights of American citizens by minimizing the acquisition, retention, and dissemination of information that is not foreign
intelligence information. n218 Rather than returning such information to the judge, as is required under Title III, n219 the FISA presumes that
the best way to safeguard the privacy of Americans is to destroy the information instead of retaining it. n220 The change from Title III was
based upon the belief "that in light of the relatively few cases in which information acquired under this chapter may be used as evidence, the
better practice is to allow the destruction of information that is not foreign intelligence information or evidence of criminal activity." n221
However, the question remains as to how the immediate destruction of these communications actually safeguards privacy when minimization
procedures require that acquisition be limited to situations where foreign intelligence information is likely to be obtained and dissemination of
such communications is strictly prohibited. n222 The invasion of privacy occurs the moment the communication is acquired and sorted. n223
An individual subject to such an invasion would only have [*207] his or her privacy further compromised if the recording were disseminated.
Dissemination is prohibited unless it "is necessary to understand foreign intelligence information or assess its importance," n224 or if it is
"information that is evidence of a crime which has been, is being, or is about to be committed." n225 The actual effectiveness of these
minimization procedures is "significant because it is this immediate destruction that effectively prevents the possibility of serving notice and
conducting oversight in cases where something has gone astray in the process." n226 The practical effect of immediate destruction is that
Americans whose conversations are unlawfully acquired will never find out about the interception of their communications. n227 As the
principal invasion of privacy has already taken place prior to the minimization procedures, the substantial costs that immediate destruction
imposes in terms of notice and oversight are not worth incurring. n228 Instead of being immediately destroyed, non-foreign
intelligence information should be returned to the FISC in a manner similar to the Title III process. As Adler
suggests; "returning the information to the FISC does not significantly compound the invasion of privacy,
[and any] minor invasion is justified by the ultimate objectives of the return procedure to provide relief
for, and improve oversight of, unlawful electronic surveillance." n229 2. Amending the Minimization Process An
amendment altering the minimization procedures could "accomplish the dual objective of achieving
greater oversight of the FISA process and enabling the FISC to notify particular individuals who were
subjects of unlawful electronic surveillance." n230 Specifically, the statute should require the executive to
return non-foreign intelligence information to the FISC in order to determine whether particular
individuals should be provided with notice. This is consistent with the statute and the recent practice of allowing the FISC
power to monitor surveillance conducted under its authority. n231 It is also consistent with the legislative history of [*208] enabling the FISC to
act as the ultimate decision-maker regarding the retention and destruction of information gathered under FISA. n232 Additionally, a notice
provision similar to the ones included in Title III and the FISA emergency contexts should be added to the statute. n233 As Adler proposes,
however, "unlike the Title III provision ... not everyone subject to electronic surveillance can or should be notified ... not even everyone subject
to unlawful electronic surveillance should be notified." n234 It should be within the discretion of the FISC to determine when it is in the interest
of justice to provide notice to those people who were subject to prolonged or particularly intrusive unlawful electronic surveillance. The
separation of powers doctrine compels vesting this check on executive power with the FISC, rather than with the executive branch itself. n235
Just as the FISC has the opportunity to decide if an individual is to be notified, the government should be afforded an opportunity "on an ex
parte showing of good cause" to have notice delayed or cancelled. n236 However, generalized assertions that "information that is embarrassing
to [the federal government] must be kept secret for reasons of national security" n237 should not suffice. n238 Good cause should require a
specific showing that notice would inform one of the individuals being monitored or would have the effect of disclosing confidential intelligence
methods. n239 A specific demonstration of how serving notice on a particular individual will compromise national security must be made to the
FISC. n240 A distinction must be made between disclosures that concretely threaten national security, and those that would merely embarrass
the government. n241 The
FISC is the ideal body for determining whether notice would actually pose a threat
to national security or whether it would merely provide a particular American citizen or citizens with the
necessary standing to challenge the intrusion upon their privacy. n242 The attendant safeguards and the limited
disclosure of information would ensure that when notice is provided, national security would not be endangered. n243 After the FISC
makes its notice determinations, the non-foreign [*209] intelligence information pertaining to those not
notified should be destroyed. n244 However, non-foreign intelligence information forming the basis of
notice should not be destroyed until after an assessment of damages. n245 When notice is provided, it will be up to
the individual to decide whether to take further action. "Although litigants may not often choose to seek relief, it is
important, in a civilized society, that the judicial branch of the Nation's government stand ready to
afford a remedy in these circumstances." n246
AT: Internet Advantages
Censorship Good – ISIS
1NC
Censorship is key to block ISIS
Bradshaw 2015 (Tom [Senior lecturer in Journalism at I of Gloucestershire]; Why 2015 is gearing up
to be the year of censorship; theconversation.com/why-2015-is-gearing-up-to-be-the-year-ofcensorship-35693; kdf)
India’s government has displeased many internet users by blocking access to some major websites at
the start of the new year. A total of 32 sites were blocked, although sanctions have been lifted from the
three most famous sites on the list: software development platform GitHub and video sites Vimeo and
Dailymotion. The decision to block the sites was reportedly over concerns that they were hosting
content by terrorist groups. For many Westerners, democracy and free speech are inextricably
connected, so the idea of curtailing freedom of expression in the interests of political stability seems
illiberal and even totalitarian. But India is not alone in feeling the need to take some action. Some initial
battles took place last year, but it looks as if 2015 will really be the year in which internet censorship will
become a war. British prime minister, David Cameron, and other Western leaders have been forced to
confront a difficult issue in 2014, as Islamic State showed how deftly it could appropriate social media
networks to spread its jihadi manifesto. What happens when terrorists commandeer global media
networks and use them to disseminate propaganda aimed at undermining democratic, secular
governance? The response from politicians has been to lean heavily on internet service providers,
making them do more to remove jihadi material. This approach is regarded as unjustifiable censorship
by critics, including the Index on Censorship, which has argued for the right of people to decide for
themselves whether they view such content. Corporate censorship For their part, social media
companies such as Twitter have been taking down accounts linked to IS, even though employees have
been threatened with death for doing so. And YouTube has been working hard to remove jihadi material
that glorifies violence. But if you’re determined to find a video of an IS beheading, you will find one. One
student casually remarked to me during a recent lecture that he’d watched a beheading video only a
few nights earlier, in rather the same way as if he might have mentioned that he’d caught up on an
episode of The Simpsons. There are some who passionately believe that such videos should remain
accessible. The Index on Censorship argues that allowing governments or media corporations to decide
who watches what is the start of a process that leads, ultimately, to the muzzling of dissent and
difference. Those who believe this content shouldn’t be viewed can urge others not to watch it, as
Twitter users did in August with the #ISISmediablackout hashtag. Still, while one or more people can
choose not to look, the content will still be available unless politicians take action. And as Cameron
ponders just how he should do that in 2015 without triggering accusations of censorship, he could
consider a lesson in recent British history. The oxygen of publicity The British government formally
ended a high-profile dalliance with censorship 20 years ago when it lifted restrictions on how the media
could report the Troubles in Northern Ireland. From 1988 to 1994, broadcasters were banned from
airing the words spoken directly by the Irish Republican party, Sinn Fein, and by specified paramilitary
organisations. As it turned out, broadcasters could use actors and reported speech to convey the
content of such organisations. Interviews with Sinn Fein’s leader Gerry Adams were televised and his
exact words broadcast, just with the voice of an actor dubbed over the top. This all prompted questions
about just how the law was depriving Sinn Fein and other organisations of what Margaret Thatcher
termed the “oxygen of publicity”. Since then, the digital revolution has transformed the media, enabling
terrorists to reach new audiences. By setting up a social media account, jihadis can immediately give
themselves a voice with a reach that is potentially global. As a result the UK government is now engaged
in a similar battle to that which took place during the Troubles, but the goalposts have been significantly
widened. Last month, Cameron announced he wants companies to be more proactive in taking down
“harmful material”. He also called for stronger filters and an on-screen button to report jihadi material.
Talk of filters induces queasiness in the anti-censorship lobby – and for good reason. Censorship of the
web is regularly used by repressive regimes to retain control over what is said online. But the trouble for
those who oppose such restrictions is that a traditional argument against censorship has been
undermined – arguably by Twitter more than any other organisation. Social media often means that
debate is conducted via short statements that contain emotional responses. Abbreviated words, images
and hashtags often replace reasoned discourse. Almost by design, Twitter is not conducive to the sort of
patient argument needed to express a controversial opinion and justify it to your critics. So world
leaders have started running out of options. The indicators are that they won’t leave it to chance this
year and that censorship will continue to be deployed through a combination of government and
corporate activity. What started in a panic in 2014, will become something altogether more structured
and powerful in the 12 months to come.
ISIS uses the internet as a means of recruiting and financial support
Ajnaili 2014 (Mustapha; How ISIS conquered social media; June 24;
english.alarabiya.net/en/media/digital/2014/06/24/How-has-ISIS-conquered-social-media-.html; kdf)
After seizing swathes of land in Iraq and Syria, the Al-Qaeda-inspired Islamic State of Iraq and Syria is
expanding its presence on social media, using sophisticated techniques to recruit fighters, spread its
propaganda and garner financial support. One of these techniques is a Twitter application called “Fajr alBashaer,” or “Dawn of Good Tidings” (@Fajr991). The application - flagged by Twitter as “potentially
harmful” - requests user data and personal information. After downloading it, the app sends news and
updates on ISIS fighting in Syria and Iraq. A recent report estimates that hundreds of users have
subscribed to the application on the internet or their Android smart phones using the Google Play store.
ISIS spurs CBW terrorism
Budowsky 14 (LL.M. degree in international financial law from the London School of Economics, aide
to former Sen. Lloyd Bentsen and Bill Alexander - chief deputy majority whip of the House Brent
Budowsky, Budowsky: ISIS poses nuclear 9/11 threat, http://thehill.com/opinion/brentbudowsky/215603-brent-budowsky-isis-poses-9-11-scope-threat)
I vehemently opposed the misguided Iraq War from the moment it was proposed by former President George W. Bush and have never been a
ISIS has stated its intention to
attack the United States and Europe to advance its evil, messianic and genocidal ideology and ambitions. ISIS
has the money to purchase the most deadly weapons in the world, and has recruited American and
European traitors with above-average capability to execute an attack. The odds that ISIS can obtain
nuclear, chemical, biological or other forms of mass destruction weapons are impossible to ascertain
but in a world of vast illegal arms trafficking, with so many corrupt officials in nations possessing arsenals of destruction, the danger is
real. The fact that WMD scares prior to the Iraq War ranged from mistaken to deceitful does not mean
that the WMD danger does not exist today. It does. I applaud the recent actions taken by President Obama. Obama’s
neoconservative, warmonger or super-hawk. But aggressive action against ISIS is urgently needed.
airstrikes saved tens of thousands of Yazidis from genocide, took back the Mosul Dam from ISIS and saved countless Iraqis, Kurds and Syrians
from slaughter. The airstrikes inflicted material damage to ISIS. The diplomacy of Obama and Secretary of State John Kerry contributed mightily
to the replacement of a disastrous Iraqi government by a government can unite Iraqi Sunnis, Shiites and Kurds. The Obama-Kerry initiatives will
lead to the creation of a stable Afghan government and avoid the collapse that was possible after the recent controversial Afghan elections.
These are real successes. In the current political climate, Obama seems to get credit for nothing, but he deserves great credit for some
important successes in recent weeks. And yet the
danger of ISIS pulling off a nuclear, chemical, biological or other
mass death 9/11-style attack in a major American or European city is real. Even with dirty or primitive WMD
weapons, the casualty totals could be catastrophic. ISIS must be defeated and destroyed. This will not be
achieved with “boots on the ground” proxies from Iraqi or Kurd forces alone, though Kurdish forces should immediately receive strong military
assistance.
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, http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2290382)
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 specieselimination 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.
xt – Yes ISIS uses Internet
FBI Director Comey – crackdown on the internet needed
Hudson 2015 (John; FBI Director: For Would-Be Terrorists, Twitter is the ‘Devil on Their Shoulder’; Jul
8; foreignpolicy.com/2015/07/08/fbi-director-for-would-be-terrorists-twitter-is-the-devil-on-theirshoulder/; kdf)
FBI Director James Comey accused Twitter of being the main conduit for Islamic State recruitment on
Wednesday and said the social media site amounted to the “devil on their shoulder” for extremist sympathizers around
the world. “ISIL is reaching out, primarily through Twitter, to about 21,000 English-language followers,” Comey told the
Senate Judiciary Committee, using an acronym for the extremist group. “It buzzes in their pocket … a device, almost a devil
on their shoulder, all day long saying, ‘kill, kill, kill, kill.’” Comey noted that the Islamic State’s recruitment techniques
differ from al Qaeda’s, which invests more heavily in spectacular attacks against Western landmarks. The ISIS message is “two pronged: come
to the so-called Caliphate … and if you can’t come, kill somebody where you are.” “I cannot see we stopping these indefinitely [sic],” he added.
The FBI chief’s unusually pointed warning about one of the most successful American social media companies came during congressional
testimony about the dangers of encryption technologies that prevent law enforcement from accessing data on Americans’ smartphones. In
recent months, Silicon
Valley and U.S. law enforcement agencies have been at loggerheads over new
versions of smartphone operating systems from Google, Apple, and other firms that offer default
encryption that the companies themselves can’t break. Privacy advocates have championed the
software as an important bulwark against government surveillance and cyber crime, but law
enforcement officials such as Comey worry that forensic data needed to solve crimes or thwart terrorist
attacks will “go dark.”
ISIS uses the internet as a recruitment
Ryan 2014 (Laura; Al-Qaida and ISIS use Twitter differently. Here's How and Why; Oct 9;
www.nationaljournal.com/tech/al-qaida-and-isis-use-twitter-differently-here-s-how-and-why20141009; kdf)
Al-Qaida has an Internet presence nearly two decades old, using various platforms and—more
recently—social media to push its message. But it is ISIS, the relative newcomer, that has escalated its
Internet efforts to the point that governments are beginning to see winning the Internet as central to
the fight against terrorism. European government officials reportedly met Thursday in Luxembourg with
heads of tech companies—including Twitter, Facebook, and Google—to discuss how to combat online
extremism. And the U.S. State Department launched its own Center for Strategic Counterterrorism
Communications in 2011. Much of ISIS's online strategy stems from lessons learned while its members
were still in al-Qaida's fold. But when the groups split apart, their online strategies diverged as well—
especially in how they use social media. From 9/11 to the executions of James Foley and Scott Sotloff,
there seem to be no limits to the violence the two terrorist groups are willing to carry out. Now both
groups use social media to wage their own brand of jihad, but they use it very differently. And their
separate techniques not only reveal key divisions between the two terrorist groups, but also illustrate
the depths of extremism that ISIS will plumb—and that al-Qaida won't. Here are a few key distinctions:
1. ISIS more successfully uses social media to recruit members. Both groups use social media to target
and recruit foreigners, but ISIS is much better at it. The number of Westerners fighting alongside ISIS in
Syria and Iraq could number in the thousands, thanks in large part to Twitter and Facebook, and this
spooks the West. Social media's public and instantaneous nature is ideal for reaching ISIS's target
audience—young, disillusioned Westerners who are ripe for radicalization—and it gives them a sense of
community. ISIS showcases its recruiting success via Twitter and Facebook, where foreign recruits
themselves become propaganda tools of the group's digital war, according to Gabriel Weimann, a
professor of communication at Haifa University, Israel, who has been tracking terrorists' use of the
Internet for nearly 15 years. The Facebook profiles and Twitter handles of Western recruits are distinct
because their nationality is usually noted after their new, traditional Muslim names. The American
public is most familiar with ISIS's graphic images, but recruits also share messages and images of daily
life in Syria as peaceful, purposeful, and orderly. "Even if they recruited them, radicalized them, changed
their names, made them legal muslims, they keep calling them by the name of the country they came
from," Weimann said. 2. Al-Qaida relies on 'older' Web platforms. Al-Qaida never managed to find this
kind of success, according to Weimann. Even though al-Qaida paved the way for ISIS on the Internet, the
group has quickly outpaced al-Qaida at exploiting social media to its fullest potential. Al-Qaida certainly
has a presence on social media, but the group still relies heavily on "older" platforms, like websites and
forums, according to Weimann. And while ISIS focuses on fighting a nearby enemy to defend the Islamic
State, al-Qaida focuses on fighting an external enemy, i.e. the United States., and is therefore more
focused on stirring "lone-wolf" terrorists to carry out acts of terror on their own.
Internet freedom allows for online terrorist recruitment
UNODC 12 (http://www.unodc.org/documents/frontpage/Use_of_Internet_for_Terrorist_Purposes.pdf,
pg. 5) JKS
The Internet may be used not only as a means to publish extremist rhetoric and videos, but also a way to
develop relationships with, and solicit support from, those most responsive to targeted propaganda.
Terrorist organizations increasingly use propaganda distributed via platforms such as passwordprotected websites and restricted access Internet chat groups as a means of clandestine recruitment.5
The reach of the Internet provides terrorist organizations and sympathizers with a global pool of
potential recruits. Restricted access cyber forums offer a venue for recruits to learn about, and provide
support to, terrorist organizations and to engage in direct actions in the furtherance of terrorist
objectives.6 The use of technological barriers to entry to recruitment platforms also increases the
complexity of tracking terrorism-related activity by intelligence and law enforcement personnel. 8.
Terrorist propaganda is often tailored to appeal to vulnerable and marginalized groups in society. The
process of recruitment and radicalization commonly capitalizes on an individual’s sentiments of
injustice, exclusion or humiliation.7 Propaganda may be adapted to account for demographic factors,
such as age or gender, as well as social or economic circumstances. 9. The Internet may be a particularly
effective medium for the recruitment of minors, who comprise a high proportion of users. Propaganda
disseminated via the Internet with the aim of recruiting minors may take the form of cartoons, popular
music videos or computer games. Tactics employed by websites maintained by terrorist organizations or
their affiliates to target minors have included mixing cartoons and children’s stories with messages
promoting and glorifying acts of terrorism, such as suicide attacks. Similarly, some terrorist organizations
have designed online video games intended to be used as recruitment and training tools. Such games
may promote the use of violence against a State or prominent political figure, rewarding virtual
successes, and may be offered in multiple languages to appeal to a broad audience.8
ISIS recruits online now – gives them more power
Hopping 7-8 (http://www.itpro.co.uk/security/24943/fbi-encryption-helps-isis-recruit-new-members)
JKS
Universal encryption will help terrorists spread their creeds through secure messaging services,
according to the FBI. James Comey, director of the agency, claimed in a blog post that worldwide
encryption will help groups like ISIS ahead of his appearance at the Senate Intelligence Committee. He
wrote that secure messaging services and social media will help ISIS recruit new members online. "When
the government's ability—with appropriate predication and court oversight—to see an individual's stuff
goes away, it will affect public safety," he wrote on pro surveillance website Lawfare. "That tension is
vividly illustrated by the current ISIL threat, which involves ISIL operators in Syria recruiting and tasking
dozens of troubled Americans to kill people, a process that increasingly takes part through mobile
messaging apps that are end-to-end encrypted, communications that may not be intercepted, despite
judicial orders under the Fourth Amendment." While he recognised the personal privacy benefits of
secure encryption, he added: "My job is to try to keep people safe. In universal strong encryption, I see
something that is with us already and growing every day that will inexorably affect my ability to do that
job. "It may be that, as a people, we decide the benefits here outweigh the costs and that there is no
sensible, technically feasible way to optimize privacy and safety in this particular context, or that public
safety folks will be able to do their job well enough in the world of universal strong encryption." His
comments come after Prime Minister David Cameron denounced encrypted messaging services like
Whatsapp earlier this year.
xt – Internet recruitment Key
Recruitment via the Internet is critical to ISIS’s success
Ajnaili 2014 (Mustapha; How ISIS conquered social media; June 24;
english.alarabiya.net/en/media/digital/2014/06/24/How-has-ISIS-conquered-social-media-.html; kdf)
Western Muslims Western Muslims are an important target of ISIS’s social media propaganda. The
group ensures most of its media productions are translated into as many Western languages as possible.
This is done through sophisticated media arms such as Al-Furqan Media, Fursan Al-Balagh Media,
Asawirti Media, Al-Ghuraba Media - which appears to be operated in Germany - and Al-Hayat Media
Center (http://justpaste.it/ma_asabak). The last one provides the translation of a recent speech by ISIS
spokesman Abu Mohammad al-Adnani al-Shami into English, Turkish, Dutch, French, German,
Indonesian and Russian. J.M. Berger, editor of INTELWIRE.com and author of “Jihad Joe: Americans Who
Go to War in the Name of Islam,” wrote: “ISIS does have legitimate support online - but less than it
might seem. And it owes a lot of that support to a calculated campaign that would put American socialmedia-marketing gurus to shame.” Peter W. Singer - director of the Center for 21st Century Security and
Intelligence, and a senior fellow in the Foreign Policy program - told Al Arabiya News that ISIS’s
increased activity on social media “in many ways reflects the new nature of media technology’s cross
with warfare.” Singer added: “Just as the Crimea War was the first war reported by telegraph and
Vietnam the first TV war, we are now seeing wars in places like Syria and Iraq, just like the broader use
of media technology, playing out online.”
xt – Yes CBWs: Ebola
ISIS will infect recruits with Ebola, creating a new bubonic plague
Dorminey October 5, 2014 (Ebola as ISIS BioWeapon?;
www.forbes.com/sites/brucedorminey/2014/10/05/ebola-as-isis-bio-weapon/; kdf)
ISIS may already be thinking of using Ebola as a low-tech weapon of bio-terror, says a national security
expert, who notes that the “Islamic State of Iraq and Syria” and terror groups like it wouldn’t even have
to weaponize the virus to attempt to wreak strategic global infection. Such groups could simply use
human carriers to intentionally infect themselves in West Africa, then disseminate the deadly virus via
the world’s air transportation system. Or so says Capt. Al Shimkus, Ret., a Professor of National Security
Affairs at the U.S. Naval War College. “The individual exposed to the Ebola Virus would be the carrier,”
Shimkus told Forbes. “In the context of terrorist activity, it doesn’t take much sophistication to go to
that next step to use a human being as a carrier.” And with a significant portion of West Africa now in an
open epidemic, it arguably wouldn’t be difficult for a terrorist group to simply waltz in and make off with
some infected bodily fluids for use elsewhere at another time. They wouldn’t even have to “isolate” it,
says Shimkus, who teaches a course in chemical and biological warfare. He says that if ISIS wanted to
send half a dozen of its operatives into an Ebola outbreak region and intentionally expose themselves to
the virus, they very well could. The idea is then once they had intentionally infected themselves, they
would try to interact with as many people in their target city or country of choice. The average fatality
rate from Ebola, classified as a hemorrhagic fever, is 50 percent; but without medical treatment, that
figure can range as high as 90 percent, reports the U.N. World Health Organization (WHO). The WHO
also notes that although there are two potential vaccines undergoing “evaluation,” at present none are
licensed. The virus was first documented in humans in 1976 during two simultaneous outbreaks, one in
Sudan and the other in the Congo, in a village near the Ebola River. The WHO reports that a type of fruit
bat is thought to act as the virus’ natural host. The virus apparently spreads into the human population
via direct contact with infected animals — ranging from chimpanzees, gorillas, monkeys, forest antelope
and porcupines; as well as the fruit bat itself — be they found ill or dead in the rain forest. According to
the WHO, Ebola can then be spread via contact with the infected’s bodily fluids; even bedding and
clothing “contaminated” with such fluids. The idea of using human carriers to intentionally spread
deadly pathogens has been around for centuries. As Shimkus points out, in the Middle Ages, adversaries
threw infected corpses over their enemy’s city walls in order to spread the deadly Bubonic Plague.
xt – Yes CBW Extinction
CBW attacks are the most probable existential threat
Burt 2013 (Alistar [member of parliament and parliamentary under-secretary of state at the UK
Foreign and Commonwealth Office]; We must wake up to the threats of new chemical weapons; Apr 15;
www.newscientist.com/article/mg21829125.900-we-must-wake-up-to-the-threats-of-new-chemicalweapons.html#.VMUUlP7F-AU; kdf)
Most governments now regard such weapons as militarily redundant, as demonstrated by their
membership of the Chemical Weapons Convention (CWC), which prohibits the production and use of
chemical weapons, commits them to destroying all existing stocks, and prevents reacquisition. Yet
advances in a range of scientific fields – such as neuroscience and nanotechnology – and the growing
convergence of chemistry and biology, while offering the hope of benefits to medicine and civil society,
also bring the potential for a new era in chemical warfare. There is an intrinsic connection between the
military and civilian scientific communities; the military's need for innovation has long been a driving
force in research. But the potential for the adaptation and exploitation of scientific discovery for military
advantage has rarely been greater. Pursuing legitimate research while minimising the risk of misuse is a
challenge for all. In 2011, I wrote in this magazine that the world needed to do more to guard against
the growing threat of biological weapons. Now, I want to make the same case with regard to chemical
weapons. These issues are being discussed this month at the Third Review Conference of the CWC at
The Hague in the Netherlands. The UK was a key player in negotiating agreement for the convention,
which came into force in 1997, and although the threats we now face are very different from those that
preoccupied the original negotiators, our commitment to it is undiminished. It remains a fundamental
part of the international legal framework to tackle the threat of chemical weapons and has resulted in
the destruction of four-fifths of the world's declared stockpiles. This is welcome, but we cannot afford to
be complacent. The international community must ensure it is equipped to meet new challenges and
prevent the re-emergence of chemical weapons. The latest threat comes on several fronts. Consider the
rapidly advancing field of neuroscience, in particular neuropharmacology. The potential benefits for
treating neurological impairment, disease and psychiatric illness are immense; but so too are potentially
harmful applications – specifically the development of a new range of lethal, as well as incapacitating,
chemical warfare agents. Nanotech also has the potential to transform medical care, but could be used
to bolster chemical weapon capabilities. We should not allow threats to hinder scientific progress. But
we should do all we can to minimise the misuse of knowledge, materials, expertise and equipment for
hostile purposes. The scientific community must play its part. These issues should be a fundamental
element of educational and professional training for scientists and engineers, along with clear guidance
on the obligations imposed by the CWC to not develop, produce, acquire, stockpile or retain chemical
weapons. Organisations such as the UK's Royal Society are spearheading this work. Significant
challenges to the convention are also being addressed. For instance, it focuses on the types and
quantities of toxins that armies, not terrorist cells, would need. The components of chemical weapons
are readily available: industrial chemicals are sold in bulk, yet unlike their nuclear equivalent, only
limited scientific and engineering knowledge is needed to turn them against us. Recent history shows us
that extremists entertain no qualms about the acquisition and use of such weapons; and they are willing
to use primitive delivery systems. In 1995, terrorists from the Japanese cult Aum Shinrikyo released a
nerve agent on the Tokyo subway which led to 13 deaths and left hundreds more suffering ill effects.
Preventing and prohibiting misuse without impeding the beneficial development of science and
technology is a delicate balancing act but a necessary one. All nations must face up to these challenges
and consider the implications for the CWC's verification regime in the short, near and long term. For
instance, will the declaration and inspection provisions that apply to the chemical industry still be
relevant? We cannot afford to be reactive. If unchecked, this threat has the potential to cause
devastation on a vast scale. This is a watershed moment for the convention and for the international
community. We must summon the political will to strengthen regulation and ensure relevance in the
modern world. The duty to prevent chemical development for weapons must be enforced in all nations,
and states must be prepared to take steps nationally to prevent the misuse of toxic chemicals. As the
current situation in Syria demonstrates, the danger posed by these weapons is not an abstract issue. The
existence of that country's chemical arsenal is a reminder of the threats we face. Any use of such
weapons is abhorrent. Preventing this and holding to account those who use them must remain a
priority for the international and scientific communities alike.
AT: ISIS Not a Threat
ISIS is more of a threat than ever
Botelho January 24, 2015 (Greg; What's happening in the Middle East and why it matters;
edition.cnn.com/2015/01/23/middleeast/middle-east-country-breakdown/; kdf)
Already, ISIS has beheaded a number of U.S. and British hostages -- all of them civilians -- and
threatened more. There's also the real threat that the group may take its campaign out of the Middle
East to strike in the West. That may have happened this month in France. One of the three terrorists
there, Amedy Coulibaly, proclaimed his allegiance to ISIS in a video, and investigators discovered ISIS
flags along with automatic weapons, detonators and cash in an apartment he rented, France's RTL Radio
reported Sunday, citing authorities. The West and some of its Middle Eastern allies are striking back with
targeted airstrikes not only in Iraq, where the coalition has a willing partner, but in Syria, where it is not
working with al-Assad. (In fact, Obama and others have said they want the Syrian President out of
power.) U.S. diplomatic officials said Thursday that estimates are that this coalition has killed more than
6,000 ISIS fighters. Yet their work is far from done. The group boasts upwards of 31,000 fighters, not to
mention fresh recruits seemingly coming in regularly.
AT: Plan doesn’t get modeled
Facebook censors posts to appease China, plan reverses that
Techdirt 2015 (Is Facebook Censoring posts to please China?; Jan 9; abovethelaw.com/2015/01/isfacebook-censoring-posts-to-please-china/; kdf)
Techdirt has reported before,
one troubling consequence of China’s widespread online censorship is that users of some
services outside that country are also affected. A recent incident suggests that as China’s soft power increases, so does its ability to
influence even the most powerful of Western online companies. It concerns Tsering Woeser, perhaps the leading Tibetan activist, and certainly the most Net-savvy.
As she explains in an article on China Change (NB — post contains some disturbing images of self-immolation): On December 26, 2014, I reposted on my Facebook
page a video of Tibetan Buddhist monk Kalsang Yeshe’s self-immolation that occurred on December 23 [in Tawu county, Kardze Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture,
Sichuan province, China], accompanied by an excerpted report explaining that self-immolation is a tragic, ultimate protest against repression. A
few hours
later, my post was deleted by the Facebook administrator. I was rather shocked when a Facebook notice of deletion leapt out on
screen, which I tweeted right away with the thought, “It’s been more than six years since I joined Facebook in 2008, and this is the first time my post was deleted!
Does FB also have ‘little secretaries?’ “ “Little secretaries” refers to the censors hired by Chinese online
services to remove politically sensitive material. Her article includes Facebook’s explanation for its move: Facebook has long been a place
where people share things and experiences. Sometimes, those experiences involve violence and graphic videos. We work hard to balance expression and safety.
However, since some people object to graphic videos, we are working to give people additional control over the content they see. This may include warning them in
advance that the image they are about to see contains graphic content. We do not currently have these tools available and as a result we have removed this
content. To which Woeser replies that there seems to be some double standards here: Western
democracies have recently resolved to
strike ISIS, and the public support for this is largely the result of the Jihadist videos of beheading hostages that have been disseminated online. Facebook
defended its inclusion of these beheading videos which it claims do not show the graphic moment of beheading. But I, for one, saw videos of the beheading
moment on Facebook. I even saw footage of the executioners putting the severed head on the torso of the dead. Even with a video without the moment of
beheading, does it not “involve violence” and is it therefore not “graphic?” Moreover, she points out that there is a key difference between the videos of hostages
being beheaded, and the images of self-immolation that she posted: Tibetans who burn themselves to death are not seeking death for their own sake but to call
attention to the plight of the Tibetan people. They die so that the Tibetans as a people may live in dignity. Those who took tremendous risk to videotape the selfimmolation and to upload it online know perfectly that such videos will not be able to spread on Chinese websites, and they must be posted on websites in free
societies such as Facebook for the world to see. When Facebook decides to delete the video to get rid of “graphic content,” it renders the sacrifice of the selfimmolator and the risk taken by the videographer as nothing. Is that what Facebook wants to accomplish? She concludes by posing an important question about
Facebook’s true motives here: On Facebook, videos of Tibetan self-immolations have not been censored before, and my friends argued that we have reason to
worry that Facebook founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg is compromising on defending users’ freedom of expression as he seeks China’s permission to allow
Facebook in China, given that he visited Beijing two months ago and met with high-ranking Chinese officials, and that a couple of weeks ago, Mr. Zuckerberg
received Lu Wei, China’s Internet czar in Facebook’s headquarters where he ingratiated himself to his guest by showing that he and his employees were reading
[China’s President] Xi Jinping’s writings to learn about China. The view that Facebook is selling-out in order to ingratiate itself with the Chinese authorities is lent
support by another story involving a Facebook post by a Chinese dissident, reported here by The New York Times: Amid
growing censorship
pressures around the world, Facebook suspended the account of one of China’s most prominent exiled
writers after he posted pictures of a streaking anti-government demonstrator. On Tuesday, the exiled writer, Liao Yiwu,
said that he had received a notice from Facebook stating that his account had been temporarily suspended, and that it would be blocked permanently if he
continued to violate the site’s rules against nudity. Once again, the excuse for censorship is that it violated Facebook’s rules. But that doesn’t stand up to scrutiny:
Mr. Liao said the case was not that simple. In an interview at his home in Berlin, the 56-year-old writer said he had covered up the genitalia of the streaker in the
photo after people pointed out that it might violate Facebook rules. He cut out a picture of the former Chinese leader Mao Zedong and pasted it over the man’s
groin in the photo. His account was suspended several days after doing so. Taken together, these two cases certainly seem to indicate a
new desire by
Facebook to stay on the right side of the Chinese government by removing politically sensitive content,
perhaps in the hope that it may be allowed to launch in China at some point. That’s bad enough, but the situation is
made worse by the company’s feeble attempts to pretend otherwise.
China censors ISIS—Aff ends that censorship
Schrock January 21, 2015 (John Richard [Prof at Emporia State University]; Danger, dignity and
decent; www.hayspost.com/2015/01/21/danger-dignity-and-decency/; kdf)
Within these last months in the U.S., we
have seen Islamic State (ISIS) rebels recruit online. Hundreds of teenagers have
left their homes to join the war in Iraq and Syria. The wimpy U.S. response was to produce counter
online advertisements. Blocking those recruitment websites was not considered legitimate because it was “free speech.” But other
countries are willing to take action. Article 19 of the U.N. Universal Declaration of Human Rights recognized in the International Covenant on
Civil and Political Rights asserts that “…everyone shall have the right to freedom of expression…” in speech, print, art or other media. However,
Article 19 also explains that exercise of these rights may be “…subject to certain restrictions.” Those limitations include respecting “…the rights
or reputation of others” and “…the protection of national security or of public order, or of public health or morals.” Foreign
countries
recognize the gray areas of free-speech. For instance, some European countries restrict libel of living persons on the Internet.
And China has no qualms using their great firewall to block those Internet ISIS calls to come-and-kill. Why
do we consider it a crime to threaten to kill another person in the U.S., but not a crime to recruit
youngsters to kill people elsewhere?
Plan independently ends censorship
Plan sends a signal for internet freedom—causes a li
Gardner, 10
(Staff Editor & Reporter-Casino Gambling Web, 9/23, Gambling Regulations Will Help Obama's World
Internet Freedom Mandate, http://www.casinogamblingweb.com/gambling-news/gamblinglaw/gambling_regulations_will_help_obama_s_world_internet_freedom_mandate_55752.html)
Gambling Regulations Will Help Obama's World Internet Freedom Mandate President Obama gave a
speech today in front of the United Nations General Assembly, and his message was largely one of
individual freedom. During the speech, Obama touched on many issues, perhaps the most aggressive of
which was having a Palestinian state separate from Israel. Obama spoke of allowing the Palestinians
their own state with the hope that Israelis and Palestinians could live side by side in peace. Obama
acknowledged that this could take a long time, but that the goal could become a reality. During the
speech, Obama spoke about how the Internet should remain free from government interference
everywhere in the world. The freedom to surf the Internet would allow people all across the globe to
research issues and learn from the wide array of news that is currently found on the Internet. "We will
support a free and open Internet, so individuals have the information to make up their own minds," said
Obama. "And it is time to embrace and effectively monitor norms that advance the rights of civil society
and guarantee its expansion within and across borders." That statement may have been much better
received had the US not had their own blocks on Internet freedom. The Internet gambling industry
currently is operating as a black market in the US due to the 2006 Unlawful Internet Gambling
Enforcement Act. The law is a form of Internet censorship that Representative Barney Frank and other
lawmakers have been trying to repeal. In the quest for Internet freedom, the US proclaims themselves
as leaders, however, the country must be careful with their plea. If the US can place Internet bans on
certain industries, then little could be done to stop other countries from banning different industries
or websites because of their beliefs. For instance, in countries where religion is unified, there could be
bans on any material that the country finds outside the rules of their particular religion. In other
countries, bans could be placed on industries that are run largely by foreign operators. President Obama
took a strong first step today by promoting Internet freedom. The next step will be making sure the US
leads by example, and one area to start would be by lifting the ban on Internet gambling. The
president has laid down the gauntlet, and now it is time for him to follow his own lead.
Internet—Competition
1nc Internet/Bandwidth
If the thesis of their advantage is true – that demand is already too high – companies
would be upgrading now. All the aff does is spike a bandwidth crunch in the short
term because broadband investments are long term.
No Internet collapse
Dvorak 2007 (John; Will the Internet Collapse?; May 1;
www.pcmag.com/article2/0%2c2817%2c2124376%2c00.asp; kdf)
When is the Internet going to collapse? The answer is NEVER. The Internet is amazing for no other reason than that it
hasn't simply collapsed, never to be rebooted. Over a decade ago, many pundits were predicting an all-out catastrophic
failure, and back then the load was nothing compared with what it is today. So how much more can this network take? Let's look at the basic
changes that have occurred since the Net became chat-worthy around 1990. First of all, only a few people were on the Net back in 1990, since
it was essentially a carrier for e-mail (spam free!), newsgroups, gopher, and FTP. These capabilities remain. But the e-mail load has grown to
phenomenal proportions and become burdened with megatons of spam. In one year, the amount of spam can exceed a decade's worth, say
1990 to 2000, of all Internet traffic. It's actually the astonishing overall growth of the Internet that is amazing. In 1990, the total U.S. backbone
throughput of the Internet was 1 terabyte, and in 1991 it doubled to 2TB. Throughput continued to double until 1996, when it jumped to
1,500TB. After that huge jump, it returned to doubling, reaching 80,000 to 140,000TB in 2002. This ridiculous growth rate has continued as
more and more services are added to the burden. The jump in 1996 is attributable to the one-two punch of the universal popularization of the
Web and the introduction of the MP3 standard and subsequent music file sharing. More recently, the emergence of inane video clips (YouTube
and the rest) as universal entertainment has continued to slam the Net with overhead, as has large video file sharing via BitTorrent and other
systems. Then VoIP came along, and IPTV is next. All the while, e-mail numbers are in the trillions of messages, and spam has never been more
plentiful and bloated. Add blogging, vlogging, and twittering and it just gets worse. According to some expensive studies, the growth rate has
begun to slow down to something like 50 percent per year. But that's growth on top of huge numbers. Petabytes. To date, we have to admit
that the structure of the Net is robust, to say the least. This is impressive, considering the fact that experts were predicting a collapse in the
1990s. Robust or not, this Internet is a transportation system. It transports data. All transportation systems eventually need upgrading, repair,
basic changes, or reinvention. But what needs to be done here? This, to me, has come to be the big question. Does anything at all need to be
done, or do we run it into the ground and then fix it later? Is this like a jalopy leaking oil and water about to blow, or an organic perpetualmotion machine that fixes itself somehow? Many
believe that the Net has never collapsed because it does tend to
fix itself. A decade ago we were going to run out of IP addresses—remember? It righted itself, with
rotating addresses and subnets. Many of the Net's improvements are self-improvements. Only spam,
viruses, and spyware represent incurable diseases that could kill the organism. I have to conclude that the
worst-case scenario for the Net is an outage here or there, if anywhere. After all, the phone system, a more
machine-intensive system, never really imploded after years and years of growth, did it? While it has
outages, it's actually more reliable than the power grid it sits on. Why should the Internet be any
different now that it is essentially run by phone companies who know how to keep networks up? And let's
be real here. The Net is being improved daily, with newer routers and better gear being constantly hotswapped all over the world. This is not the same Internet we had in 1990, nor is it what we had in 2000. While phone companies
seem to enjoy nickel-and-diming their customers to death with various petty scams and charges, they could easily charge one flat fee and
spend their efforts on quality-of-service issues and improving overall network speed and throughput. That will never happen, and phone
companies will forever be loathed. But when all is said and done, it's because of them that the Internet will never collapse.
That's the good news. The bad news is they now own the Internet—literally—and they'll continue to play the nickel-and-dime game with us.
Optoelectronics innovation is resilient
NRC 12
National Research Council, principal operating agency of the National Academies, Winter 2012, “Optics
and Photonics: Essential Technologies for Our Nation,” 7-155
Those firms
found that the lowest-cost option was to manufacture the discrete technologies in developing
countries and abandon U.S. production of monolithically integrated technologies.49 It is not clear, however, that the
apparent declines in monolithic-integration patenting in the firms that have moved production activities offshore will
necessarily lead to a decline in overall innovation by U.S. firms in monolithic integration. Several start-up firms
have emerged in the United States since 2000 that focus on monolithic-integration technologies. It is also possible that
established U.S. optoelectronic component manufacturers that have kept fabrication in the United
States will increase R&D and patenting in monolithic integration for optoelectronics. Finally, and perhaps most
important, firms outside telecommunications and data communications, such as computing firms, may
find it in their interest to develop monolithic-integration design and fabrication capabilities for
communications applications, as evidenced by Intel’s recent establishment of a silicon photonics design and fabrication facility at the
University of Washington.
The case of optoelectronics components illustrates a strong relationship between the location of production
activities by U.S. firms and the direction of these firms’ innovative efforts. But the evidence presented in this case
suggests that the movement of optoelectronics-component production to non-U.S. locations has thus far
not resulted in the “loss” by the U.S. economy of innovative capabilities in monolithic integration. Instead, we
observe that a different set of U.S. corporations (and universities) now have become active in this
technological field.50,51
Aff does nothing to industry structure—Comcast outweighs
Sasso 9/4/14 (Brendan; FCC Chief: Cable Companies Are Wrong About Internet Competition;
www.nationaljournal.com/tech/fcc-chief-comcast-is-wrong-about-internet-competition-20140904; kdf)
September 4, 2014 Most
Americans lack any real choice in accessing high-speed Internet, the chairman of the
Federal Communications Commission said Thursday. Comcast and other cable giants have argued that the industry is
already plenty competitive. Consumers in many areas can choose to access the Internet from a DSL provider or on their smartphones,
the cable companies argue. While FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler didn't mention Comcast by name, he said those other options don't deliver the
speeds that consumers need today. To reliably stream high-definition video, as consumers expect, providers must deliver speeds of at least 25
megabits per second, Wheeler said. In most areas, that means the only option is the local cable company. "At
25 Mbps, there is
simply no competitive choice for most Americans," the FCC chief said. "Stop and let that sink in. Three-quarters of
American homes have no competitive choice for the essential infrastructure for 21st century
economics and democracy. Included in that is almost 20 percent who have no service at all." The conclusion
doesn't bode well for Comcast's bid to buy Time Warner Cable. The deal would unite the top two cable providers, creating a new behemoth
controlling a large portion of the nation's high-speed Internet access. But Comcast frequently notes that its network doesn't overlap with Time
Warner Cable, meaning the merger would not actually create fewer choices for any consumers. Comcast didn't respond to a request to
comment. The speech could also have implications for the agency's net-neutrality regulations. Wheeler noted that, historically, the absence of
competition has "forced the imposition of strict government regulation in telecommunications." But he made it clear that he
would prefer
a competitive market with light regulation than heavy regulation of monopolies. One of the consequences
of past monopoly regulation was the "thwarting of the kind of innovation that competition stimulates,"
Wheeler said.
Fiber solves bandwidth
Forrest, 14 - Staff Writer for TechRepublic. (Conner, “Google's Fiber lottery: Predicting who's next and
how Google picks winners” Tech Republic, http://www.techrepublic.com/article/the-google-fiberlottery/)
Bandwidth is a serious issue for these kinds of small businesses, as well as entrepreneurs and highly-connected families. Mobile data,
streaming video, and advances in cloud services have put tremendous demands on bandwidth, and with internet service providers
experimenting with bandwidth throttling and bandwidth caps, it threatens to make internet usage a constrained resource.
Google, of course, wants people and companies to use the internet like it's a unlimited resource, because as the web's largest internet
advertising company, it makes more money the more everyone uses the internet.
Google Fiber is tackling this problem by putting a new face on a decades-old technology with the hopes
of using it to bring gigabit internet into businesses and homes -- that's over 10 times the capacity of
most of today's internet connections in US homes and small businesses. No new internet product has generated as much
excitement in the technology world as Google Fiber. It has piqued the interest of average consumers and left techies salivating.
When Google Fiber started in Kansas City, Kansas in 2012, it was difficult to determine how serious the search giant was about disrupting the
US internet. In 2013, it expanded the experiment to Austin, Texas and Provo, Utah, and the possibility began to emerge that this was going to
be a real thing. Google even released a checklist for potential Fiber cities. According to William Hahn, a principal analyst at Gartner, it's hard to
tell exactly what Google is up to.
"It's like those murder mysteries. The suspect would act exactly the same way, whatever their motive, up to this point," Hahn said. "If they were
trying to take a look at people's data and play in the sandbox, and were willing to subsidize for that reason, it would look a lot like them trying
to spur competitive response from the CSPs."
However, in
2014, Google suddenly looked a lot more serious about Fiber when it announced plans to
bring Fiber to 34 cities. That sounds a little more ambitious than it really is. It's actually only nine metro areas, but it's still a major
expansion of Google's Fiber plans.
The internet’s not key to any facet of the international order – their authors inflate
the threat
Ortagus ‘14
[Megan, Master’s in International Security from Johns Hopkins. May 2014,“The Internet’s Impacts on
Power Differentials in Security and Conflict”, master’s thesis submitted to Johns Hopkins University,
https://jscholarship.library.jhu.edu/bitstream/handle/1774.2/37255/ORTAGUS-THESIS2014.pdf?sequence=1]
It is quite remarkable how ICT has transformed commerce, global communications, and societal
interactions so dramatically in only twenty years since the modern Internet became widely accessible to
individuals. As a result, all states are presented with unprecedented security vulnerabilities, and their
response to shifting power differentials is paramount. This has led many analysts to proclaim that power
differentials have fundamentally changed and that cyberspace ultimately will render other forms of
warfare irrelevant. However, the Internet has neither fundamentally altered human nature nor the
desires and competitions that fuel conflict; it is transforming the experience of conflict, although not
necessarily the outcomes. This thesis has found no conclusive data to support the notion that ICT is
concurrently revolutionizing interstate, intrastate or extrastate conflict to the point whereby a weaker
adversary can achieve a desired political outcome through the unique use of cyberspace. If this were the
case, one would expect to see VNSAs, dissident movements, and fragile states solely using the Internet
to prevail against their more powerful adversaries. At present there are no such cases. To the contrary,
dominant nation states (especially authoritarians) have used ICT in concert with traditional security
forces to defeat those who challenge the normal order. The prediction that the fifth domain will make
other forms of warfare irrelevant, or that the Internet provides a competitive advantage for dissidents
and terrorists, has not yet come to fruition. While cyberspace adds a new virtual dimension to conflict,
much like airpower added a third dimension to military conflict after World War I, cyber weapons have
not yet developed to the point where they can replace weaponry in the physical domains. Some experts
argue that they never will. To extend the air power analogy further, aerial systems first provided
unparalleled reconnaissance capabilities before evolving into their more famous roles delivering deadly
payloads. Today, cyber weapons are significantly limited and cyber warfare has not proven to be an
adequate substitute for an air force, let alone an occupying force. Although as technology advances,
cyber weapons could transform from auxiliary to decisive in combat, much like airpower. Alternatively,
cyber warfare could be relegated to a category similar to chemical warfare: it inspires serious concerns,
but has not affected the global balance of power. The latter appears more likely because of the
Internet's inherent limitations in affecting the physical world.
--XT Squo Solves/Google Fiber
Telecom is answering demand now—fiber will go national no matter what the aff does
Canon, 14 (Scott, “AT&T might challenge Google Fiber with high-speed Internet service in KC” Kansas
City Star, 4/21,
Read more here: http://www.kansascity.com/news/business/article346078/ATT-might-challengeGoogle-Fiber-with-high-speed-Internet-service-in-KC.html#storylink=cpy)
AT&T Inc. took a swing at Google Inc. on Monday.
The telecommunications behemoth announced it may challenge the Internet search titan on turf that is
new to both — the sale of industrial-strength Internet hookups to the home.
Both might soon fight over bandwidth-hungry customers in Kansas City. AT&T said the market is one of
24 it is considering for expansion of broadband speeds reaching 1 gigabit per second. That would be
nearly 100 times faster than the national average for home consumers.
The two companies had already begun a low-stakes tussle over the fledgling market for high-speed
household Internet connections in Austin, Texas.
AT&T’s move Monday signaled a push to nationalize the market, possibly leapfrogging Google Fiber.
For years, the home Internet business has been the domain of phone and cable TV companies that
typically said they saw little evidence that ordinary consumers wanted so much broadband.
Google Fiber was seen as an attempt to goad those companies into offering swifter Internet
connections. If AT&T takes such a service nationwide, upgrading its U-verse into a service called
GigaPower, the rest of the industry could follow suit.
“The scope of this effort simply takes your breath away,” said technology industry analyst Jeff Kagan.
“This is the most ambitious plan we have seen to date.”
Cities that want AT&T, the company suggested, should consider cutting regulatory red tape the way
thatKansas City-area communities have for Google Fiber.
Google Fiber boosts innovation in every provider and it’s expanding rapidly
Conner, 14 - I am an entrepreneur and communications expert from Salt Lake City, and I am the founder
of Snapp Conner PR. I am also a frequent author and speaker on Business Communication (Cheryl
,”Google Fiber Plans Expansion To 34 New Cities (Including Salt Lake)” Forbes,
http://www.forbes.com/sites/cherylsnappconner/2014/02/20/google-fiber-plans-expansion-to-34-newcities-including-salt-lake/)
The race for the Internet gigabit space took another leap forward this week with Google GOOG +0.85%
Fiber’s announcement that it has targeted 34 more cities in 9 metro areas for access to Google internet
services at the increasingly popular 1Gps speed.
Salt Lake City is one of the additional regions Google is considering for network expansion along with
additional cities in Arizona, California, Georgia, Tennessee, North Carolina, Oregon and Texas. (Google
Fiber’s blog announcement includes a comprehensive list of the 34 additional sites in all states.)
Google expects to give final selection decisions to the 34 new candidate locations by the end of the year.
Of particular note to cities vying for future expansion, much of Google’s choice for current candidates is
dependent on cities’ ability to conduct their own legwork. Cities with existing infrastructure that is
pervasive and documented can gain a leg up in getting their infrastructure maps in order and making it
faster and easier for Google to make permit requests, knowing the company can put its fiber on the
cities’ existing Internet poles.
By targeting cities with existing infrastructure, Google is not only able to move forward more quickly,
but is able to minimize the disruption to recipient cities that is caused by digging up streets to establish
new conduits, the company said.
Of the selections, Google representative Angie Welling told representatives of Salt Lake City, “Google
chose to work with Salt Lake City because of how tech-savvy the area is. Google would love to see what
local entrepreneurs would do with a high-speed gig connection.”
While Google has previously said that Google Fiber’s launch is meant to also spur the growth of
competitive platfoms from other providers, the company’s fast expansion is making Google itself a
bigger competitive force than before. As I have previously reported, Chattanooga Tenn., has built its
own ultra high speed fiber network, and AT&T T +1.12% has launched a similar offering in Austin, Texas,
after Google’s announcement of plans to provide services there.
It’s changing the entire industry
Barr, 14 – staff at WSJ (Alistair, “Google Fiber Is Fast, but Is It Fair?” Wall Street Journal,
http://online.wsj.com/articles/google-fuels-internet-access-plus-debate-1408731700)
Frustrated by the hammerlock of U.S. broadband providers, Google Inc. GOOGL +0.92% has searched
for ways around them to provide faster Internet speeds at lower cost, via everything from high-speed
fiber to satellites.
In the process, it is changing how next-generation broadband is rolled out.
Telecom and cable companies generally have been required to blanket entire cities, offering connections
to every home. By contrast, Google is building high-speed services as it finds demand, laying new fiber
neighborhood by neighborhood.
Others including AT&T Inc. T +1.12% and CenturyLink Inc. CTL +0.59% are copying Google's approach,
underscoring a deeper shift in U.S. telecommunications policy, from requiring universal service to letting
the marketplace decide.
--XT No Bandwidth Crisis
No total collapse – too decentralized
Jonathan Strickland, 10 February 2010 senior writer for Discovery’s How Stuff Works, "What would happen if the Internet collapsed?" .
HowStuffWorks.com. <http://computer.howstuffworks.com/internet/basics/internet-collapse.htm>
Here's the good news -- a total collapse of the Internet would be almost impossible. The Internet isn't a
magic box with an on/off switch. It's not even a physical thing. It's a collection of physical things and it's
constantly changing. The Internet isn't the same entity from one moment to the next -- machines are
always joining or leaving the Internet. It's possible for parts of the Internet to go offline. In fact, this
happens all the time. Whether it's a particular server that crashes and needs to be rebooted or replaced
or a cable under the ocean gets snagged by an anchor, there are events that can disrupt Internet service.
But the effects tend to be isolated and temporary. While there is such a thing as the Internet backbone - a collection of cables and servers that carry the bulk of data across various networks -- it's not
centralized. There's no plug you could pull out from a socket or a cable you could cut that would cripple
the Internet. For the Internet to experience a global collapse, either the protocols that allow machines
to communicate would have to stop working for some reason or the infrastructure itself would have to
suffer massive damage. Since the protocols aren't likely to stop working spontaneously, we can rule out
that eventuality. As for the massive damage scenario -- that could happen. An asteroid or comet could
collide with the Earth with enough force to destroy a significant portion of the Internet's infrastructure.
Overwhelming gamma radiation or electromagnetic fluctuations coming from the sun might also do the
trick. But in those scenarios, the Earth itself would become a lifeless hulk. At that stage it hardly matters whether or
not you can log in to MySpace.
Demand not growing fast enough to cause collapse – consensus
Leslie Daigle et al 2010; Internet Society Chief Internet Technology Officer; Internet Society briefing paper, Growing Pains:
Bandwidth on the Internet http://www.isoc.org/isoc/conferences/bwpanel/docs/bp-growingp-201003-en.pdf
The Internet is continuously evolving. Some of the more profound recent changes have been caused by
the impact of broadband access networks. In the last decade, the number of broadband subscribers
worldwide has grown over one hundred times. Widespread broadband deployment has led to
tremendous innovation in Internet applications and huge increases in the average amount of bandwidth
consumed per user. The effects of these changes are now being felt around the globe. Stimulated by a
recent panel event organized by the Internet Society, we present the results of several recent studies,
which, when combined represent the most detailed and comprehensive picture of the contemporary
Internet available today. These studies show a consensus emerging about the gross amount of
bandwidth being used on the Internet, and the growth trends. The panel event hosted discussion of the
impacts of growth and application innovation on Internet service providers, and some of the actions that
the technical community is taking to address these ‘growing pains’. We draw a number of conclusions
from the data and the discussion: • The growth of Internet bandwidth globally is not about to cause
global problems. International and intercarrier links are not, in general, unable to cope with the
demands of growing bandwidth consumption.
Your impacts are consistently and hilariously empirically denied – prefer our evidence
Leslie Daigle et al 2010; Internet Society Chief Internet Technology Officer; Internet Society briefing paper, Growing Pains:
Bandwidth on the Internet http://www.isoc.org/isoc/conferences/bwpanel/docs/bp-growingp-201003-en.pdf
It is a truism that the Internet has grown tremendously since its inception, both in the scale of the
physical internetwork that underpins it and the scope of activity that it supports. The invention and
widespread dissemination of Internet technology marks an inflection point in human civilization
arguably as great as that wrought by Johannes Gutenberg. Unsurprisingly, given this sudden, striking,
and profound change, doom-laden predictions for the future of the Internet have never been hard to
find. In addition to concerns about the impact on human social norms and the implications for economic
activity, there have been regular forecasts of impending catastrophe based on fears that the technology
itself is simply unable to support the huge growth curve it has experienced and is experiencing.
ISP’s exaggerate massive data costs – internet traffic add tiny cost
Barry Collins (writer for PC Pro) October 2011 “ISPs "exaggerate the cost of data"”
http://www.pcpro.co.uk/news/broadband/370393/isps-exaggerate-the-cost-of-data
SPs are over-egging the costs of meeting the ever-increasing demand for data, according to a new report. Both
fixed and mobile providers have claimed that increased internet traffic has resulted in "ballooning" costs
for networks. Some ISPs have argued that content providers should pay them to help meet the cost of supplying bandwidth-intensive
services such as the BBC iPlayer. However, a new report commissioned by content providers - including the BBC,
Channel 4 and Skype - claims the costs of delivering additional internet traffic have been wildly
exaggerated by the ISPs. "Traffic-related costs are a small percentage of the total connectivity revenue,
and despite traffic growth, this percentage is expected to stay constant or decline," claims the report, written by
telecoms experts Plum Consulting. The report claims the cost of delivering additional gigabytes of data are mere
pennies. "Studies in Canada and in the UK... put the incremental cost of fixed network traffic at around €0.01-0.03 per GB." The report
concedes that the cost of adding capacity on mobile networks "are significantly higher than they are for fixed networks" because "the radioaccess network is shared by users". However, it claims forthcoming 4G technologies will significantly reduce those costs. "Forward-looking
estimates which take account of the transition to LTE [Long Term Evolution], additional spectrum and traffic subscriber growth... puts the cost
to the mobile network operators at under €1 per GB," Plum Consulting claims. As the report states, that cost is "well below existing
Describing claims of ballooning costs as a "myth", the report
concludes that "for fixed networks, traffic-related costs are low, falling on a unit basis and likely to fall
overall given declines in traffic growth and on-going cost-reducing technical progress".
smartphone data tariffs of around €10 per GB".
Telecoms solve bandwidth crunch now – status quo momentum sufficient
David Goldman (writer for CNN Money) February 2012 “4 ways to stave off the cell phone
apocalypse” http://money.cnn.com/2012/02/24/technology/spectrum_crunch_solutions/index.htm
It's easy to get frustrated about the effects of the spectrum crunch. Higher bills, fewer choices, and dismal service are enough to make even the
casual cell phone customer furious. Making things worse, none of the solutions for easing the spectrum shortage are inexpensive or easy.
There's no catch-all fix on the horizon. The
good news, though, is that options exist -- and carriers understand that
doing nothing would be disastrous. Here are the four primary ways they're going about staving off a spectrum crisis
and the resulting cell phone apocalypse. Reusing spectrum: One way to relieve capacity jams is "cell splitting,"
which involves either adding more cell sites or adding more radios to existing sites to increase the
number of connections that a network can handle. The problem is that it's expensive and tricky. "It would seem to some
people that you could infinitely reuse the spectrum you already have," says Dan Hays, a partner at PricewaterhouseCoopers' consultancy. "The
reality is a bit more complicated." As the number of bandwidth-hogging smartphones and tablets increases, carriers have to deploy more and
more towers. They face practical hurdles: no one wants a new antenna in their backyard. Interference is also a growing problem as more
towers get added. There
are, however, some innovative solutions being developed.
No short-term collapse – and your impacts are unsupported paranoia
Leslie Daigle et al 2010; Internet Society Chief Internet Technology Officer; Internet Society briefing
paper, Growing Pains: Bandwidth on the Internet
http://www.isoc.org/isoc/conferences/bwpanel/docs/bp-growingp-201003-en.pdf
At the macro level, bandwidth pressures at the international and intercarrier level would cause regional
problems. As described earlier, this does not appear to be on the horizon because gross traffic growth is
not going to exceed the anticipated growth in global network capacity anytime soon. While the
Internet did experience episodes of ‘congestion collapse’ more than 20 years ago, the mechanisms
implemented at that time to address the problem have largely stood the test of time. Despite this,
rumours of imminent network meltdown are never far away.
Growth scenarios are exaggerated by the IT industry – be skeptical
Peter Sevcik 2001; President of NetForecast in Andover, MA, and is a leading authority on Internet
traffic, performance and technology Internet Bandwidth: It’s Time for Accountability Net Forecasts –
Peter J. Sevcik BCR Volume 31, Number 1 January 2001
http://www.netforecast.com/Articles/bandwidth%20supply.pdf
The Internet has not been doubling every 3.5 months, despite what you might hear. Figure 1 shows how
far off that hyper-growth scenario is. But the myth continues because it’s useful -- it helps get money
out of investors and keep stock prices inflated. The realistic choices facing planners and investors is
reflected in Scenarios A and B in Figure 1. Looking at the evidence and evaluating the chances for those
scenarios, I think that Scenario A will prevail in 2001. The industry’s in for a tough year; we’re more likely
to see pessimism doubling every 3.5 months over the prospects for the Internet economy rather than
bandwidth doubling. However, long term, I think that Scenario B will emerge as the winning end game.
It’s ironic that one of the major benefits of the ‘Net - information transparency -- manifests itself in
many parts of the economy more than in the Internet business itself. The data in Figure 1 is very difficult
to gather and compile; it represents the best I could do from the sketchy data available. Most industry
players have an incentive to keep this data secret in order to bolster their market positions. Similarly,
the market research firms that continually issue glowing reports, seem to place a higher value on loyalty
to their clients than to realistic assessment of the situation. If we try to keep Internet planners and investors in the dark,
the New Economy will be adopting some of the worst characteristics of the Old Economy. It’s time for Internet service providers to supply data
about their capacity and demand to an impartial group that will compile and share it with the public. It is time for accountability.
--XT Innovation Inev
University research solves
NRC 12
National Research Council, principal operating agency of the National Academies, Winter 2012, “Optics
and Photonics: Essential Technologies for Our Nation,” 7-155
In contrast with the pattern of innovation, entry, and early-stage growth of many of these technologies in the 1950s and 1960s, the new
technological possibilities are being pursued by start-up firms, often in collaboration with U.S.
government laboratories or universities (see Figure 7.5, which shows the growing role of U.S. universities
in optoelectronics patenting). Moreover, the U.S. defense market often is a less central source of demand for innovative
technologies. The new approach to technology development that relies more heavily on universities and
small and medium-size firms for innovation, in which VC funding plays a more important role, may increase the importance of
mechanisms to support cross-industry and cross-institutional coordination in helping the United States to maintain leadership in photonics
innovation.
Innovation high and inevitable
Vivek Wadhwa 14, fellow at the Rock Center for Corporate Governance at Stanford University,
director of research at the Center for Entrepreneurship and Research Commercialization at Duke’s
engineering school and distinguished scholar at Singularity and Emory universities, “How the United
States is reinventing itself yet again”, 1/2/14,
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/innovations/wp/2014/01/02/how-the-united-states-isreinventing-itself-yet-again/
And that’s not all the pessimists say. They also argue that while the United States continues to dominate in the emergence of new
technology powerhouses, the biggest IPO of the decade belongs to Facebook, a social network that is more media company than technology
innovator. Stifling red tape and regulations has driven costs of testing new medicines and medical devices so high that many drug
companies have shifted testing regimes and market focus to Europe and Asia. Despite mounting evidence that
skilled immigrant entrepreneurs have delivered a wildly disproportionate share of the country’s technology innovation and technology job
growth, the powers that be in Washington, D.C. have, even with broad bipartisan support, not mustered up the votes to reform the country’s
regressive and punitive immigration policies. Add to all of this an aging populace requiring more and more support from younger workers,
ballooning health costs and a tax structure that beggars the young to underwrite benefits for the aged, and
the United States looks
more and more like a historical footnote than a superpower.¶ Peel back the layers of the onion, and the
reality appears quite different. In fact, the United States stands on the cusp of a dramatic revival and
rejuvenation, propelled by an amazing wave of technological innovation. A slew of breakthroughs will
deliver the enormous productivity gains and the societal dramatic cost savings needed to sustain
economic growth and prosperity. These breakthroughs, mostly digital in nature, will complete the shift
begun by the Internet away to a new era where the precepts of Moore’s Law can be applied to virtually
any field.¶ Computer-assisted design and fabrication will reshape manufacturing forever. These technologies
will slash waste and replace nearly all conventional manufacturing with more environmentally friendly and cost-effective additive
manufacturing run with robots and computer programs. Complex systems resistant to modeling will succumb to advances in big data that allow
mankind to finally make sense and improve upon the most intricate multi-faceted interactions. Where big data fails, ubiquitous
crowd
sourcing will harness untapped brain cycles to train systems and solve problems, one small activity at a
time — on a global scale.¶ In this massively digital world, A/B testing or parallelization of R&D processes will become
commonplace for just about everything from airline design simulations to online advertising to artificial organ construction. This
will, in turn, allow for far more rigorous testing of products and processes. Dirt-cheap digital delivery platforms for
educational content and improvements in the understanding of the way the brain learns will yield a sea change
in how we gain knowledge. This will result in more open, flexible educational systems and structures — and a smarter,
more learned, constantly learning populace. While the world will benefit from these changes, the United States is
uniquely positioned to lead this sea change.
--XT Comcast Thumper
Comcast’s monopoly over the internet trumps
Lee 2014 (Timothy B [senior editor at Vox]; Comcast is destroying the principle that makes a
competitive internet possible; May 6; www.vox.com/2014/5/6/5678080/voxsplaining-telecom; kdf)
Conservatives love the internet. They don't just love using it, they also love to point to it as an example of the
power of free markets. And they're right. The internet has had a remarkable 20-year run of rapid innovation with minimal government
regulation. That was possible because the internet has a different structure than other communications networks.
Most networks, like the 20th century telephone market, are natural monopolies requiring close government supervision. But the internet
is organized in a way that allows markets, rather than monopolists or government regulators, to set prices. That
structure has been remarkably durable, but it's not indestructible. And unfortunately, it's now in danger. In recent years,
Comcast has waged a campaign to change the internet's structure to make it more like the monopolistic
telephone network that came before it, making Comcast more money in the process. Conservatives are naturally and properly
skeptical of government regulation. But this is a case where the question isn't whether to regulate, but what kind of
regulation is preferable. If federal regulators don't step in now to preserve the structures that make internet
competition possible, they will be forced to step in later to prevent the largest ISPs from abusing their
growing monopoly power.
Comcast is the biggest internal link to internet competition
Lee 2014 (Timothy B [senior editor at Vox]; Comcast is destroying the principle that makes a
competitive internet possible; May 6; www.vox.com/2014/5/6/5678080/voxsplaining-telecom; kdf)
The importance of market share Two factors tend to make the bill-and-keep model stable. One is competition in the consumer ISP market. If
customers can easily switch between broadband providers, then it would be foolish for a broadband
provider to allow network quality to degrade as a way to force content companies to the bargaining
table. The second factor is ISP size. When ISPs are relatively small, payments naturally flow from the edges of
the network to the middle because small edge networks need large transit networks to reach the rest of
the internet. Imagine, for example, if the Vermont Telephone Company, a tiny telecom company that recently started offering ultra-fast
internet services, tried to emulate Comcast. Suppose it began complaining that Netflix was sending it too much traffic and demanding that its
transit providers start paying it for the costs of delivering Netflix content to its subscribers. Netflix and the big transit companies that provide it
with connectivity would laugh at this kind of demand. It would be obvious to everyone that VTel needs transit service more than transit
providers need VTel. But when an ISP's market share gets large enough, the calculus changes. Comcast has 80 times as many subscribers as
Vermont has households. So
when Comcast demands payment to deliver content to its own customers, Netflix
and its transit suppliers can't afford to laugh it off. The potential costs to Netflix's bottom line are too large. This provides a
clear argument against allowing the Comcast/Time Warner merger. Defenders of the merger have argued that it won't reduce competition
because Comcast and Time Warner don't serve the same customers. That's true, but it ignores how the merger would affect the
interconnection market. A merged cable giant would have even more leverage to demand monopoly rents from companies across the internet.
A century ago, the Wilson administration decided not to press its antitrust case against AT&T, allowing the firm to continue the acquisition
spree that made it a monopoly. In retrospect, that decision looks like a mistake. Wilson's decision not to intervene in the market led to a
telephone monopoly, which in turn led to 70 years of regulation and a messy, 10-year antitrust case. Obviously, the combination of Comcast
and Time Warner would not dominate the internet the way AT&T dominated the telephone industry. But recent
events suggest that
Comcast is already large enough to threaten competition on the internet. Preventing the company
from getting even larger might avoid the need for a lot more regulation in the years ahead. Comcast declined
to comment for this story.
1nc Military Bandwidth
Either tech development in the squo solves because of demand for Netflix, Facebook,
etcetera OR the plan makes it worse because it rapidly increases demand on the
networks before capacity can be ramped up, turning the aff
New DOD initiatives solve
Slabodkin February 23, 2015 (Greg; JIE: How DOD is building a bigger network that's alos a smaller
target; defensesystems.com/Articles/2015/02/23/Joint-Information-Environment-JRSSsecurity.aspx?Page=4; kdf)
Dave Cotton, DOD’s acting deputy CIO for information enterprise, who is responsible for providing the leadership, strategy, and guidance for
JIE, said that the
JRSS foundational layer includes network standardization and optimization across DOD
networks, such as increasing bandwidth capabilities where necessary and switching upgrades through MultiProtocol Label Switching (MPLS) technology. MPLS, which enables higher bandwidth/throughput and faster routing capabilities,
allows the department to “stop leasing circuits and get away from the legacy-based circuits to a more IPbased infrastructure,” he said. “That provides the foundation then to put the security component in place.” MPLS routers are an
industry-standard for speeding and managing network traffic flow. JRSS is prompting a massive effort to expand capacity and increase
throughput across Army and Air Force bases with MPLS upgrades to the network backbone that will increase the bandwidth to 100 gigabytes
per second. According to Cotton, MPLS also enables DOD to route and secure network traffic for a specific mission instead of just for a
particular location, resulting in more focused and coherent command and control for missions. Unlike
the one-size-fits-all
networks that DOD currently operates, he says the JIE will provide operational commanders more freedom
to take cybersecurity risks with the networks since the risks can be contained to the decision support
and systems specifically needed for that mission. This is a significant change from today's DOD
networks which impose more operational constraints on commanders. The risk containment zones the SSA defines in the server computing
and the network will enable joint commanders to better contain cyber risks assumed by a particular mission from spilling over into other
missions, while sharing as broadly with external partners as a mission requires, Cotton said. In addition, users and systems will be able to trust
their connection with the assurance that the information and systems involved in a mission are correct and working even during a cyberattack.
Based on a single DOD-wide IT architecture and key enabling enterprise services, JIE is “a more secure, defendable, responsible, and more
command and controllable, integrated network for the Department of Defense information exchange environment,” Cotton said. The
idea
is to bring together all the capabilities that will enable “a more coherent, more secure, interoperable and less
costly capability”—efficiencies that will be achieved through economies of scale and eliminating
duplication. A big part of that is cloud computing, which is a critical component of the JIE and DOD’s IT modernization efforts.
New suitcase internet set up solves
McCaney June 5, 2014 (Kevin; Army boosts bandwidth with new suitcase-sized satellite terminals;
defensesystems.com/articles/2014/06/05/army-t2c2-high-bandwidth-satellite-terminals.aspx; kdf)
Portable network access for soldiers in the field is about to get a lot faster with the Army’s latest
satellite kit in a suitcase. The Transportable Tactical Command Communications, or T2C2, boosts the
bandwidth for small detachments and teams connecting to the Army’s battlefield network, thus
increasing the situational awareness and functionality of early-entry teams and helping to improve
communications throughout the tactical edge, the Army said in a release. T2T2 comes in two flavors: a
larger transportable dish that serves company-level operations and the smaller T2C2 Lite, which the
Army said is about the size of carry-on luggage and which can be set up and working in about 10
minutes. The small model is similar to the Global Rapid Response Information Package, or GRRIP, which
soldiers have been using in Afghanistan, for example, as network infrastructure leaves with the
drawdown. But GRIPP uses only the L Band in the satellite communications spectrum, limiting
transmission to kilobits per second. T2C2 Lite adds the Ka and X bands, boosting performance to
megabits per second and allowing soldiers to use advanced applications. Last month, T2C2 was
designated a program of record (GRRIP is not), enabling the Army to institutionalize training on the
system. The equipment connects to the Army’s battlefield network, the Warfighter Information
Network-Tactical, via the military’s Wideband Global SATCOM constellation, and will work as a
companion to the Enroute Mission Command Capability, a WIN-T program that gives rapid-response
forces a view of their drop zones and allows for mission planning while in flight. For the Army, the bigger
bandwidth, combined with T2C2’s portability, advances the cause of seamless, mobile battlefield
communications.
New antennas solve
Hamilton 2015 (Alex; US Army's new high bandwidth inflatable antenna; Jan 11;
www.governmentfishbowl.com/2015/01/11/us-armys-new-high-bandwidth-inflatable-antenna/; kdf)
The US Army deployed an inflatable ground satellite antenna that comes in a small package for simple
deployment. CHECK OUT: U.S. Naval Ships Now Shoot Lasers The theater of war has shifted from massive armies confronting each other over
vast tracts of land to more isolated “surgical” engagements. As much
a battleground as land, sea and air, control of the
digital spectrum is vital to military dominance. To assist in anywhere access to key networks, enter Project Manager
Warfighter Information Network-Tactical (WIN-T), home of the inflatable satellite antenna used by Special Operations, airborne and
conventional forces. Blown Into Proportion The communications device is known as Ground Antenna Transmit & Receive (GATR). The
inflatable antenna can adjust in size, weight and power, conforming to the needs of military personnel.
Leonard Newman, the Army product manager for Satellite Communications said, “The GATR allows you to deploy high-bandwidth
communications anywhere in the smallest possible package.” It weighs just 25 pounds and inflates into a sphere for resistance of wind up to 60
mph (97 kph). It also boasts a 6 hour backup battery. The setup takes just 30 minutes.
Internet—Freedom
1NC AT: Internet Freedom – terminally impossible
Private companies and algorithms ensure Internet freedom is literally impossible
Maus 2015 (Gregory; Eye in the Skynet; Jul 1; https://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/china/2015-0701/eye-skynet; kdf)
Dictators constantly face a dilemma: crushing dissent to terrify (but anger) the populace or tolerating protests and offering reforms to keep the
public at bay (but embolden dissidents in the process). Instead of relying on gut instinct, experience, or historical precedent, autocrats
now have advances in data analytics and ubiquitous passive data to thank for letting them develop new,
scientifically validated methods of repression. By analyzing the dynamics of resistance with a depth
previously impossible, autocrats can preemptively crush dissent more reliably and carefully. With
machine learning and social network analysis, dictators can identify future troublemakers far more
efficiently than through human intuition alone. Predictive technologies have outperformed their human counterparts: a project from
Telenor Research and MIT Media Lab used machine-learning techniques to develop an algorithm for targeted marketing, pitting their algorithm
against a team of topflight marketers from a large Asian telecom firm. The
algorithm used a combination of their targets’
social networks and phone metadata, while the human team relied on its tried-and-true methods. Not
only was the algorithm almost 13 times more successful at selecting initial purchasers of the cell phone plans, their purchasers were 98 percent
more likely to keep their plans after the first month (as opposed to the marketers’ 37 percent). Comparable algorithms to target people
differently have shown promise somewhat more ominously. For example, advanced
social network algorithms developed by
the U.S. Navy are already being applied to identify key street gang members in Chicago and
municipalities in Massachusetts. Algorithms like these detect, map, and analyze the social networks of
people of interest (either the alleged perpetrators or victims of crimes). In Chicago, they have been used to identify those most likely to
be involved in violence, allowing police to then reach out to their family and friends in order to socially leverage them against violence. The
data for the models can come from a variety of sources, including social media, phone records, arrest
records, and anything else to which the police have access. Some software programs along this line also integrate geotags from the other data in order to create a geographic map of events. Programs like these have proven effective in
evaluating the competence of Syrian opposition groups, in identifying improvised explosive device creation and distribution
networks in Iraq, in helping police target gangs, and in helping police better target criminal suspects for investigation. Related breakthroughs in
computer algorithms have proven effective in forecasting future civil unrest. Since November 2012, computer scientists have worked on Early
Model Based Event Recognition using Surrogates (EMBERS), an algorithm developed with funding from the Intelligence Advanced Research
Projects Activity that uses publicly available tweets, blog posts, and other factors to forecast protests and riots in South America. By 2014, it
forecasted events at least a week in advance with impressive accuracy. The algorithm learned steadily from its successes and failures, adjusting
how it weighed variables and data with each successive attempt. In Russia, the pro-Kremlin Center for Research in Legitimacy and Political
Protest think tank claims to have developed a similar software system, called Laplace’s Demon, which monitors social media activity for signs of
protest. According to the center’s head, Yevgeny Venediktov, social scientists, researchers, government officials, and law enforcement agencies
that use the system “will be able to learn about the preparation of unsanctioned rallies long before the information will appear in the media.”
Venediktov considers the tool a vital security measure for curbing protests, stating, “We are now facing a serious cyber threat—the
mobilization of protest activists in Russia by forces located abroad,” necessitating “active and urgent measures to create a Russian system of
monitoring social networks and [develop] software that would warn Russian society in advance about approaching threats.” Authoritarian
governments, of course, have access to much more data about their citizens than a telecom company, a local
police department, or Laplace’s Demon could ever hope for, making it all the easier for them to ensure that their people never escape the quiet
surveillance web of trouble-spotting algorithms. Classic Orwellian standbys such as wiretapping, collecting communication metadata, watching
public areas through cameras (with ever-improving facial recognition), monitoring online activity (especially true in China, which has direct
control over network providers and surveillance tools built directly into social media services), tracking purchase records, scanning official
government records, and hacking into any computer files that cannot be accessed directly will become only more effective through the use of
new technologies and algorithms. There are many new surveillance methods available at the touch of a button. For example, former Ukraine
President Viktor Yanukovych sent a passive-oppressive mass text to those near a protest, warning them that they were registered as
participants in a mass riot. Governments can monitor their citizens’ locations through their phones, and the future of tracking people through
wearable computers and smart appliances is still on the way. With a steady stream of data available from nearly every citizen, automated
sifters such as EMBERS can steadily learn which data are valuable and prioritize appropriately. Machines have already shown that they are
competent in deriving a variety of private traits through Facebook likes, using social media profiles to forecast whether groups will stick
together, identifying personality traits through phone data and Twitter activity, determining the stage of one’s pregnancy through purchase
behavior, or ascertaining how likely one is to take a prescribed medication based on a variety of seemingly unrelated factors. At
the same
time that mass surveillance is becoming less obtrusive, outright mass censorship, once a standby tool of
repressive regimes worldwide, may have a more effective alternative thanks to analytics. Not only can
blatant censorship provoke a backlash, it also complicates the ability of states to monitor their people by
encouraging them either to use communication channels that are harder to watch or to figure out how
to cleverly evade notice by using coded language or symbols. The Grass-Mud Horse, for example, is an entirely fictional
creature popularized on the Chinese Internet because its pronunciation sounds like an incredibly vulgar swear word that the Communist Party’s
automatic censors would normally catch. However, the text itself seems harmless, so the censors couldn't easily clamp down on it. Indeed,
Chinese Internet users have developed very extensive systems of code phrases to evade the automated detection of certain sentiments.
Authoritarian regimes have been getting smarter at how they influence the public dialogue. Russia
boasts a well-organized army of paid anonymous online commenters. These agents seek to covertly influence opinion
both internally and internationally, posting on Russian and English forums and social media outlets that feature news about the nation, items
on Ukraine, or criticisms of Russian President Vladimir Putin. Reports also link the group to attempts to manipulate global opinion of U.S.
President Barack Obama, as well as the perpetuation of several serious online hoaxes, including false reports in the United States of a chemical
plant explosion, an Ebola virus outbreak, and the lethal shooting of an unarmed black woman by police in the wake of the shooting in Ferguson,
Mo.
--XT Algorithms t/o solvency
Governments will never cede control
Maus 2015 (Gregory; Eye in the Skynet; Jul 1; https://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/china/2015-0701/eye-skynet; kdf)
The ability of autocrats to fend off regime change may be refined further through careful analysis of how
news and ideas spread. Academics have been able to track the diffusion of ideas (automatically
clustering distinctive words and phrases into unified memes) across millions of news sites since 2009
and have since been creating quantitative models of the diffusion. Since 2012, scholars have developed
mathematical models to infer how information flows from one group to another across millions of blogs
and news sites, without even having direct intelligence on how it was transmitted. These breakthroughs
can be used to turn phone metadata and online activity into complex models that depict how ideas
spread. When coupled with psychological profiles of specific subjects made by algorithms, governments
can forecast how ideas will spread and also steer them as they see fit. Even a difference as subtle as the
order in which a search engine returns results has been found to dramatically impact the formation of
political opinions: most Web users will click the first search results and ignore later results, suggesting
that a great deal of latitude can be had in influencing beliefs through subtle, calculated nudges.
Similarly, even the color of text can impact behavior and attitude, as evidenced in a recent study of
online gaming traits. With these advances either at-hand or in the near future, it would seem that
regimes will be able to steadily nudge their societies into an ideal of submissive police states, isolating
their subjects from any factors that could influence their thoughts towards rebellion. By identifying and
removing the “glitches” that cause dissent, these regimes could slowly, but steadily reengineer
humanity into the perfect machine-servants. Thanks to advances in computer science, autocracies can
be made more secure than ever before.
SQ solves
Squo solves—net neutrality
Garside March 3, 2015 (Juliette; Net neutrality is like free speech – and the internet needs rules, says
FCC boss; www.theguardian.com/technology/2015/mar/03/net-neutrality-free-speech-fcc-tomwheeler; kdf)
The US’s top media regulator hit back at critics of new net neutrality rules voted into law last week, comparing them to the first amendment
and saying neither
government nor private companies had the right to restrict the openness of the
internet. The Federal Communications Commission chairman, Tom Wheeler, was speaking in Barcelona at Mobile World Congress, the
world’s largest telecoms trade show, just as European governments are meeting to thrash out their own principles for keeping the internet
open. “This
is no more regulating the internet than the first amendment regulates free speech in our
country,” Wheeler said. “If the internet is the most powerful and pervasive platform in the history of the planet, can it exist without a
referee? There needs to be a referee with a yardstick, and that is the structure we have put in place. A set
of rules that say activity should be just and reasonable, and somebody who can raise the flag if they
aren’t.” Telecoms companies across Europe and America have railed against Wheeler’s reforms, saying they will
discourage investment in better cable and wireless networks and simply benefit bandwidth-hungry
services like Netflix and YouTube, which do not normally pay for their content to be carried across the internet. In the US, Verizon and AT&T,
the two largest mobile operators, have said they will try to reverse the new rules in the courts. Meanwhile, Wheeler told conference attendees
in Barcelona: “Those who were opposed to the open internet rules like to say this is Depression-era monopoly regulation. We built our model
for net neutrality on the regulatory model that has been wildly successful in the US for mobile.” The FCC rules will treat telecoms companies in
a similar way to utilities such as electricity. Internet service providers will
be explicitly prohibited from blocking, throttling or
prioritising internet traffic for commercial reasons. Where complaints are raised, the FCC will decide on a case-by-case basis whether
what network owners are doing is “fair and just”. The FCC has said it would not intervene areas such as pricing, network unbundling and
technical operating requirements. The
European parliament is in the midst of negotiations with member states
and network operators over final net neutrality rules, which could be published later this spring. A
source at one of Europe’s largest mobile carriers said the fear was that Europe would introduce similar
rules, only to find itself out of step when the FCC is forced to back down by a legal challenge or a change of president.
No backsliding—experts
Berkman, 14—writer for The Daily Dot, an e-magazine focused on key internet issues
Fran, “Tech experts discuss the greatest threats to Internet freedom,” July 4,
http://www.dailydot.com/politics/threats-to-internet-freedom/
Oh how the Internet has grown. What was once a small village of interconnected networks has grown into a booming digital metropolis with
billions of users. Like any prominent place, the Internet is continuously being shaped, for better or worse, by institutional forces. To get a better
sense for where this is all leading, the
Pew Research Center asked thousands of Internet experts their thoughts
on what the Internet will be like in 2025. Pew published a report titled “Net Threats,” detailing its findings, on Thursday. The
experts’ responses were generally optimistic; 65 percent of the 1,400 experts who responded said there would
not be “significant changes for the worse and hindrances to the ways in which people get and share
content online.” Whether they answered with optimism or pessimism, the experts were asked to elaborate on potential risks to Internet
freedom. Perhaps unsurprisingly, the experts cited government censorship and surveillance, as well as commercialization, as the greatest
threats to the Internet we’ve come to know and love. “Because of governance issues (and the international implications of the NSA reveals),
data sharing will get geographically fragmented in challenging ways,” said Microsoft research scientist danah boyd, one of the respondents
quoted in the Pew report. “The next few years are going to be about control.” boyd is referring to the past 13 months of revelations about the
National Security Agency’s (NSA) vast digital surveillance capabilities, as revealed through documents leaked by former NSA contractor Edward
Snowden. On the topic of censorship, Pew notes that the Internet has shown it has the power to take down governments, as displayed during
the Arab Spring. This has caused dictatorial regimes to react by working to censor Internet access. But as one of Pew’s experts points out,
censorship is not a trend that’s limited to just China and Syria. “Governments worldwide are looking for more power over the Net, especially
within their own countries,” said Dave Burstein, editor of Fast Net News. “Britain, for example, has just determined that ISPs block sites the
government considers ‘terrorist’ or otherwise dangerous.” Indeed, a recent report found that British ISP filters are blocking one-fifth of the
100,000 of the country’s most popular webpages, including political blogs and medical information sites. As for commercialization, the last of
the three threats to Internet freedom detailed by the Pew experts, the respondents highlighted debates about net neutrality and copyright law
as key battlegrounds. It
certainly wasn’t all doom and gloom for the Internet. Google executive Vint Cerf,
one of the Internet’s founding fathers, responded to Pew with a bit more optimism. “Social norms will
change to deal with potential harms in online social interactions,” he said. “The Internet will become far
more accessible than it is today.”
Diplomacy doesn’t solve internet freedom
Wagstaff, 14—writer for NBC citing a report by the Pew Research Internet Project
Keith, “These Are the Four Biggest Threats to the Internet: Pew Report,”
http://www.nbcnews.com/tech/internet/these-are-four-biggest-threats-internet-pew-report-n147391
More people are going online than ever, but Internet
freedom could be seriously at risk, according to a new report from the
Pew Research Internet Project. It identified four main threats. The first is the prospect of more nations cracking down
on access to the Web and mobile apps, like Turkey’s recent Twitter ban and China’s long-standing “Great Firewall.”
The next is a backlash against government surveillance programs in the wake of revelations about the U.S.
National Security Agency (NSA) and its British equivalent, the Government Communications Headquarters (GCHQ). Also
mentioned was the “pressures businesses are under to monetize Internet” — especially when it comes to “net
neutrality” and restrictive patent laws that could stifle innovation. The final threat to Internet freedom could be that we share too much
information, making us reliant on the algorithms of companies like Google and Facebook to find information,
filters that are often set with business considerations in mind.
--XT No Solve Internet Freedom
Silk Road conviction has undermined internet freedom –slippery slope
Maza 2-5-15 [Cristina Maza, Staff writer, What guilty verdict in Silk Road trial might mean for Internet
freedom, Christian Science Monitor, http://www.csmonitor.com/USA/USA-Update/2015/0205/Whatguilty-verdict-in-Silk-Road-trial-might-mean-for-Internet-freedom]
On Wednesday, a jury
decided that Ross Ulbricht is the “Dread Pirate Roberts,” the pseudonym used by the
architect of the Silk Road underground drug bazaar. Before it was shut down by the federal government in 2013, Silk Road
was considered the largest marketplace for finding illegal drugs online. The site was also used to sell fake IDs and other illegal goods using
bitcoin, an online currency that operates with no central authority or banks. The prosecution said that Mr. Ulbricht was a “kingpin” who
received a portion of every transaction that occurred on the site. Ulbricht will be sentenced in May and faces a minimum of 20 years in prison.
He could also be handed a life sentence. The defense has attempted to paint Ulbricht as a naïve kid who was framed after his Frankenstein
monster grew out of control. It is expected to appeal the decision. The
case is broadly important, experts say, because it
could have implications for Internet freedom. It explores not only the legal question of whether a website
operator can be held accountable for how his site is used by others but also how the government ferrets
out illegal Internet activity. Along the way, the proceedings have provided an unvarnished look at the Internet's dark side, perhaps for
the first time. "What's most interesting about this case is that it is the first case in its enormity involving the Dark Net and
it's going to be a wakeup for anyone using the Dark Net thinking they have anonymity. You cannot
remain anonymous on the Internet," Darren Hayes, assistant professor and director of cyber security at Pace University, told
CNBC. Ulbricht was arrested after the Federal Bureau of Investigation discovered a server in Iceland that linked
him to Silk Road. But how the FBI discovered the server has been a point of contention. Ulbricht’s defenders
claim that the government used illegal methods to locate Silk Road, violating his constitutional right to privacy, though a judge denied that line
of defense. The anonymity protections provided by the cryptographic software Tor mean that law enforcement would need to obtain a search
warrant to discover the the location of Silk Road's servers, Ulbricht's defenders say. The lack of a warrant taints the evidence found in the
subsequent investigation, the defense stated in a memo. The FBI stated that it located the server due to a misconfiguration of Silk Road’s
CAPTCHA system – the string of letters and numbers that helps protect a site from spam. This error inadvertently revealed the server's IP
address, the FBI said. But
experts claim that it would be impossible to use the CAPTCHA to find the server.
Some suggest that the National Security Agency might have had a hand in locating the server. “My guess is
that the NSA provided the FBI with this information. We know that the NSA provides surveillance data to
the FBI and the DEA, under the condition that they lie about where it came from in court,” wrote Bruce
Schneier, Chief Technology Officer of Co3 Systems and a fellow at Harvard's Berkman Center, on his blog. Meanwhile, the
idea of charging a website’s operator with wrongdoing when a user conducts illegal activity raises
interesting questions about Internet freedom, says Hanni Fakhoury, an attorney at the Electronic
Frontier Foundation. "The main issue, the main Internet freedom issue is at what point are website operators
accountable for what happens on their site? In Silk Road, it's an easy case because they were catering to illegal activity. But
what is interesting is that you start with easy cases and then you start to go towards some of the borderline
cases," he said to CNBC. In Ulbricht’s case, the jury decided that, as the mastermind behind a site catering to the sale of nefarious content, he
should be held accountable. The evidence against Ulbricht, most of which was located on his laptop, was overwhelming and included digital
chat records, traced bitcoin transactions, and a diary he kept detailing the tribulations he faced while running the site. The jury deliberated for
under four hours before it found Ulbricht guilty on seven counts, including money laundering, drug trafficking, and computer hacking, among
others.
Alt cause –Silk Road conviction set a precedent for hypocrisy and violation of interent
freedom
Knibbs 2-7-14 [Kate Knibbs, How The Silk Road Trial Set A Dangerous Legal Precedent, Gizmodo,
http://www.gizmodo.com.au/2015/02/the-silk-road-trial-set-a-dangerous-legal-precedent/]
The Silk
Road trial is over. A jury found Ross Ulbricht guilty on all seven charges, including money
laundering, drug trafficking, and the “kingpin” charge. That’s not just bad news for Ulbricht, who faces life in prison. His
trial has set a dangerous precedent, which could allow law enforcement to gather evidence illegally. While
many watching the trial were fascinated by all the ways that Ulbricht’s identity was definitively linked to the pseudonymous digital drug bazaar
runner Dread Pirate Roberts, they overlooked something crucial. The
FBI never had to explain how it located and
infiltrated the Silk Road’s hidden servers. The fact that the evidence law enforcement provided from
those servers was admitted despite the lack of clarity about their sources is troubling. Privacy advocates
suspect the government’s search and seizure was not entirely above board, arguing the agency hacked into the anonymous site without a
warrant. As Adam Clark Estes wrote shortly before the trial: Both sides are clashing over one specific detail regarding how the FBI located the
hidden Silk Road server. Put simply, they hacked the site’s login page with a (potentially illegal) brute force attack. Or the NSA did it for them —
that part’s a little bit unclear. Neither of the government agencies had a warrant, of course. The defence says that this
sort of intrusion
represents a clear violation of the Fourth Amendment. Just imagine if the FBI had broken into and
searched Ulbricht’s house instead of his server. That’s a reasonable concern, though it didn’t do the defence any good in
court. Judge Katherine Forrest rejected the argument on a technicality during the trial, and so the defence was not allowed to explore this line
of questioning. Without a clear answer, there’s no proof that the government upheld the Fourth Amendment and obtained the information
legally. The defence instead tried to run with the argument that the FBI had initially suspected someone else of running the Silk Road, Mt. Gox
CEO Mark Karpeles. But the prosecution shut down this line of questioning, and the defence was pretty much screwed. The prosecution had
obtained a damning pile of evidence, from Ulbricht’s diaries to a report tracing $US13.4 million Bitcoin from the Silk Road into Ulbricht’s
personal digital wallet. While defence lawyer Robert Dratel kept arguing about the
slipperiness of digital identity, it wasn’t enough
to sway the jury. What’s at stake here is a lot more than Ulbricht’s innocence or guilt. This trial set
precedents that will affect future defendants, too. The fact is that law enforcement was allowed to
present damning digital evidence without explaining where it came from. That’s bad news for our civil
liberties. It means that police and other law enforcement officers working digital crime cases may not have to worry as much about obeying
the law anymore when it comes to gathering evidence. Corruption would surely follow. Before the verdict came in, I talked to Ryan E. Long, a
lawyer affiliated with Stanford’s Center on Internet and Society, about the potential impact of this case
on future internet-related trials. He zeroed in on the importance of authenticating the evidence that
the government showed, and making sure it was obtained without violating the Constitution. “How did they
get this information, and did they breach the law by getting it? I think that will set the precedent with future electronic
cases about how the government got the information and whether they did it legally,” he said. The issue is,
he continued, “whether the government obtained the evidence that they wish to use to prove this narrative,
[Ulbricht's guilt] such as the identity of the server, in a lawful way consistent with the Fourth
Amendment, among other things.” That doesn’t mean Ulbricht did not do the things he’s now convicted of doing. It doesn’t mean
the Silk Road kingpin doesn’t belong behind bars. But it does mean, unambiguously, that the feds were allowed to present evidence that may
have been obtained unlawfully. In the legal world, there’s a metaphor called “fruit of the poisonous tree.” It’s used to describe
tainted evidence, evidence that comes from breaking the law. It’s not supposed to be admissible in court. But now, thanks to the Silk Road
verdict, it is.
--Net Neutrality
Net neutrality now with coming FCC rules
Liebelson, 1/27/15 (Dana, “Stunning Victory Within Reach For Net Neutrality Advocates” Huffington
Post, http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2015/01/27/net-neutrality-fcc_n_6555036.html)
Next month, a wonky government agency will rule on the fate of the Internet. The Federal
Communications Commission (FCC) is expected to grant a major victory to net neutrality advocates, a
stunning turnaround following years of conventional wisdom to the contrary.
But advocates aren't celebrating yet. Instead, they're watching to see if the FCC will create rules that are
strong and enforceable, or that leave gaping holes for telecom and cable companies to drive through.
They are also eyeing a Republican-backed proposal that, they say, will undermine a free and open
Internet.
For months, the battle over net neutrality has centered on whether the FCC will reclassify consumer
broadband Internet as a utility under Title II of the Telecommunications Act. Reclassification would
empower the FCC to block Internet service providers, or ISPs, from charging content providers like
Netflix more for reliable Internet access -- thereby hampering, for example, a person's ability to quickly
and affordably stream "House of Cards." (ISPs maintain that they won't create a second network for
faster service.)
FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler has indicated that he supports Title II -- a proposal backed by President
Barack Obama -- and it's widely believed that Wheeler will go that route. Republicans contend that such
a move would qualify as government overreach, and they have introduced legislation that would
essentially gut the agency's authority. That bill's fate is unclear, given that it's unpopular among many
Democrats but still makes big net neutrality concessions that telecom and cable companies might not
favor.
Regardless, advocates say that Title II authority won't mean much unless the FCC creates enforceable
rules and doesn't allow loopholes.
"Right now, the big carriers are simply looking for a loophole," said Marvin Ammori, a lawyer who
advises major tech companies and supports net neutrality. He noted that there are multiple loopholes -like writing exceptions for mobile or specialized services -- that could undermine the whole FCC rule.
"They only need one," he said.
Still, it's not clear how much wiggle room Wheeler's rules will leave. He has said that he favors standards
that are "just and reasonable," not simply favorable to the ISPs.
Engstrom told HuffPost that even if the FCC only decides on Title II in this round of rulemaking, and
doesn't clarify additional rules until afterward, "that's certainly preferable to the proposals coming out
of Congress."
FCC rules will be strong, no loopholes and ISPs hate it
Brodkin, 1/8/15 - Ars Technica's senior IT reporter (Jon, “On net neutrality, Internet providers are
betrayed by one of their own” Ars Technica, http://arstechnica.com/business/2015/01/on-netneutrality-internet-providers-are-betrayed-by-one-of-their-own/)
When President Obama picked Tom Wheeler to lead the Federal Communications Commission in May
2013, our headline was, “Uh-oh: AT&T and Comcast are ecstatic about the FCC’s new chairman.”
They’re not happy anymore, especially not after Wheeler yesterday all but confirmed at the Consumer
Electronics Show (CES) that he will propose reclassifying Internet providers as common carriers in order
to impose net neutrality rules. This would expose broadband to some of the FCC’s strongest powers
contained in Title II of the Communications Act, usually reserved for wireline phone service.
Yet it seemed in 2013 that Internet providers had every reason to be pleased: Wheeler formerly led the
biggest trade associations representing the cable and wireless industries. Wheeler was CEO of the
National Cable Television Association (NCTA) from 1979 to 1984 and CEO of the Cellular
Telecommunications & Internet Association (CTIA) from 1992 to 2004.
Wheeler’s first stab at net neutrality in May 2014 didn't cause much concern in the industry, which
under that proposal would have remained a lightly regulated “information service” and been free to
charge Web services for priority access to consumers. But the proposal was widely condemned by
consumers and various advocacy groups. Eventually, Obama called on Wheeler to go with Title II for
both fixed Internet service and mobile, and it appears Wheeler will do just that.
If he does, Wheeler would show that Washington’s revolving door doesn’t always guarantee that
regulators do the bidding of the regulated. Former FCC Chairman Michael Powell, who made sure that
ISPs would face little regulation, now leads the NCTA and has repeatedly called on Wheeler to avoid
using Title II. Former FCC Commissioner and current CTIA CEO Meredith Attwell Baker has also lobbied
against such a move.
There were signs shortly after Wheeler’s swearing-in that he might not hold the same views as the
current heads of the cable and wireless trade groups he used to lead. For one thing, he hired prominent
consumer advocate Gigi Sohn as his Special Counsel for External Affairs. Wheeler admires Abraham
Lincoln's “team of rivals” approach, and for the past year and a half, Sohn has been instrumental in
laying groundwork for a likely Title II reclassification, according to an article in The Hill yesterday.
Wheeler has also repeatedly pointed to his past as a venture capitalist and entrepreneur, saying he
learned from experience that networks must be open to spur innovation.
Yup, Verizon's mad
Title II’s utility-style rules have long been applied to the traditional telephone system, but the rules
Internet providers face likely won’t be as strict. Obama urged the FCC to forbear from imposing rate
regulation and similar restrictions. But the FCC would use Title II to prevent ISPs from blocking or
throttling Web services or prioritizing services in exchange for payment.
Wheeler will circulate proposed rules to fellow commissioners on February 5 and hold a vote on
February 26, he said yesterday. We contacted the major ISPs and telecommunications industry groups
today, and their reactions were predictably negative.
GOP bill dead on arrival
Crawford, 1/28/15 – visiting professor at Harvard (Susan “The Net Neutrality Bait and Switch”
https://medium.com/backchannel/the-net-neutrality-bait-and-switch-cedb65f1a1cd
That same shorthand applies to a new “Internet openness” draft bill to amend the Communications Act
of 1934, introduced by Sen. John Thune (R-SD) and Rep. Fred Upton (R-MI), the new leaders of the
Senate and House committees charged with oversight of the Federal Communications Commission.
Although calculated to address concerns about online fairness, its real thrust is to remove or constrain
the FCC’s authority in a host of areas. The bill will draw a swift presidential veto.
As well it should. The bill is full of problems. It would prevent the FCC from going after any new schemes
that position carriers like Comcast or Verizon as gatekeepers online. In cases where carriers are
subsidized to provide communications services in hard-to-reach places (like rural areas and tribal land),
it would raise barriers to the FCC’s ability to ensure that those carriers actually use those funds to offer
high-speed Internet access. It would bar the FCC from using its existing statutory authority to protect
consumers against privacy abuses and other exploits — like being billed for unauthorized charges. And
rather than allowing the FCC to create clear rules that set the terms of engagement in advance, it would
put the burden on consumers and businesses to prove problems through prolonged, expensive, case-bycase wrangling after the fact.
The GOP leadership has to know they’ve lost the PR wars on net neutrality. The bill so transparently
shackles the FCC that it doesn’t stand a chance in the open air—and even if it does, of course, the
President’s veto pen will be ready.
AT: Crowe
Squo solves
Crowe 14 (Tyler; The internet of things: our greatest shot at battling climate change; Feb 15;
www.fool.com/investing/general/2014/02/15/this-technology-is-our-only-real-shot-at-addressin.aspx;
kdf)
The Internet of Things is still very much in its infancy, but it's taking off fast. The pending boom in
machine-to machine communication helps explain why Google (NASDAQ: GOOGL ) shelled out more
thah $3.2 billion for smart-thermostat company Nest Labs. Its ability allows customers to better manage
heating and cooling in households and instantly provide feedback to utilities in order to better manage
energy demand during peak load hours. Sure, estimates put the total number of machine-to-machine
capable devices in the billions, but for the Internet of things to be truly effective, everything needs to be
connected. Estimates for total connected devices around the globe could reach into the trillions. This
could lead to an industry with annual revenues of a whopping $948 billion.
The big players in the technology world, like Google and Intel (NASDAQ: INTL ) , will undoubtedly be
major players in this fast-growing market. Aside from its investment with Nest for smarter home energy
use, Google is also getting into the transportation game with its Open Auto Alliance, a group of
automakers and technology companies that will establish common practices such that vehicles from
different manufacturers can communicate with each other -- the building block for self driving vehicles.
With that much money on the line, can you really blame these companies for diving into this market?
What a Fool believes
The Internet of Things trend is approaching ... fast. For investors, it could be an amazing opportunity to
get in on the ground floor of a new market with trillion dollar potential, but it is so much more than that.
Increased productivity and elimination of wasteful energy consumption through smart devices could be
the one and only key to cutting greenhouse gas emission enough to reduce the chances of significant
climate change. So go ahead and continue arguing about the use of fossil fuels or alternative energy -the investors who will really be betting on reducing carbon emissions will be putting their money here.
AT: Eagleman
Eagleman’s a hack and internet won’t save civilization
Mnookin 12
Seth Mnookin teaches science writing at MIT and blogs at the Public Library of Science, Download the
Universe, March 23, 2012, "The Frozen Future of Nonfiction",
http://www.downloadtheuniverse.com/dtu/2012/03/why-the-net-matters-how-the-internet-will-savecivilization-by-david-eagleman-canongate-books-2010-for-ipad-by-set.html
At least, that’s what I assumed before I read Why The Net Matters, Eagleman’s frustrating 2010 e-book
about how and why the Internet will save civilization. (I reviewed the $7.99 iPad version, which is the
platform it was designed for; a stripped-down, text-based version is available on the Kindle for the
portentous price of $6.66.) The problems start with Eagleman’s premise, which is so vague and broad as
to be practically meaningless. There are, he writes, just “a handful of reasons” that civilizations collapse:
“disease, poor information flow, natural disasters, political corruption, resource depletion and economic
meltdown.” Lucky for us (and Eagleman does offer readers “[c]ongratulations on living in a fortuitous
moment in history”), the technology that created the web “obviates many of the threats faced by our
ancestors. In other words...[t]he advent of the internet represents a watershed moment in history that
just might rescue our future.”
On the other hand, it just might not: In order to make his point, Eagleman either ignores or doesn’t
bother to look for any evidence that might undercut it. The first of six “random access” chapters that
make up the bulk of Why The Net Matters is devoted to “Sidestepping Epidemics,” like the smallpox
outbreak that helped bring down the Aztec Empire. In the future, Eagleman writes, the “protective net,”
in the form of telemedicine, telepresence (“the ability to work remotely via computer”), and
sophisticated information tracking, will save us from these outbreaks. That all sounds lovely, but what of
the fact that we’re currently experiencing a resurgence in vaccine-preventable diseases such as
measles...a resurgence which is fueled in no small part by misinformation spread over that very same
“protective net”?
A few chapters later, in a section celebrating the benefits of the hive mind, Eagleman invokes Soviet
pseudoscientist Trofim Lysenko, a famed quack who took over the U.S.S.R.’s wheat production under
Stalin. Because the Soviet Union spanned 13 time zones, Eagleman writes, “central rule-setting was
disastrous for wheat production. … Part of the downfall of the USSR can be traced to this centralization
of agricultural decisions.” That sounds nice, and might even be true—but it’s not a point that’s
supported by Lysenko, whose main shortcoming was not that he believed in a one-size-fits-all approach;
it was that he was a fraud.
Moving to the present day, Eagleman addresses wildfires that swept through Southern California in
2007, which, he writes, “brought into relief the relationship between natural disasters and the internet.”
At the beginning of the outbreak in October, Californians were glued to their television screens, hoping
to determine if their own homes were in danger. But at some point they stopped watching the
televisions and turned to other sources. A common suspicion arose that the news stations were most
concerned with the fate of celebrity homes in Malibu and Hollywood; mansions that were consumed by
the flames took up airtime in proportion to their square footage, which made for gripping video but a
poor information source about which areas were in danger next. So people be-gan to post on Twitter,
upload geotagged cell phone photos to Flickr, and update Facebook.
I had been fairly obsessed with the wildfires, and since I didn’t remember this “common suspicion,” I
decided to check the article Eagleman cites as the source of this info, which was a Wired blog post titled
“Firsthand Reports from California Wildfires Pour Through Twitter.” It contained no references to a
celebrity-obsessed news media; instead, the piece described how “the local media [was] overwhelmed.”
It also talked about a San Diego resident who was “[a]cting as an ad hoc news aggregator of sorts” by
“watching broadcast television news, listening to local radio reports and monitoring streaming video on
the web” and then posting information, along with info gleaned from IMs, text messages, and e-mails,
to his Twitter account.
AT: Genachowski
Genachowski was the worst—reject their ev
Gustin 13 [Sam Gustin, reporter at TIME focused on business, technology, and public policy, FCC
Chairman Julius Genachowski Stepping Down After Contentious Term, TIME,
http://business.time.com/2013/03/22/fcc-chairman-julius-genachowski-stepping-down-aftercontentious-term-reports/]
Federal Communications Commission Chairman Julius Genachowski is stepping down, he announced Friday.
Genachowski, who became chairman in 2009, has presided over an agency that has grappled with contentious issues like U.S. broadband policy,
cable and telecom industry competition, and media consolidation. In seeking to strike a centrist balance, Genachowski managed
to
alienate both public interest groups that have pushed for a more activist FCC on issues like media
ownership and Internet openness, as well as industry giants, particularly AT&T, which had proposed buying T-Mobile
before the FCC objected. Verizon Wireless is currently suing the FCC in federal court over the agency’s “network neutrality” rules.
Genachowski’s announcement, which was expected, comes just days after another FCC commissioner, Robert McDowell, announced his plan to
leave the agency. Their departures create two vacancies on the commission, which will be filled by candidates nominated by President Obama.
The job of FCC chairman is particularly important, because the position wields significant power in shaping U.S. telecom regulatory policy. A
spokesman for the FCC’s office of the chairman declined to comment on the reports of Genachowski’s impending departure, but Reuters
reported that he informed his staff of his decision on Thursday. Genachowski, a former Internet executive at media mogul Barry Diller’s
IAC conglomerate, attended Harvard Law School with President Obama and later raised money for Obama. When
he was appointed,
public interest groups were optimistic that he would champion the open Internet principles at the heart
of “network neutrality,” the idea that Internet providers shouldn’t discriminate against rival services. But
public interest groups were dismayed when Genachowski ultimately settled on a compromise originally
crafted by Google and Verizon Wireless, which ensured net neutrality on wired networks, but did not
extend the principle to wireless networks. “When Julius Genachowski took office, there were high hopes that he would use his
powerful position to promote the public interest,” Craig Aaron, president and CEO of public interest group Free Press, said in a statement. “But
instead of acting as the people’s champion, he’s catered to corporate interests. He claimed to be a
staunch defender of the open Internet, but his Net Neutrality policies are full of loopholes and offer no
guarantee that the FCC will be able to protect consumers from corporate abuse in the future.” It’s easy to take
the idea of net neutrality for granted, but all Web users and companies have equal access to the Internet, in the same way that all Americans
have the right to travel anywhere in the 50 states without a passport. Companies and institutions have closed networks, but the main public
internet is accessible by all. Without this open access, net neutrality advocates argue, startups like Google, Facebook, Twitter, and thousands of
others could never have emerged to become the commercial and communications powerhouses they are today.
Genachowski also infuriated public interest groups with his decision to approve Comcast’s purchase of
NBCUniversal, which critics said concentrated too much power with one company. “Though President Obama
promised his FCC chairman would not continue the Bush administration’s failed media ownership policies, Genachowski offered the exact same
broken ideas that Bush’s two chairmen pushed,” Aaron said. “He
opposition to his plans.”
never faced the public and ignored the overwhelming
AT: McDowell
McDowell is all rhetoric—but he does say appointments and lack of platform
outweigh
McDowell, 13
(Chair-FCC, 2/15, “Commissioner McDowell Congressional Testimony,”
http://www.fcc.gov/document/commissioner-mcdowell-congressional-testimony)
Thank you Chairman Upton, Ranking Member Waxman, Chairman Royce, Ranking Member Engel, Chairman Walden, Ranking Member Eshoo,
Chairman Poe, Ranking Member Sherman, Chairman Smith and Ranking Member Bass. It is an honor to be before you during this rare joint
hearing. Thank you for inviting me. It is a privilege to testify before such a rare meeting of three subcommittees and beside such a distinguished
group on this panel. Ladies and gentlemen, the
Internet is under assault. As a result, freedom, prosperity and the
potential to improve the human condition across the globe are at risk. Any questions regarding these assertions are
now settled. Last year’s allegations that these claims are exaggerated no longer have credibility. In my testimony today, I will make five
fundamental points: 1) Proponents of multilateral intergovernmental control of the Internet are patient and persistent incrementalists who will
never relent until their ends are achieved; 2) The recently concluded World Conference on International Telecommunications (“WCIT”) ended
the era of an international consensus to keep intergovernmental hands off of the Internet in dramatic fashion, thus radically twisting the oneway ratchet of even more government regulation in this space; 3) Those
who cherish Internet freedom must immediately
redouble their efforts to prevent further expansions of government control of the Internet as the
pivotal 2014 Plenipotentiary meeting of the International Telecommunication Union (“ITU”)1 quickly draws nearer; 4)
Merely saying “no” to any changes is – quite obviously – a losing proposition; therefore we should work to offer alternate proposals such as
improving the longstanding and highly successful, non-governmental, multi-stakeholder model of Internet governance to include those who
may feel disenfranchised; and 5) Last year’s bipartisan and unanimous Congressional resolutions clearly opposing expansions of international
powers over the Internet reverberated throughout the world and had a positive and constructive effect. I. Proponents of multilateral
intergovernmental control of the Internet are patient and persistent incrementalists who will never relent until their ends are achieved. First, it
is important to note that as far back as 2003 during the U.N.’s Summit on the Information Society (“WSIS”), the U.S. found itself in the lonely
position of fending off efforts by other countries to exert U.N. and other multilateral control over the Internet. In both 2003 and 2005, due to
the highly effective leadership of my friend Ambassador David Gross – and his stellar team at the Department of State – champions of Internet
freedom were able to avert this crisis by enhancing the private sector multi-stakeholder governance model through the creation of entities such
as the Internet Governance Forum (“IGF”) where all stakeholders, including governments, could meet to resolve challenges. Solutions should be
found through consensus rather than regulation, as had always been the case with the Internet’s affairs since it was opened up for public use in
the early 1990’s.2 Nonetheless, countries
such as China, Russia, Iran, Saudi Arabia and scores of their allies never
gave up their regulatory quest. They continued to push the ITU, and the U.N. itself, to regulate both the
operations, economics and content of the Net. Some proposals were obvious and specific while others were insidious and
initially appeared innocuous or insignificant. Many defenders of Internet freedom did not take these proposals seriously at first, even though
some plans explicitly called for: • Changing basic definitions contained in treaty text so the ITU would have unrestricted jurisdiction over the
Internet;3 • Allowing foreign phone companies to charge global content and application providers internationally mandated fees (ultimately to
be paid by all Internet consumers) with the goal of generating revenue for foreign government treasuries;4 • Subjecting cyber security and data
privacy to international control, including the creation of an international “registry” of Internet addresses that could track every Internetconnected device in the world;5 • Imposing unprecedented economic regulations of rates, terms and conditions for currently unregulated
Internet traffic swapping agreements known as “peering;”6 • Establishing ITU dominion over important non-profit, private sector,
multistakeholder functions, such as administering domain names like the .org and .com Web addresses of the world;7 • Subsuming into the ITU
the functions of multi-stakeholder Internet engineering groups that set technical standards to allow the Net to work;8 • Centralizing under
international regulation Internet content under the guise of controlling “congestion,” or other false pretexts; and many more.9 Despite these
repeated efforts, the unanimously adopted 1988 treaty text that helped insulate the Internet from international regulation, and make it the
greatest deregulatory success story of all time, remained in place. Starting in 2006, however, the ITU’s member states (including the U.S.) laid
the groundwork for convening the WCIT.10 The purpose of the WCIT was to renegotiate the 1988 treaty. As such, it became the perfect
opportunity for proponents of expanded regulation to extend the ITU’s reach into the Internet’s affairs. In fact, in 2011, thenRussian Prime
Minister Vladimir Putin summed it up best when he declared that his goal, and that of his allies, was to establish “international control over the
Internet” through the ITU.11 Last month in Dubai, Mr. Putin largely achieved his goal. II. December’s WCIT ended the era of international
consensus to keep intergovernmental hands off of the Internet in dramatic fashion. Before the WCIT, ITU leadership made three key promises:
1) No votes would be taken at the WCIT; 2) A new treaty would be adopted only through “unanimous consensus;” and 3) Any new treaty would
not touch the Internet.12 All three promises were resoundingly broken.13 As a result of an 89-55 vote, the ITU now has unprecedented
authority over the economics and content of key aspects of the Internet.14 Although the U.S. was ultimately joined by 54 other countries in
opposition to the new treaty language, that figure is misleading. Many countries, including otherwise close allies in Europe, were willing to vote
to ensnare the Internet in the tangle of intergovernmental control until Iran complicated the picture with an unacceptable amendment. In
short, the
U.S. experienced a rude awakening regarding the stark reality of the situation: when push
comes to shove, even countries that purport to cherish Internet freedom are willing to surrender. Our
experience in Dubai is a chilling foreshadow of how international Internet regulatory policy could
expand at an accelerating pace. Specifically, the explicit terms of the new treaty language give the ITU policing powers over
“SPAM,” and attempt to legitimize under international law foreign government inspections of the content of Internet communications to assess
whether they should be censored by governments under flimsy pretexts such as network congestion.15 The
bottom line is, countries
have given the ITU jurisdiction over the Internet’s operations and content. Many more were close to
joining them. More broadly, pro-regulation forces succeeded in upending decades of consensus on the
meaning of crucial treaty definitions that were universally understood to insulate Internet service
providers, as well as Internet content and application providers, from intergovernmental control by
changing the treaty’s definitions.16 Many of the same countries, as well as the ITU itself,17 brazenly argued that the old treaty text
from 1988 gave the ITU broad jurisdiction over the Internet.18 If these regulatory expansionists are willing to conjure ITU
authority where clearly none existed, their control-hungry imaginations will see no limits to the ITU’s
authority over the Internet’s affairs under the new treaty language. Their appetite for regulatory
expansionism is insatiable as they envision the omniscience of regulators able to replace the billions of
daily decisions that allow the Internet to blossom and transform the human condition like no other
technology in human history. At the same time, worldwide consumer demand is driving technological
convergence. As a result, companies such as Verizon, Google, AT&T, Amazon, Microsoft, Netflix, and many more in the U.S. and in
other countries, are building across borders thousands of miles of fiber optics to connect sophisticated
routers that bring voice, video and data services more quickly to consumers tucked into every corner of
the globe. From an engineering perspective, the technical architecture and service offerings of these companies look the same. Despite this
wonderful convergence, an international movement is growing to foist 19th Century regulations designed for railroads, telegraphs and
vanishing analog voice phone monopolies onto new market players that are much different from the monoliths of yore. To
be blunt,
these dynamic new wonders of the early 21st Century are inches away from being smothered by
innovation-crushing old rules designed for a different time. The practical effect of expanded rules would
be to politicize engineering and business decisions inside sclerotic intergovernmental bureaucracies. If
this trend continues, Internet growth would be most severely impaired in the developing world. But even
here, as brilliant and daring technologists work to transform the world, they could be forced to seek bureaucratic permission to innovate and
invest. In sum, the
dramatic encroachments on Internet freedom secured in Dubai will serve as a stepping
stone to more international regulation of the Internet in the very near future. The result will be devastating
even if the United States does not ratify these toxic new treaties. We must waste no time fighting to prevent further
governmental expansion into the Internet’s affairs at the upcoming ITU Plenipotentiary in 2014. Time is
of the essence. While we debate what to do next, Internet freedom’s foes around the globe are working
hard to exploit a treaty negotiation that dwarfs the importance of the WCIT by orders of magnitude. In
2014, the ITU will conduct what is literally a constitutional convention, called a “plenipotentiary”
meeting, which will define the ITU’s mission for years to come. Its constitution will be rewritten and a new Secretary
General will be elected. This scenario poses both a threat and an opportunity for Internet freedom. The
outcome of this massive treaty negotiation is uncertain, but the momentum favors those pushing for
more Internet regulation. More immediately, the World Telecommunications Policy/ICT Forum (“WTPF”), which convenes in Geneva
this May, will focus squarely on Internet governance and will shape the 2014 Plenipotentiary. Accordingly, the highest levels of the U.S.
Government must make this cause a top priority and recruit allies in civil society, the private sector and diplomatic circles around the world.
The effort should start with the President immediately making appointments to fill crucial vacancies in our
diplomatic ranks. The recent departures of my distinguished friend, Ambassador Phil Verveer, his legendary deputy Dick Beaird, as well as WCIT
Ambassador Terry Kramer, have left a hole in the United States’ ability to advocate for a constructive – rather than destructive – Plenipot.
America and Internet freedom’s allies simply cannot dither again. If we do, we will fail, and global freedom and prosperity will suffer. We
should work to offer constructive alternative proposals, such as improving the highly successful multistakeholder model of Internet governance to include those who feel disenfranchised. As I warned a year
ago, merely saying “no” to any changes to the multi-stakeholder Internet governance model has
recently proven to be a losing proposition.19 Ambassador Gross can speak to this approach far better than can I, but using the
creation of the IGF as a model, we should immediately engage with all countries to encourage a dialogue among
all interested parties, including governments, civil society, the private sector, non-profits and the ITU, to
broaden the multi-stakeholder umbrella to provide those who feel disenfranchised from the current structure with a meaningful
role in shaping the evolution of the Internet. Primarily due to economic and logistical reasons, many developing
world countries are not able to play a role in the multi-stakeholder process. This is unacceptable and
should change immediately. Developing nations stand to gain the most from unfettered Internet
connectivity, and they will be injured the most by centralized multilateral control of its operations and
content. V. Last year’s bipartisan and unanimous Congressional resolutions clearly opposing expansions of
international powers over the Internet reverberated around the world and had a positive and
constructive effect, but Congress must do more. In my nearly seven years of service on the FCC, I have been amazed by how
closely every government and communications provider on the globe studies the latest developments in
American communications policy. In fact, we can be confident that this hearing is streaming live in some countries, and is being
blocked by government censors in others. Every detail of our actions is scrutinized. It is truly humbling to learn that even my statements have
been read in Thailand and Taiwan, as well as translated into Polish and Italian. And when
Congress speaks, especially when it
speaks with one loud and clear voice, as it did last year with the unanimous and bipartisan resolutions
concerning the WCIT, an uncountable number of global policymakers pause to think. Time and again, I have
been told by international legislators, ministers, regulators and business leaders that last year’s resolutions had a positive effect on the
outcome of the WCIT. Although Internet freedom suffered as a result of the WCIT, many even more corrosive proposals did not become
international law in part due to your actions.20 IV. Conclusion. And so, I ask you in the strongest terms possible, to take
action and take
action now. Two years hence, let us not look back at this moment and lament how we did not do enough. We have but one chance. Let
us tell the world that we will be resolute and stand strong for Internet freedom. All nations should join us. Thank
you for having me appear before you today. I look forward to your questions.
AT: Minton
Minton is writing for Breitbart which is some bullshit
Source Watch no date – accessed 10/12 (Center for Media and Democracy,
http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Andrew_Breitbart#Sourcewatch_resources)
Race baiting
Breitbart was behind the July 2010 attempt to smear Department of Agriculture employee Shirley Sherrod by
heavily editing a video of a speech she gave to make it appear she was confessing to being racist. The
story she told, in its entirety, was exactly the opposite -- it was a story of redemption in which Sherrod explained how she had
overcome feelings of racism to realize everyone needed to be treated equally.
Media Matters described the episode this way:
In a July 19 BigGovernment.com post -- headlined "Video Proof: The NAACP Awards Racism -- 2010" -- Breitbart purported to provide "video
evidence of racism coming from a federal appointee and NAACP award recipient." The heavily edited video clip Breitbart posted shows Shirley
Sherrod, then the USDA Georgia Director of Rural Development, speaking at an NAACP Freedom Fund dinner in Georgia, and stating that she
didn't give a "white farmer" the "full force of what I could do" because "I was struggling with the fact that so many black people have lost their
farmland, and here I was faced with having to help a white person save their land." Breitbart characterized Sherrod's comments as her
"describ[ing] how she racially discriminates against a white farmer."
Full video vindicates Sherrod, destroys Breitbart's accusations of racism. On July 20, the NAACP posted the full video of Sherrod's
remarks, exposing how the clip Breitbart posted had taken Sherrod out of context. The heavily edited clip included her statements that she
initially did not help the farmer, but removed her statements indicating that she ultimately did help him save his farm and learned that "it's not
just about black people, it's about poor people."
Immediately prior to the portion of Sherrod's speech included in Breitbart's clip, Sherrod says that she originally made a "commitment" "to
black people only," but that "God will show you things and he'll put things in your path so that you realize that the struggle is really about poor
people." Immediately following the portion of the video included in the clip, Sherrod detailed her extensive work to help the farmer save his
farm. She then said, "working with him made me see that it's really about those who have versus those who don't," adding "they could be
black, and they could be white, they could be Hispanic. And it made me realize then that I needed to work to help poor people -- those who
don't have access the way others have." She later added, "I couldn't say 45 years ago, I couldn't stand here and say what I'm saying -- what I will
say to you tonight. Like I told, God helped me to see that its not just about black people, it's about poor people. And I've come a long way."
Breitbart portrayed Sherrod as a member of the Obama administration when she made the comments, which wasn't the case. The video of her
speech was made in 1986, many years prior to the Obama Administration.[3][4]
Distortion
Breitbart was also behind the coordinated release of heavily edited undercover videos that misrepresented
the activities of the community group ACORN. Media Matters writes,
On September 10, 2009, conservative activist and videographer James O'Keefe posted an entry to BigGovernment.com in which he revealed
that he and fellow activist Hannah Giles had posed as a pimp and prostitute at a Baltimore ACORN Housing office and secretly filmed their
meetings with ACORN staffers. As O'Keefe wrote, their intention was to take "advantage of ACORN's regard for thug criminality by posing the
most ridiculous criminal scenario we could think of and seeing if they would comply -- which they did without hesitation," the "scenario" being
the "trafficking of young helpless girls and tax evasion." O'Keefe would later release similar recordings of their interactions with ACORN and
ACORN Housing employees at several other ACORN offices nationwide. Breitbart
authored a separate September 10
BigGovernment.com post "introducing" O'Keefe and making it clear that he and BigGovernment.com would play a central role in the
distribution of O'Keefe and Giles' videos. But as Breitbart, O'Keefe, and Giles released and promoted the "heavily edited" videos, their
allegations about ACORN and its employees were undermined by numerous falsehoods and distortions. Subsequent
investigations revealed no pattern of intentional, illegal misconduct by ACORN, and no criminality by ACORN personnel. It did, however, find
the videos had been heavily edited to cast ACORN in a negative light. [5]
AT: Democracy
Their internal links are anecdotal
Bailard 2014 (Catie [Assist Prof of Media and Pubic Affairs @ George Washington; Catie received her
doctorate in political science from UCLA with concentrations in American Politics, Formal and
Quantitative Methods, and International Relations]; The other Facebook Revolution;
www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/142351/catie-bailard/the-other-facebook-revolution?cid=rss-rss_xmlthe_other_facebook_revolution-000000; kdf)
Empirical testing confirms that the Internet has clear and consistent influence on how citizens feel about their governments. As one might
expect, the mirror-holding and window-opening mechanisms boost public satisfaction with government in advanced democracies and public
dissatisfaction in nations with weak democratic practices. However, research also demonstrates that the
Internet’s effect is
neither automatic nor uniform—one democratic gain, such as more critical evaluations of poor-performing governments, does
not automatically set off a domino effect of entirely pro-democratic gains in citizens’ attitudes and
behaviors. Take Tanzania, for example, where I conducted a randomized field experiment to test the effect of Internet use on
evaluations of the 2010 general election. Although the Internet offered plentiful information about the
questionable integrity of a then-upcoming national election, the results of the experiment revealed that
Tanzanians with access to that information also became less likely to vote. After all, the belief that an election
would not be fair can produce two very divergent responses—although some people may feel inclined to respond by taking to the streets,
others may simply throw up their hands and stay home. Meanwhile, another
randomized field experiment that I conducted
in Bosnia and Herzegovina revealed that Internet users there who became more dissatisfied with the
quality of democratic practices in their country also became more likely to consider alternative forms of
government as preferable for their country. Taken as a whole, then, this research reveals that the Internet’s influence is
complex, and that in some instances it will have ambiguous effects for democracy and democratization. The effects of Internet use
on political evaluations tend to be particularly profound in hybrid regimes—governments that, despite being firmly
authoritarian, allow some form of so-called elections for various offices. In many cases, such elections are exercises in futility, the outcome
already determined by the ruling party regardless of what the ballots say. Although
outsiders may take for granted that
these elections are largely shams, however, citizens living in these countries often invest significant value in
them. This was demonstrated in the build-up to the Egyptian Revolution of 2011, during which a segment of the public that
was originally angered by police brutality became further incensed by ostensibly rigged parliamentary elections, eyewitness accounts of which
were amplified by videos uploaded and distributed online. It wasn't long before citizens began expressing their discontent by protesting in the
streets and demanding a change in the regime. Moreover, even in instances that do not result in tangible political activity, the effects of
Internet use on political evaluations and satisfaction have important implications for the day-to-day business of governance. Quite simply,
governments—democratic, democratizing, and nondemocratic alike—are aware that they have lost some degree of control over information
compared to what they enjoyed in the era of traditional media. As a result, they know that there is greater potential for their decisions and
actions to be broadcast on the national, and even international, stage, a venue and context that they have diminished control over. Thus,
leaders are forced, to varying degrees, to consider the potential activation of latent public opinion when making political decisions in ways that
they never had to previously. It is regrettable, if not entirely surprising, that, aside from a handful of notable exceptions, scholars
and
other political observers mostly failed to anticipate the Arab Spring. Many tried to make up for it by
focusing renewed effort on the role played by the Internet in the wave of political upheaval that
subsequently swept across the Middle East and North Africa. But they would be wise to focus on what
has largely remained a blind spot in scholarly research: the effects of Internet use on the very political
evaluations that can, and sometimes do, precipitate political action and organization.
--xt No Democracy
Bush family proves that democracy is non-existent
Sanders 2015 (Bernie; Email to Kurt Fifelski -- This is not democracy; Jul 10)
Kurt - Yesterday afternoon, Jeb Bush announced that a relatively small number of wealthy donors have
contributed over one hundred million dollars to his Super PAC. This is not a democracy. This is
oligarchy. Unfortunately, Jeb Bush is not alone. Almost all of our opponents have embraced this model of
fundraising — begging billionaire benefactors who have bought up the private sector to try their hand at buying a presidential election. One
of those Super PACs is already running ads against our campaign. Let me be clear: I am more than aware our opponents will outspend us, but
we are going to win this election. They have the money, but we have the people. Add your $3 contribution to our campaign today and help fuel
the political revolution this moment requires. The economic and political systems of this country are stacked against ordinary Americans. The
rich get richer and use their wealth to buy elections. It’s
answering the call. Bernie Sanders
up to us to change the course for our country. Thank you for
AT: Economy
Internet not key to growth
Lowrey 2011 (Annie; Freaks, geeks, and the GDP; Mar 8;
www.slate.com/articles/business/moneybox/2011/03/freaks_geeks_and_gdp.html; kdf)
If you have attended any economists' cocktail parties in the past month or so—lucky you!—then you have probably heard chatter about Tyler Cowen's e-book, The
Great Stagnation. The book seeks to explain why in the United States median wages have grown only slowly since the 1970s and have actually declined in the past
decade. Cowen points to an innovation problem: Through the 1970s, the country had plenty of "low-hanging fruit" to juice GDP growth. In the past 40 years, coming
up with whiz-bang, life-changing innovations—penicillin, free universal kindergarten, toilets, planes, cars—has proved harder, pulling down growth rates across the
industrialized world. But wait! you might say. In the 1970s, American businesses started pumping out amazing, life-changing computing technologies. We got
graphing calculators, data-processing systems, modern finance, GPS, silicon chips, ATMs, cell phones, and a host of other innovations. Has
the Internet, the
nothing for GDP growth? The
answer, economists broadly agree, is: Sorry, but no—at least, not nearly as much as you would expect. A
most revolutionary communications technology advance since Gutenberg rolled out the printing press, done
quarter century ago, with new technologies starting to saturate American homes and businesses, economists looked around and expected to find computer-fueled
growth everywhere. But signs of increased productivity or bolstered growth were few and far between. Sure, computers
and the Web
transformed thousands of businesses and hundreds of industries. But overall, things looked much the
same. The GDP growth rate did not tick up significantly, nor did productivity. As economist Robert Solow put it in 1987:
"You can see the computer age everywhere but in the productivity statistics." An overlapping set of theories emerged to explain the phenomenon, often termed the
"productivity paradox." Perhaps the new technologies advantaged some firms and industries and disadvantaged others, leaving little net gain. Perhaps computer
systems were not yet easy enough to use to reduce the amount of effort workers need to exert to perform a given task. Economists also wondered whether it might
just take some time—perhaps a lot of time—for the gains to show up. In the past, information technologies tended to need to incubate before they produced gains
in economic growth. Consider the case of Gutenberg's printing press. Though the technology radically transformed how people recorded and transmitted news and
information, economists have failed to find evidence it sped up per-capita income or GDP growth in the 15th and 16th centuries. At one point, some economists
thought that an Internet-driven golden age might have finally arrived in the late 1990s. Between 1995 and 1999, productivity growth rates actually exceeded those
during the boom from 1913 to 1972—perhaps meaning the Web and computing had finally brought about a "New Economy." But that high-growth period faded
quickly. And some studies found the gains during those years were not as impressive or widespread as initially thought. Robert Gordon, a professor of economics at
Northwestern, for instance, has found that computers and the Internet mostly helped boost productivity in durable goods manuf acturing—that is, the production of
things like computers and semiconductors. "Our central theme is that computers and the Internet do not measure up to the Great Inventions of the late nineteenth
and early twentieth century, and in this do not merit the label of Industrial Revolution," he wrote. Gordon's work leads to another theory, one espoused by Cowen
himself. Perhaps the Internet is just not as revolutionary as we think it is. Sure, people might derive endless pleasure from it—its tendency to improve people's
quality of life is undeniable. And sure, it might have revolutionized how we find, buy, and sell goods and services. But that still does not necessarily mean it is as
transformative of an economy as, say, railroads were. That is in part because
the Internet and computers tend to push costs
toward zero, and have the capacity to reduce the need for labor. You are, of course, currently reading this article for free on a
Web site supported not by subscriptions, but by advertising. You probably read a lot of news articles online, every day, and
you probably pay nothing for them. Because of the decline in subscriptions, increased competition for
advertising dollars, and other Web-driven dynamics, journalism profits and employment have dwindled
in the past decade. (That Cowen writes a freely distributed blog and published his ideas in a $4 e-book rather than a $25 glossy airport hardcover should
not go unnoted here.) Moreover, the Web- and computer-dependent technology sector itself does not employ that many people. And it does not look set to add
workers: The Bureau of Labor Statistics estimates that employment in information technology, for instance, will be lower in 2018 than it was in 1998. That
the
Internet has not produced an economic boom might be hard to believe, Cowen admits. "We have a collective
historical memory that technological progress brings a big and predictable stream of revenue growth
across most of the economy," he writes. "When it comes to the web, those assumptions are turning out to be wrong or misleading. The revenueintensive sectors of our economy have been slowing down and the big technological gains are coming in revenue-deficient sectors." But revenue is not always the
end-all, be-all—even in economics. That brings us to a final explanation: Maybe it is not the growth that is deficient. Maybe it is the yardstick that is deficient. MIT
professor Erik Brynjolfsson * explains the idea using the example of the music industry. " Because
you and I stopped buying CDs, the
music industry has shrunk, according to revenues and GDP. But we're not listening to less music. There's more music consumed than before." The
improved choice and variety and availability of music must be worth something to us—even if it is not easy to put into numbers. "On paper, the way GDP is
calculated, the music industry is disappearing, but in reality it's not disappearing. It is disappearing in revenue. It is not disappearing in terms of what you should
care about, which is music." As more of our lives are lived online, he wonders whether this might become a bigger problem. "If everybody focuses on the part of the
economy that produces dollars, they would be increasingly missing what people actually consume and enjoy. The disconnect becomes bigger and bigger." But
providing an alternative measure of what we produce or consume based on the value people derive from Wikipedia or Pandora proves an extraordinary challenge—
indeed, no economist has ever really done it. Brynjolfsson says it is possible, perhaps, by adding up various "consumer surpluses," measures of how much
consumers would be willing to pay for a given good or service, versus how much they do pay. (You might pony up $10 for a CD, but why would you if it is free?) That
might give a rough sense of the dollar value of what the Internet tends to provide for nothing—and give us an alternative sense of the value of our technologies to
us, if not their ability to produce growth or revenue for us. Of course, if our most radical and life-altering technologies are not improving incomes or productivity or
growth, then we still have problems. Quality-of-life improvements do not put dinner on the table or pay for Social Security benefits. Still, even
Cowen
does not see all doom and gloom ahead, with incomes stagnating endlessly as we do more and more
online and bleed more and more jobs and money. Who knows what awesome technologies might be just around the bend?
AT: Telemedicine
Telemedicine booming now
Hixon 10/22 (Todd; Why is Telemedicine Suddenly Hot;
www.forbes.com/sites/toddhixon/2014/10/22/why-is-telemedicine-suddenly-hot/; kdf)
Google's GOOGL +1.49% recent announcement that it will provide telemedicine services was the crescendo to
a swelling volume of recent interest: e.g., articles in VentureBeat, U.S. News, and The Economist. Telemedicine has been around
for a generation. Why is this happening now? Rising use of telemedicine takes different forms. Traditionally telemedicine has
played the biggest role in rural areas where visits to doctors are difficult and in consultations with specialists like radiologists and oncologists
where value is created by connecting a patient to the best expert. This
is expanding because broadband network coverage
is improving, patients and doctors are more comfortable with computers, pressure for cost savings is
increasing, and an emerging policy consensus favors telemedicine. This all makes sense. But, these forces have
been at play for a decade or more and hence don’t account for the current inflection point (1) of interest in telemedicine. The new
driving force is the rebirth of relationship medicine. By “relationship medicine” I mean a paradigm of medical practice that
puts the relationship between the patient and the doctor at the center. The most important relationship is with the primary care doctor,
because that relationship is life-long, and the primary care doctor is most concerned with the patient’s total health status and long term
prospects. This is how much of medicine was done in the 1950s, but it declined as Medicare and health insurers “industrialized” medicine,
slicing doctors’ time finer and finer and putting patients on a medical assembly line that moves them past doctors for ever-shorter office visits.
This echoes Henry Ford’s industrializion of car assembly. In the relationship medicine paradigm, care is based on a long-term conversation
between patient and physician about both long term health maximization and acute issues. That conversation occurs through a variety of
encounters. Some encounters are typical office visits. Once the relationship is established, many of these encounters can be remote.
Telepresence (e.g., Skype) can be very powerful, but remote encounters do not need to be high-tech: often a phone call, email, or even a text
can do the job. Remote encounters are usually more efficient and convenient for both patient and physician. For example, I had a serious toe
infection earlier this year, went in for an office visit, and came home with antibiotics which I took as prescribed. The next week I had to go
traveling and the toe was still swollen. I took a picture with my phone and sent it to the doctor. He wrote back, “Don’t worry, your toe is
mending”, and I went on with my trip. [I'm resisting the temptation to jazz up this post with the picture of my swollen toe.] This got the job
done and avoided a second office visit. Medicare and
states such as Massachusetts are holding hospitals responsible for
readmission rates. As one hospitalist doctor put it [paraphrase], “we used to think we were responsible for patients’ condition while they
were in the hospital, and now we realize we are responsible for their condition all the time!” In other words, the doctor and the patient need an
ongoing relationship and conversation, and telemedicine helps. Incentives play a big role, as the prior paragraph suggests. But the true driving
force here is better health and better use of medical resources. The VA medical system has embraced telemedicine, although its doctors are
salaried. My primary care doctor is not supposed to give me his email address and he does not get paid for looking at the picture of my toe, but
he did both gladly on request. It is fair to say, however, that aligning incentives correctly will accelerate the growth of relationship medicine.
The direct primary care movement (e.g, www.dpcare.org) advocates moving primary care doctors from the pay-for-procedure compensation
system created by Medicare and health insurers to payments that are fixed per patient or outcome-based. This encourages doctors to design
encounters and use their resources in the manner that creates the best outcomes with the best efficiency. Direct primary care is growing very
fast now as both plan sponsors and doctors come to believe that it offers major advantage in both quality of care and overall healthcare cost.
Their author is writing about net-neutrality
Trotter, healthcare specialist, ‘14
Fred, founder of the DocGraph Journal, a healthcare data journalist and author, the founder of CareSet
Systems and DocGraph journal, testified in the original hearings on the definition of Meaningful Use—
the standard in the Affordable Care Act for the effective use of electronic medical records “Reply
Comments of Fred Trotter, of the DocGraph Journal,” 8/5/14, http://engine.is/wpcontent/uploads/Reply-Comments-of-Fred-Trotter-of-the-DocGraph-Journal.pdf
Why? We all know healthcare costs are crippling this country. The costs for healthcare under Medicare
(mostly for old people, some of whom can no longer drive) and Medicaid (mostly for poor people, some
of whom cannot afford a car) are crippling our economy. A central tenet of healthcare reform is to
enable treatment of patients in their homes, using broadband Internet to allow for remote monitoring.
Pretty ironic, isn’t it? Telemedicine is the solution to our current real-world fast lane/slow lane problem.
Using telemedicine, we can get the same high levels of treatment to people no matter if they own a car
or not. But all of these programs, presume an Internet built with net neutrality. If we abandon net
neutrality, someone is going to have to pay the fast lane tax for patients who want telemedicine
solutions to really work. That means either patients are going to pay, or doctors are going to have to
pay. Having an Internet slow lane will ensure that poor patients will not be able to have video
telemedicine appointments (which operate just like streaming video) because their doctors do not have
the technical expertise or budget to afford the Internet fast lane. Think I am kidding? Already the Office
of the National Coordinator of Health IT(ONC) has seen that hospitals and practices that serve in
minority communities are late adopters of healthcare technology.4
AT: War
Internet doesn’t solve conflict
Elias 12
Phillip Elias, board member of the New Media Foundation, 20 January 2012, “Will humanity perish
without the internet?,”
http://www.mercatornet.com/articles/view/will_humanity_perish_without_the_internet
The new Encyclopaedists make the opposite mistake about the future. Inherent
in their worldview is the idea that setting
up a system where information can be shared quickly, widely, and freely will somehow eliminate
corruption, greed and violence from the world. It is almost as though human foibles were glitches in the
software of society. But human vices can never be reduced to social viruses. They come from deep
within us and can find their way into the most scientific settings.
Do Wikipedians think themselves immune from the temptation to wield their power towards their own ends?
Free access to information for everyone could be said to be the Wikipedian creed. It encapsulates the Enlightenment values of
liberty and equality. But, like the French terror of the 1790s, it neglects that other ideal needed to give them gumption -a genuine concern for other human beings.
But fraternité
is not achieved by giving everyone more information, more freedom and more equality. And
it is what is so often lacking on the internet, on blogs, and in other forms of web communication. Online
interaction is so often vitriolic it is unreadable, and it is at its worst when the tech-savvy confront each
other. I have seen very few geeks who try to love their enemies.
Fraternité comes from empathising with others. This is difficult to learn online. But without it, how can we
understand the point of view of those who have different concepts of freedom or equality, or of
troglodytes who don’t blog, or of nematodes who don’t have access to the internet. Believe it or not, there is a
life offline and wisdom is wider than the web.
Internet--Governance
No Governance – Alt cause
US has officially backed out of its internet governance role
Hyman 2015 (Leonard [former Google Public Policy Fellow]; U.S. To Scale Back Its Role In Internet
Governance; techcrunch.com/2015/02/19/1120736/; kdf)
Even though the Internet has long been an international community, the United States has always been
at its center. However, that all may be about to change as the U.S. Department of Commerce scales back its
role in Internet governance. The transition is a gradual one, but by the end of the year, the DOC is expected to give up its
oversight of the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) to the international community.
The concept of “Internet governance” may seem like a bizarre one since it often seems like the Wild West out there. The most tangible example
of ICANN‘s impact on Internet governance is management of the Internet Assigned Numbers Authority (IANA) functions: When you type a
domain name in your browser (e.g. TechCrunch.com), it connects you with the long, multi-digit IP address that would otherwise be impossible
to remember. On its face, it may not seem like a big deal who manages this process. As long as TechCrunch.com actually gets you to
TechCrunch.com, does it really matter if it’s the U.S., ICANN, or some random guy who’s behind it? But that question assumes that your URL
actually gets you to your destination. If a foreign government doesn’t want you accessing a certain URL, why not redirect you into a dead end?
After all, naysayers argue, some countries already have robust firewalls, so why give them more control? The Department of Commerce claims
that by scaling back its role, it will be promoting “innovation and inclusion.” After all, if the Internet supposedly belongs to the world, shouldn’t
it actually belong to the world? Further, they maintain that it won’t relinquish control until safeguards are in place to prevent that from
happening. (Will it live up to that promise? We’ll see!) At the same time, U.S. leadership in this area was called into question — perhaps
justifiably — after Snowden’s NSA surveillance leaks. This is one of the factors that has nudged the U.S. toward giving up its contract. Maybe
the international community would do a better job than we have. As unfortunate as censorship would
be for foreign countries, the bigger challenge for the average American may be managing the domains
themselves. Over 1,000 generic Top Level Domains (e.g. dot-search, dot-eco, dot-docs, etc.) are slated to go live in the coming months. It
could easily be a headache for corporations to buy the thousands of domains related to their brand. (Imagine if amazon.buy took you to the
wrong site.) Of course, it could be an even bigger hassle for the budding startup, not to mention ICANN itself overseeing this entire process
without the support of the U.S. government. The Department of Commerce’s process of fully handing over the reins won’t be complete until
later this year; its contract with ICANN expires in September. In the meantime, ICANN is slated to begin its next round of sessions in Buenos
Aires in June. And because it’s a multi-stakeholder process, public participation is welcomed. If you’re concerned about the impact ICANN’s
increasing independence could have on a free and open Internet — and you fancy a trip to South America — I hear Argentina is lovely that time
of year.
No impact – Cyber war
Cyber war not existential
Healey 2013 (Jason [director of the Cyber Statecraft Initiative at the Atlantic Council]; No,
Cyberwarfare Isn't as Dangerous as Nuclear War; March 20, 2013;
www.usnews.com/opinion/blogs/world-report/2013/03/20/cyber-attacks-not-yet-an-existential-threatto-the-us; jw)
America does not face an existential cyberthreat today, despite recent warnings. Our cybervulnerabilities are
undoubtedly grave and the threats we face are severe but far from comparable to nuclear war. The most recent alarms come in a
Defense Science Board report on how to make military cybersystems more resilient against advanced threats (in short,
Russia or China). It warned that the "cyber threat is serious, with potential consequences similar in some ways to the nuclear threat of the Cold
War." Such fears were also expressed by Adm. Mike Mullen, then chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, in 2011. He called cyber "The single
biggest existential threat that's out there" because "cyber actually more than theoretically, can attack our infrastructure, our financial systems."
While it is true that cyber
attacks might do these things, it is also true they have not only never happened but are far
more difficult to accomplish than mainstream thinking believes. The consequences from cyber threats may be similar in
some ways to nuclear, as the Science Board concluded, but mostly, they are incredibly dissimilar. Eighty years ago, the generals of the U.S.
Army Air Corps were sure that their bombers would easily topple other countries and cause their populations to panic, claims which did not
stand up to reality. A study of the 25-year history of cyber conflict, by the Atlantic Council and Cyber Conflict Studies Association, has shown a
similar dynamic where the impact of disruptive cyberattacks has been consistently overestimated. Rather than
theorizing about future cyberwars or extrapolating from today's concerns, the history of cyberconflict that have actually been fought, shows
that cyber incidents have so far tended to have effects that are either widespread but fleeting or persistent but narrowly focused. No
attacks, so far, have been both widespread and persistent. There have been no authenticated cases of anyone dying
from a cyber attack. Any widespread disruptions, even the 2007 disruption against Estonia, have been short-lived causing no significant
GDP loss. Moreover, as with conflict in other domains, cyberattacks can take down many targets but keeping them down over time in the face
of determined defenses has so far been out of the range of all but the most dangerous adversaries such as Russia and China. Of course, if the
United States is in a conflict with those nations, cyber will be the least important of the existential threats policymakers should be worrying
about. Plutonium
trumps bytes in a shooting war.
Cyber war not real – their rhetoric leads to less security
Mirani 2014 (Leo [reporter for Quartz]; Worrying about cyberwar is making countries less safe;
December 3, 2014; qz.com/305598/worrying-about-cyberwar-is-making-countries-less-safe/; jw)
Ten days ago, on Nov. 24, online security firms revealed the existence of a powerful computer virus called Regin. A tool of espionage (pdf), the
bug displayed all the hallmarks of nation-state backing, researchers said. Suspicion immediately fell on the US and Israel. The following day
came news of a massive intrusion into the systems of Sony Pictures Entertainment. Several pre-release films were leaked, along with detailed
personal records and communications of employees. An estimated 100 terabytes of data were stolen, and some 40 gigabytes have so far been
leaked. Investigators pointed the finger at North Korea (paywall). Unsurprisingly,
there has since been much hand-wringing
about cyberwarfare, with one prominent right-wing American website declaring that “The first cyber war is under way.” It is
precisely this sort of hype that Thomas Rid, a professor of security studies at King’s College London, and Robert M. Lee, an activeduty US Air Force cyber-warfare operations officer, warn against in their paper “OMG Cyber!” (pdf), published in the most recent issue of RUSI
Journal, a well-regarded peer-reviewed academic journal of defense and security topics. Cyber-riches Rid
and Lee argue that hype
makes for bad policy. As defense budgets have shrunk, cyber is one area where funding has grown. That leads to
perverse incentives, encouraging worry in order to gain and preserve funding. Since cyber is where the money is, all threats are relabelled cyber-something. That means “it is ever harder to say when something clearly is not cyber-related,” the authors write. “What we
are seeing is espionage and practices and techniques that are easy to understand both technically and politically,” says Lee. “By
hyping them into something they are not we fail to respond appropriately. Our policies, our technologies,
our education, [and] our military’s readiness are being focused on a classification and understanding of the problem that
does not align with the reality.” Such reinterpretation of traditional threats can escalate conflict. A NATO
official said earlier this year a cyber-attack would be covered by Article 5 of the treaty, which calls upon all member states to come to the
defense of any member under attack. However, the official did not say what would count as an attack and what the response would be,
suggesting it is meant as a deterrent. But that creates confusion. Does intrusion count? Espionage? From the paper: [T]he vast majority of
cyber-attacks also do not fall into NATO’s remit in the first place: espionage and cyber-crime are problems for intelligence agencies and law
enforcement, not for a military alliance. For militants and the Kremlin, the subtext is clear: cyber matters; better up your game. NATO—among
others—is escalating a problem that someone else will have to solve. More than the usual suspects The cyberwarfare hype does not arise solely
from defense officials attempting to protect their turf and budgets. Security
vendors have a vested interest in making
cyber-threats seem pervasive in order to sell their products. And some of the responsibility for creating the hype falls on
privacy activists and journalists who have helped give GCHQ, Britain’s signals intelligence agency, a profile and mystique matched only by James
Bond, says Rid. “[Edward] Snowden
and the journalists covering this in a rather naïve way helped created the image that
GCHQ and NSA [the US National Security Agency] are all-powerful, perfectly efficient surveillance machines that can
see everything, penetrate everything, and know everything they want,” says Rid. “And that’s just
laughable.”
AT: Solvency/Oversight
AT: Oversight
AT: Aff = Oversight
Aff oversight doesn’t cause transparency, zero reason they solve
Correia 2014 (Evan RC [JD Candidate, 2015 @ Temple]; PULLING BACK THE VEIL OF SECRECY:
STANDING TO CHALLENGE THE GOVERNMENT'S ELECTRONIC SURVEILLANCE ACTIVITIES; 24 Temp. Pol.
& Civ. Rts. L. Rev. 185; kdf)
There is growing concern regarding the secrecy that surrounds the FISC and its proceedings. n281 The sensitive nature of the FISC is the result
of balancing the need to protect national security with the need to provide notice to the individual targeted by the proceeding at an
appropriate time. n282 Currently, the
FISC is only required to report on the number of orders it issues and denies.
n283 No other [*212] information accompanies the annual report, and the public receives no additional
information about the cases that come before the court each year. n284 The public should not have to rely on the
disclosure of classified orders, such as the Snowden leak, for important information regarding invasions of their privacy by government
surveillance. As currently implemented, the
FAA lacks transparency and fails to provide any assurance that the FISC
can conduct sufficient oversight of the government's surveillance activities. n285 Improvements in such areas could
include public reporting procedures for FISC opinions, published statistics for FISC orders, and a provision for an increased web presence or
other source of data that can easily be accessed. n286 It
is important to provide the public with information about the
FISC without compromising the government's security and intelligence gathering interests. n287 Providing
the public with information such as an overview of the FISC's docket and the identity of the judge
assigned to each case is one possibility. n288 The most effective way to increase public understanding of
the FISC would be to publish past orders and opinions. n289 Publishing opinions with redacted sensitive material would
provide increased accountability for an important executive branch function. n290
AT: Deference
The Zivotofsky decision crushes presidential powers
Glennon 2015 (Michael J [Prof of International Law at the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy,
Tufts University]; Recognizable power: The Supreme Court Deals a Blow to Executive Authority; Jun 23;
https://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/united-states/2015-06-23/recognizable-power; kdf)
On its face, the Supreme Court’s landmark decision this month in Zivotofsky v. Kerry looks like an ode to presidential power. In it, the
Court, for the first time, struck down an act of Congress in the field of foreign affairs. The law had required the State Department to designate
Israel as the nation of birth of certain Americans born in Jerusalem. For 60 years, though, the United States has recognized no country as having
sovereignty over Jerusalem. When the Court invalidated the act, it affirmed that it is the exclusive power of the president to recognize foreign
governments, stressing the need for the nation to speak with one voice. It is easy to think that, with this decision, the Supreme Court handed
the president an epic victory in its perpetual struggle with Congress to control the nation’s foreign policy. That conclusion would be tempting
but wrong. In fact, the
Court’s opinion took nothing from Congress—and may actually have enhanced its
power. That the Court affirmed the president’s exclusive power to recognize foreign governments is unsurprising. Since President George
Washington recognized the revolutionary government of France by receiving Citizen Genet as its representative, few have seriously believed
that Congress could ever second-guess a president’s decision to recognize a foreign government. During the dispute following President Jimmy
Carter’s recognition of the People’s Republic of China in 1979, congressional opponents challenged his authority to unilaterally terminate the
United States’ mutual security treaty with Taiwan, but no one doubted that he had sole power to decide whether to derecognize Taiwan or
recognize the PRC. It is true that the Court’s opinion rests in part on the need for the United States to “speak with one voice.” The Court lifted
the so-called one-voice doctrine from recent federalism cases in which it found states to have interfered impermissibly in the federal
government’s foreign policy prerogatives. In one, for example, it struck down a Massachusetts law barring state entities from buying goods or
services from any person doing business with Myanmar (also called Burma). In another, it struck down a California law that required any insurer
doing business in that state to disclose information about all policies it sold in Europe between 1920 and 1945. But the Court’s references to the
doctrine in Zivotofsky relate only to the president’s recognition power. Nothing in the opinion implies that the one-voice doctrine narrows any
of the long-established powers that Congress exercises in other areas. The Court referred to the one-voice doctrine as a “functional
consideration”—a practical concern relating to a branch’s particular institutional advantages in exercising a given power. “Unlike Congress,” the
Court noted, “the President is … capable of engaging in the delicate and often secret diplomatic contacts that may lead to a recognition
decision.” Some suggest that this approach could be a formula for justifying across-the-boards presidential unilateralism. But functionalism cuts
both ways. In future disputes, institutional attributes could easily point toward predominant congressional power. Unlike the executive,
Congress can ask pointed questions, bring diverse viewpoints to bear, build a consensus, and sell a policy to the public. Absent a national
emergency, such decisive functional advantages would counsel in favor of including the legislative branch in a decision to introduce troops into
combat, impose economic sanctions, or enter into a mutual security commitment. The opinion’s greatest significance lies in its treatment of
two earlier, conflicting precedents. The Court deflated the executive’s perennial favorite, the 1936 Curtiss-Wright case, and resurrected an allbut-forgotten opinion of Chief Justice John Marshall that tightly circumscribed presidential power, Little v. Barreme (1804). For its part, CurtissWright implied that the president, as the “sole organ of the nation in its external relations,” has exclusive authority over foreign policy
generally; no wonder, then, that the Obama administration cited Curtiss-Wright no fewer than ten times in its Zivotofsky pleadings, claiming
broad, undefined foreign affairs powers. But Curtiss-Wright’s sweeping language, the Court said in Zivotofsky, was merely dicta—it was not
necessitated by the facts of that case, in which President Franklin Roosevelt initiated an arms embargo that Congress had authorized, not
prohibited. The Court proceeded to reject the Obama administration’s claim of “unbounded power” in relying upon Curtiss-Wright. “It is
Congress that makes laws,” the Court said, “and in countless ways its laws will and should shape the Nation’s course.” The more important
precedent, the Zivotofsky Court suggested, is Little v. Barreme. The 1804 case is significant because it involved the exercise of the president’s
commander-in-chief powers during the undeclared naval war with France in the 1790s. In it, the Marshall Court held that an act of Congress
prohibiting the seizure of a certain ship trumped a military order requiring it. “The
Executive is not free from the ordinary
controls and checks of Congress merely because foreign affairs are at issue,” the Zivotofsky Court said,
citing Little. “It is not for the President alone to determine the whole content of the Nation’s foreign policy.”
These are not words, or citations, in which an imperial president could take much comfort. It remains to be seen
how much Little will influence the resolution of future foreign affairs controversies, such as the constitutionality of the War Powers Resolution
or the validity of a nuclear deal with Iran. Judicial
decisions resolving foreign policy disputes are heavily factdependent. Precedents inevitably are elastic. But beyond the narrow confines of recognition, nothing in Zivotofsky makes a
future presidential victory more likely.
No modelling
No judicial modelling – foreign policy overwhelms the plan
Liptak 2008 (Adam; US Courts is now guiding fewer nations; Sep 17;
www.nytimes.com/2008/09/18/us/18legal.html?pagewanted=all)
WASHINGTON — Judges around the world have long looked to the decisions of the United States
Supreme Court for guidance, citing and often following them in hundreds of their own rulings since the
Second World War. But now American legal influence is waning. Even as a debate continues in the court
over whether its decisions should ever cite foreign law, a diminishing number of foreign courts seem to
pay attention to the writings of American justices. "One of our great exports used to be constitutional
law," said Anne-Marie Slaughter, the dean of the Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International
Affairs at Princeton. "We are losing one of the greatest bully pulpits we have ever had." From 1990
through 2002, for instance, the Canadian Supreme Court cited decisions of the United States Supreme
Court about a dozen times a year, an analysis by The New York Times found. In the six years since, the
annual citation rate has fallen by more than half, to about five. Australian state supreme courts cited
American decisions 208 times in 1995, according to a recent study by Russell Smyth, an Australian
economist. By 2005, the number had fallen to 72. The story is similar around the globe, legal experts say,
particularly in cases involving human rights. These days, foreign courts in developed democracies often
cite the rulings of the European Court of Human Rights in cases concerning equality, liberty and
prohibitions against cruel treatment, said Harold Hongju Koh, the dean of the Yale Law School. In those
areas, Dean Koh said, "they tend not to look to the rulings of the U.S. Supreme Court." The rise of new
and sophisticated constitutional courts elsewhere is one reason for the Supreme Court's fading
influence, legal experts said. The new courts are, moreover, generally more liberal that the Rehnquist
and Roberts courts and for that reason more inclined to cite one another. Another reason is the
diminished reputation of the United States in some parts of the world, which experts here and abroad
said is in part a consequence of the Bush administration's unpopularity abroad. Foreign courts are less
apt to justify their decisions with citations to cases from a nation unpopular with their domestic
audience. "It's not surprising, given our foreign policy in the last decade or so, that American influence
should be declining," said Thomas Ginsburg, who teaches comparative and international law at the
University of Chicago.
No oversight
The court lacks credibility because of its cherry picking of i-law
Schwarzschild ’10 (Maimon; October 2010; Legal Studies Research Paper Series Research Paper No.
10-043 Judicial Independence vs. Judicial Independence;
http://www.researchgate.net/publication/228128343_Judicial_Independence_vs._Judicial_Independen
ce; Schwarzschild was an accredited journalist at the United Nations for five years, had White House
press credentials during the Nixon administration, and served in the U.S. Department of Justice in
Washington, D.C, JD, 1976, Columbia University BA, 1973, Columbia University; 7-10-15; mbc)
One troubling model is the growing power of judges in European Union countries to make public policy
under the banner of European norms and treaties which are often vague and open-ended, and which
therefore seem to invite judicial over-reaching. A euphemism for this is “teleological” adjudication, which can mean
interpreting or pushing, not to say twisting, the law in a particular direction or towards a particular goal. Often, the goal in question
is more power for the European Union and its institutions - “deeper union” - at the expense of the
democratic institutions of the constituent nation states. This is a goal, in many cases at least, that the public 19
in European countries would not vote for: a goal that the electorates would reject not merely in the heat of passion, but upon sober reflection.
It may be especially troubling for the broader judicial culture that this power to use or abuse European
norms is not restricted to a handful of specifically European tribunals, but is devolved - in the name of
subsidiarity - to ordinary national judges as well. This tends to enlist the judges in the teleological project and vests them with new,
broad, and nebulously accountable powers.20 The citation of foreign law by American courts, at least in some
contexts, is open to similar criticism. If judicial interpretation of the Constitution or of domestic law is
guided by the law of other countries, that tends to circumvent domestic democratic processes. Moreover,
on many debatable questions, foreign law is liable to differ from country to country. This creates an obvious risk of arbitrary
selectivity about which foreign law to cite, or rather, of tendentious selectivity: that the judge will “pick
and choose” whichever bits of foreign law suit the result the judge favours, especially where the result
might not be straightforwardly justified under duly enacted domestic law.21 More broadly, international
legal institutions sometimes seem to promote, and even to embody, judicial independence in a dubious
rather than in a desirable or defensible sense. Judges appointed to international tribunals from countries ruled by
dictatorships, for example, are unlikely to enjoy much judicial independence in the positive sense. Coming from countries with little or no
tradition of the rule of law, where the judge has family members who can be implicitly or explicitly threatened, where the judge himself or
herself might hope to retire or to pursue a later career, where an independent-minded person is in any event unlikely to have reached a
professional position from which appointment to an international tribunal would be plausible, the foundations for judicial independence are
scarcely promising. For international jurists, however, there is often a kind of judicial independence in the dubious sense of being unmoored
from a developed legal system, and unaccountable to a democratic citizenry. The
body of international law, to put it
charitably, is less than fully evolved: it embraces uncertain “custom”, treaties sometimes drafted
broadly, highly arguable “general principles”, and so forth. Members of international tribunals are often
appointed in a none-too-transparent process of horse trading among governments, international
organisations, and sometimes activist pressure groups. There is no global hierarchy of international
courts or 22 a responsible body of supervising jurists. Few if any international jurists are known to the public, much less are
they politically removable or otherwise answerable to democratic scrutiny.
The fluid, and inevitable nature of judicial independence makes impartiality in court
impossible
Dinh ‘8 (Viet D; 2008; Threats to judicial independence, real & imagined; Viet D. Dinh is professor of
law and codirector of the Asian Law and Policy Studies Program at Georgetown University Law Center;
http://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/pdf/10.1162/daed.2008.137.4.64; 7-10-15; mbc)
Public criticism of the federal courts is nothing new.1 Since the beginning of the republic to the present
day, pol-iticians and populace have attacked ju-dicial opinions and decried judicial ac-tivism. For
example, the response to the landmark Supreme Court decisions of the 1950s, in particular those
involving desegregation and church-state rela-tions, was a nationwide movement to remove Chief
Justice Warren from the bench.2 Billboards around the country proclaimed their aim: “Impeach Earl
Warren.”3 Petitions circulated, and over one million Americans signed their names in support of the
impeachment effort.4 Some even proposed that War-ren be hanged. For as long as there has been a
federal judiciary, federal judges have been blasted for purportedly overstepping their bounds. Yet by
and large the judges have not abdicated their duty to invalidate laws that they believe offend the
Constitution. Public criticism of judicial decisions does not, by itself, necessarily threaten the
independence of the judiciary; in fact, under some cir-cumstances, such critiques paradoxically can help
bring about a more robust form of judicial independence. Under our constitutional system, the federal
judiciary wields carefully circumscribed powers, but within its prop-er sphere judicial authority is final
and therefore absolute. Among other limitations, federal judges may not issue advisory opinions and
have no authority to engage in policy-making. But while the Constitution rules certain functions out of
bounds for the courts, it also insulates federal judges from the pressures that can be brought to bear in
response to an unpopular, but legally required, decision. Article III guarantees that federal judges shall
hold their offices for life with continued “good Behaviour.” By setting up an independent judiciary, the
framers intended to prevent the other branches of government, or the people themselves, from
undermining the judiciary’s decisional impartiality. It is “essential to the preservation of the rights of
every individual, his life, property, and character, that there be an impartial interpretation of the laws,
and administration of justice.”5 The insulation of judges from popular pressures ensures that all citizens
receive equal justice under the law, and prevents judges from being influenced by the whims of the
public (or a powerful faction) when they decide cases. In The Federalist No. 78, Alexander Hamilton
emphasized: This independence of the judges is equally requisite to guard the Constitution and the
rights of individuals from the effects of those ill humors, which the arts of designing men, or the
influence of particular conjectures, sometimes disseminate among the people themselves, and which,
though they speedily give place to better information and more deliberate reflection, have a tendency,
in the meantime, to occasion dangerous innovations in the government, and serious oppressions of the
minor party in the community. 5 Peter D. Webster, “Who Needs an Independent Judiciary?” Florida Bar
Journal 78 (2004): 24–25, which discusses the creation of and need for an independent judiciary. The
way to achieve this impartiality– to free judges to decide cases based on what the law actually requires,
and on nothing else–is to ensure that the judiciary is independent, or, put differently, not subject to
reprisals for decisions on the bench. But judicial independence is not an absolute or singular value
defining our courts. The principle of judicial restraint is equally important–and it is inextricably linked to
judicial independence. At one level, the tension between the two seems inescapable. But there is an
important sense in which an independent judiciary and judicial restraint are flip sides of the same coin.
Both aim to minimize the influence of extraneous factors on judicial decision-making. A judge must not
decide a case with an eye toward public approbation, because whether a particular result is popular is
irrelevant to whether it is legally sound. In the same way, a judge must not consult his own policy
preferences (or those of whatever moral philosopher happens to be au courant at the time) when construing the Constitution or a statute, because those personal views are immaterial to what the law, fairly
construed, actually provides. Judicial independence and judicial restraint thus work together hand-inglove to channel judges’ attention to the factors that are actually relevant to the proper resolution of
cases. Much is at stake if the judiciary becomes too independent or too restrained, namely individual
rights and the proper functioning of the government. Those who criticize courts advocate more restraint
to ensure that judges do not exceed the scope of their powers. But at the same time, it must be
stressed, as Justice Sandra Day O’Connor did in a recent speech, that a court’s ability to be effective
depends “on the notion that we won’t be subject to retaliation for our ju- dicial acts.”6 The upside of
judicial independence, then, is that it insulates judges who faithfully apply the law (albeit in unpopular
ways); the downside is that judicial independence insulates judges who use their lack of accountability
to shape the law in favor of their own preferred policies.
AT: Third Part Doctrine
1NC – No solve
Plan isn’t sufficient to solve their internal link
Ohm 2012 (Paul [Associate Professor, University of Colorado Law School]; The Future of Digital
Evidence Searches and Seizures: THE FOURTH AMENDMENT IN A WORLD WITHOUT PRIVACY; 81 Miss.
L.J. 1309; kdf)
Some critics contend that the third-party rule is a mistake in every context and should be overturned. n81
Others would restrict it to its original contexts--bank records and telephone numbers dialed--but prevent it from spreading to other network
services like electronic mail, cloud computing, and mobile location. n82 What remains consistent throughout this literature is the idea that the
third-party doctrine deserves to be our central focus, that if only we could rein it in, we could right the balance between police power and
privacy. Fixing the third-party doctrine, in short, is both necessary and sufficient to fixing the problem of police surveillance of private behavior.
In a world without privacy, however, getting rid of the third-party doctrine is necessary but not nearly
sufficient to ensure the appropriate protection of the Fourth Amendment. The third-party [*1332] doctrine
and, more broadly, the Fourth Amendment have traditionally evolved to focus attention almost entirely on
the requirement that a search warrant be issued only with probable cause and particularity. In a world
without privacy, probable cause and a warrant by themselves will not do enough to give effect to the full
protection of the amendment. Although judges will be able to squelch fishing expeditions, fishing expeditions will no longer be
necessary. n83 This is the power of a widespread surveillance society. It produces interconnected databases
that track the behavior of millions in excruciating detail, gives companies (and the police agencies they assist)
detailed records of what every one has done, and produces chains of evidence that can connect criminals to crime with no
breaks and no ambiguous midway points. n84 The result is that even if we increase probable cause and warrant requirements, we still will be
subject to far too much arbitrary surveillance. If the police are tracking a person knowing only the time and place of the crime and a general
description of the perpetrator, they will be able to access cell phone location databases or video surveillance log files (with probable cause) to
make the match. If they know that a particular e-mail address was used, then they will be able to search the login databases for the e-mail
provider. Reversing
or narrowing the third-party doctrine will help stem official arbitrariness, but it will not
do enough to reverse the unprecedented increase in police power that the surveillance society has
created. The problem with the surveillance society is not simply how it empowers the bored police officer on a fishing expedition; it is a
broader problem with an increase in the power of the state to watch, listen, and follow every one of us.
Alt causes
Other doctrines undermine the world post-plan
Strandburg ’11 (Katherine, Alfred B. Engelberg Professor of Law at NYU School of Law, J.D., University
of Chicago, with high honors, “HOME, HOME ON THE WEB AND OTHER FOURTH AMENDMENT
IMPLICATIONS OF TECHNOSOCIAL CHANGE”,
http://digitalcommons.law.umaryland.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=3460&context=mlr, 2011)//HW
Determining that a social media site is the technosocial extension of a home or office, and therefore
concluding that the Fourth Amendment would generally require a government agent to obtain a
warrant in order to gain access to the site through the platform providers, is only the very beginning of
the inquiry. Once the overly aggressive interpretation of the third party doctrine is jettisoned, we are
left to confront the same kinds of questions that have occupied courts for years with regard to privacy in
the home or office. There are many such questions: issues of exigency, particularity of warrants and
scope of search, third party consent, the plain view doctrine, and the activities of undercover police or
in-formants. Full treatment of these issues is well beyond the ambitions of this Article, but in this
Section, I will briefly tackle two of them: the plain view doctrine and undercover policing.
Third Party Doctrine in check
There is already transparency within the 3rd party doctrine
Sullum 15 - Sullum won the Keystone Press Award for investigative reporting, and in 1991 he received
First Prize in the Felix Morley Memorial Journalism Competition (Jacob, 5/6/15, "how the 11th circuit's
'wooden application of the third-party doctrine' threatens privacy'' reason.com/blog/2015/05/06/howthe-11th-circuits-wooden-application)
As Scott Shackford noted earlier today, the
U.S. Court of Appeals for the 11th Circuit yesterday overturned a 2014
panel decision requiring a probable-cause warrant to obtain cellphone location records. Last year, in a case
involving an armed robber named Quartavius Davis who was linked to the scenes of various crimes by cellphone data, a three-judge 11th
Circuit panel concluded that people have a reasonable expectation of privacy in such information, which
can reveal where you are throughout the day, every day. The full court disagreed, saying that claim is
foreclosed by the Supreme Court's "third-party doctrine," which holds that "a person has no legitimate
expectation of privacy in information he voluntarily turns over to third parties." The Court also has said "the
Fourth Amendment does not prohibit the obtaining of information revealed to a third party and
conveyed by him to Government authorities, even if the information is revealed on the assumption that
it will be used only for a limited purpose and the confidence placed in the third party will not be
betrayed." Given the sweeping language of those precedents, you can see why the 11th Circuit ruled the way it did,
joining two other circuits (the 5th and 6th) that have reached the same conclusion. The three judges who signed
last year's decision and the two dissenters from yesterday's ruling tried to avoid that result by arguing that cellphone users do not
voluntarily disclose their locations when they make and receive calls and may not even realize their
service providers collect and store that information. Nonsense, says the full court: Cell users know that
they must transmit signals to cell towers within range, that the cell tower functions as the equipment that connects the
calls, that users when making or receiving calls are necessarily conveying or exposing to their service provider their general location within that
cell tower’s range, and that cell phone companies make records of cell-tower usage. Users are
aware that cell phones do not
work when they are outside the range of the provider company's cell tower network. Indeed, the fact
that Davis registered his cell phone under a fictitious alias tends to demonstrate his understanding that
such cell tower location information is collected by MetroPCS and may be used to incriminate him.
AT: Judicial Independence -> Peace
No empirical proof of their internal link
Madden 2012 (Ryan J [political science major at the State University of New York at Binghamton, with
a concentration in international relations and global affairs]; Judicial Independence and Peace Duration:
An Assessment of Political Institutions in the Post-Conflict Environment;
eaglefeather.honors.unt.edu/2012/article/19#conclusion; kdf)
The aim of this paper was to research a previously unexplored area of political institution building in post-conflict societies. The existing
literature on post-conflict environments has suggested that mitigating security dilemmas is at the foundation of ensuring durable peace and
that the presence of political institutions that safeguard against security dilemmas are necessary in guaranteeing this stability. The primary
argument I set forth was that the
presence of an independent judiciary would contribute to longer durations of
peace in the aftermath of civil war. I argued that an independent judiciary was endowed with the security-assuring attributes that
previous literature claimed to be necessary for political institutions to have in order to facilitate peace in post-conflict environments. I argued
that independent
judiciaries could alleviate security dilemmas by ending conditions of dual sovereignty in
the post-conflict environment, increasing public access to political participation, encouraging conditions
conducive to economic growth, and monitoring the fair enactment of settlement agreements. I proposed
that an independent judiciary, serving as a neutral arbiter between warring factions, could function as a dependable political entity in ensuring
the rule of law in the aftermath of conflict and instilling trust in the political system. The
empirical tests conducted in this
paper did not support the theoretical argument I put proposed in terms of the role that independent
judiciaries play in maintaining peace. As noted before, there were possible flaws with my research design and the way some of
the variables were operationalized. It is possible that the coding I used to determine judicial independence was imprudent. For future research
in this field, it will be important to collect survey data on public perceptions of the independence of judicial systems. The mere presence of an
independent judiciary may not be sufficient to ensure durable peace; perhaps there must be public confidence in these institutions as well.
AT Afghanistan – Stable Now – US India RX
US and Indian relations lock in stability
Business Standard 2/19/2015 (US, India discuss stable Afghanistan; www.businessstandard.com/article/news-ians/us-india-discuss-stable-afghanistan-115021900378_1.html; kdf)
India and the US held discussions on regional cooperation in South Asia focusing on a stable and prosperous
Afghanistan, a US embassy statement said here Thursday. The discussions were held during the visit of an inter-agency delegation, led by
US Deputy Special Representative for Afghanistan and Pakistan Laurel Miller, from Feb 16-18. Miller met government officials, civil society, and
political party leaders to continue high-level US-India consultations on Afghanistan, the statement said. "The
consultations helped
advance our shared commitment to regional cooperation on working towards a stable and prosperous
Afghanistan," it said. US President Barack Obama and Prime Minister Narendra Modi in their joint statement during the former's visit to
India had shared the commitment for a secure, stable, and prosperous Afghanistan.
AT Afghanistan – Stable Now – Regional governments/ New Silk Road
Regional initiatives and the new Silk Road guarantee stability
Astana Times 3/11/2015 (Afghanistan Should Not Be Left Alone;
www.astanatimes.com/2015/03/afghanistan-left-alone/; kdf)
Kazakhstan, together with its neighbours and the international community all share a common objective to ensure
that Afghanistan never again becomes a safe haven for international terrorism, nor a threat to regional
stability. This gives us a common purpose: to build the capacity of the Afghan government and the Afghan National Security Forces, and to
give Afghans the opportunities to build a stable and prosperous future. Over a decade on from the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, al
Qaeda in Afghanistan and Pakistan has been significantly weakened, and today’s Afghanistan is unrecognisable from 10 years ago. However the
pull-out of NATO troops means that an enduring international commitment to Afghanistan is required. Unfortunately nearly 4,000 Afghan
civilians died in 2014, making it the deadliest year yet in the conflict. This must act as a wakeup call to the world. If the international community
turns its back on the country and its long-suffering people, there is a real risk that it could descend again into outright chaos and that instability
and violence will spill increasingly over its borders. No nation is immune from this threat. Up to now, extremists have struggled to gain a
foothold in Kazakhstan. Despite a very diverse population, we have built a moderate and tolerant society where all can make a contribution.
The Kazakh government has been closely monitoring the situation regarding religious extremism and drug trafficking out of Afghanistan, two
issues that can hurt our own nation. The
Kazakh government has also been working hard, and rightly so, to counter the
distorted message of the extremists in our society. And it has also stepped up direct economic and
humanitarian aid to Afghanistan. Kazakhstan has allocated $2.38 million for social services projects in Afghanistan, sent more than
$17 million worth of emergency food assistance, and implemented a $50 million project to train Afghan students at Kazakh universities. But
the challenge requires a concerted and coordinated international effort to help re-establish and
reintegrate Afghanistan into the region. It is an effort that Afghanistan’s Central Asian neighbours must help shape and lead.
After all, we in the region have the most to gain from success and the most to lose from failure. Not surprisingly, regional governments are
already discussing how Afghanistan’s efforts can do more together to help rebuild it as well as improve regional security against terrorism and
the drugs trade. The long-term solution must be to accelerate the growth of the entire regional economy to spread employment and prosperity
in Afghanistan and all neighbouring countries. This will deny the extremists the anger and despair required for their divisive message to take
root. Consistent efforts in this area are being taken by organisations such as the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation, which brings together four
Central Asian nations plus Russia and China. Through other
initiatives like the U.S.-proposed ‘New Silk Road’, which
aims to integrate the Central Asian countries of Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, and
Uzbekistan with Afghanistan, India, and Pakistan, there is hope to integrate Afghanistan into the wider
region. The positive impact, of course, of the ‘New Silk Road’ will be felt far beyond Afghanistan or Central Asia. Our region is seriously laying
claim to be the next economic frontier. Rich in energy and natural wealth and strategically positioned between Europe and the fast-growing
economies of the east, improved connections can provide a much-needed boost to global growth. We cannot halt the powerful forces which
are changing our world. But through increased co-operation with our partners, they can be channelled for the benefit of all. Afghanistan’s
people are counting for the world’s powers to stop their disputes, and instead unite to battle a common foe. We have all borne the costs of
decades of conflict in Afghanistan and, if we fail to come together and turn good intentions into positive action, we will see the chaos engulfing
the Middle East repeated in Afghanistan.
AT Afghanistan – Stable Now – Economic Development
Afghani economic development solves
Times of Oman March 4, 2015 (Security, development projects figure in Indo-Afghan talks;
www.timesofoman.com/News/48315/Article-Security-development-projects-figure-in-Indo-Afghantalks; kdf)
Kabul: Foreign Secretary S. Jaishankar on Wednesday held talks
with Afghanistan's top leadership here which mainly focussed
on India's development projects and the security situation in the war-torn country. Wrapping up the first leg of his 'Saarc
Yatra' aimed at firming up India's ties with members of the grouping while reviewing regional and bilateral cooperation, the Foreign Secretary
flew into Kabul from Islamabad and called on Afghan President Ashraf Ghani and CEO Abdullah Abdullah among other leaders. During his
meetings, Afghan
leaders welcomed India being "partner of choice" for Afghanistan and briefed Jaishankar about
their views on India's involvement in furthering the cause of stability and security in the country. According to officials, the main thrust
during the meetings was on India's development projects in Afghanistan, ways to improve connectivity
and the security situation in the war-ravaged country. Afghanistan leaders also welcomed India being a "partner of choice" for the
country during the interactions with Jaishankar, the officials said. The Foreign Secretary also called on Foreign Minister Salahuddin Rabbani
besides former president Hamid Karzai. Jaishankar also met Deputy Foreign Minister Hekmat Khalil Karzai and held extensive talks. The Foreign
Secretary, who arrived here amid light snow, was received by senior Afghan officials and Indian High Commissioner Amar Sinha at the airport.
With Wednesday's trip to Afghanistan, Jaishankar rounded off the first leg of his 'Saarc Yatra' that began on Sunday with Bhutan. He
subsequently visited Bangladesh and Pakistan as part of the yatra. Afghanistan was recently hit by a massive avalanche that claimed nearly 250
lives. Following the tragedy, Prime Minister Narendra Modi had written to Afghan President Ghani to condole the loss of lives and offered help
in rescue and relief efforts. The
South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (Saarc) — an economic and geopolitical
grouping of eight countries located in South Asia — includes Bangladesh, Bhutan, India, the Maldives, Nepal, Pakistan,
Afghanistan and Sri Lanka as its members.
AT: Economy Advantage
No link – Internet not k2 econ
Internet not key to growth
Lowrey 2011 (Annie; Freaks, geeks, and the GDP; Mar 8;
www.slate.com/articles/business/moneybox/2011/03/freaks_geeks_and_gdp.html; kdf)
If you have attended any economists' cocktail parties in the past month or so—lucky you!—then you have probably heard chatter about Tyler Cowen's e-book, The
Great Stagnation. The book seeks to explain why in the United States median wages have grown only slowly since the 1970s and have actually declined in the past
decade. Cowen points to an innovation problem: Through the 1970s, the country had plenty of "low-hanging fruit" to juice GDP growth. In the past 40 years, coming
up with whiz-bang, life-changing innovations—penicillin, free universal kindergarten, toilets, planes, cars—has proved harder, pulling down growth rates across the
industrialized world. But wait! you might say. In the 1970s, American businesses started pumping out amazing, life-changing computing technologies. We got
graphing calculators, data-processing systems, modern finance, GPS, silicon chips, ATMs, cell phones, and a host of other innovations. Has
the Internet, the
nothing for GDP growth? The
answer, economists broadly agree, is: Sorry, but no—at least, not nearly as much as you would expect. A
most revolutionary communications technology advance since Gutenberg rolled out the printing press, done
quarter century ago, with new technologies starting to saturate American homes and businesses, economists looked around and expected to find computer-fueled
growth everywhere. But signs of increased productivity or bolstered growth were few and far between. Sure, computers
and the Web
transformed thousands of businesses and hundreds of industries. But overall, things looked much the
same. The GDP growth rate did not tick up significantly, nor did productivity. As economist Robert Solow put it in 1987:
"You can see the computer age everywhere but in the productivity statistics." An overlapping set of theories emerged to explain the phenomenon, often termed the
"productivity paradox." Perhaps the new technologies advantaged some firms and industries and disadvantaged others, leaving little net gain. Perhaps computer
systems were not yet easy enough to use to reduce the amount of effort workers need to exert to perform a given task. Economists also wondered whether it might
just take some time—perhaps a lot of time—for the gains to show up. In the past, information technologies tended to need to incubate before they produced gains
in economic growth. Consider the case of Gutenberg's printing press. Though the technology radically transformed how people recorded and transmitted news and
information, economists have failed to find evidence it sped up per-capita income or GDP growth in the 15th and 16th centuries. At one point, some economists
thought that an Internet-driven golden age might have finally arrived in the late 1990s. Between 1995 and 1999, productivity growth rates actually exceeded those
during the boom from 1913 to 1972—perhaps meaning the Web and computing had finally brought about a "New Economy." But that high-growth period faded
quickly. And some studies found the gains during those years were not as impressive or widespread as initially thought. Robert Gordon, a professor of economics at
Northwestern, for instance, has found that computers and the Internet mostly helped boost productivity in durable goods manufacturing—that is, the production of
things like computers and semiconductors. "Our central theme is that computers and the Internet do not measure up to the Great Inventions of the late nineteenth
and early twentieth century, and in this do not merit the label of Industrial Revolution," he wrote. Gordon's work leads to another theory, one espoused by Cowen
himself. Perhaps the Internet is just not as revolutionary as we think it is. Sure, people might derive endless pleasure from it—its tendency to improve people's
quality of life is undeniable. And sure, it might have revolutionized how we find, buy, and sell goods and services. But that still does not necessarily mean it is as
transformative of an economy as, say, railroads were. That is in part because
the Internet and computers tend to push costs
toward zero, and have the capacity to reduce the need for labor. You are, of course, currently reading this article for free on a
Web site supported not by subscriptions, but by advertising. You probably read a lot of news articles online, every day, and
you probably pay nothing for them. Because of the decline in subscriptions, increased competition for
advertising dollars, and other Web-driven dynamics, journalism profits and employment have dwindled
in the past decade. (That Cowen writes a freely distributed blog and published his ideas in a $4 e-book rather than a $25 glossy airport hardcover should
not go unnoted here.) Moreover, the Web- and computer-dependent technology sector itself does not employ that many people. And it does not look set to add
workers: The Bureau of Labor Statistics estimates that employment in information technology, for instance, will be lower in 2018 than it was in 1998. That
the
Internet has not produced an economic boom might be hard to believe, Cowen admits. "We have a collective
historical memory that technological progress brings a big and predictable stream of revenue growth
across most of the economy," he writes. "When it comes to the web, those assumptions are turning out to be wrong or misleading. The revenueintensive sectors of our economy have been slowing down and the big technological gains are coming in revenue-deficient sectors." But revenue is not always the
end-all, be-all—even in economics. That brings us to a final explanation: Maybe it is not the growth that is deficient. Maybe it is the yardstick that is deficient. MIT
professor Erik Brynjolfsson * explains the idea using the example of the music industry. " Because
you and I stopped buying CDs, the
music industry has shrunk, according to revenues and GDP. But we're not listening to less music. There's more music consumed than before." The
improved choice and variety and availability of music must be worth something to us—even if it is not easy to put into numbers. "On paper, the way GDP is
calculated, the music industry is disappearing, but in reality it's not disappearing. It is disappearing in revenue. It is not disappearing in terms of what you should
care about, which is music." As more of our lives are lived online, he wonders whether this might become a bigger problem. "If everybody focuses on the part of the
economy that produces dollars, they would be increasingly missing what people actually consume and enjoy. The disconnect becomes bigger and bigger." But
providing an alternative measure of what we produce or consume based on the value people derive from Wikipedia or Pandora proves an extraordinary challenge—
indeed, no economist has ever really done it. Brynjolfsson says it is possible, perhaps, by adding up various "consumer surpluses," measures of how much
consumers would be willing to pay for a given good or service, versus how much they do pay. (You might pony up $10 for a CD, but why would you if it is free?) That
might give a rough sense of the dollar value of what the Internet tends to provide for nothing—and give us an alternative sense of the value of our technologies to
us, if not their ability to produce growth or revenue for us. Of course, if our most radical and life-altering technologies are not improving incomes or productivity or
growth, then we still have problems. Quality-of-life improvements do not put dinner on the table or pay for Social Security benefits. Still, even
Cowen
does not see all doom and gloom ahead, with incomes stagnating endlessly as we do more and more
online and bleed more and more jobs and money. Who knows what awesome technologies might be just around the bend?
No Internal – No US Leadership
No US economic leadership—litany of alt causes
FT 2015 (America's wobbly economic leadership; Apr 23; www.ft.com/cms/s/0/35af0bbe-e8f5-11e487fe-00144feab7de.html#axzz3fVSr9rsv; kdf)
That is why so many
countries have rushed to join the AIIB and why the World Bank and the Asian
Development Bank have welcomed the new arrival. There is more than enough demand to go around. The concern is that the AIIB will
not adhere to best practices. At a time when the US is reluctant to fulfil its obligations to Bretton Woods
institutions, let alone join any new ones, US companies will find it tough to win a slice of the pie in Asia
and elsewhere. Exim’s standards are among the best in the world. It serves as a check on the crony capitalism practised by China and
others. Closing it would sound another US retreat. The concern is that Congress is too polarised to reverse the trend.
Most Republicans disdain global bodies and most Democrats revile trade deals. Congress continues to block the 2010 US-led
reforms of the International Monetary Fund. That is one reason China is setting up its own institutions. There are signs Capitol
Hill may be preparing to pass the fast track negotiating authority the Obama administration needs to wrap up trade deals in the Pacific and the
Atlantic. That would be welcome. But Barack Obama will first need to take on sceptics in his own party. Hillary Clinton, his likely successor, has
questioned the merits of another trade deal. Jeb Bush, her likely opponent, said he would close Exim. There
was a time when US
gridlock imposed a price on others. Now others are imposing a price on the US. The world is no longer waiting on
Washington’s prevarications.
No Internal – US Not Key
The US isn’t key to the global economy
Kenny 2015 (Charles; Why the Developing World Won't Catch the U.S. Economy's Cold; May 4;
www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2015-05-04/why-the-developing-world-won-t-catch-the-u-seconomy-s-cold; kdf)
Last week the U.S. Commerce Department announced that first-quarter
GDP growth for 2015 was an anemic 0.2 percent. This
fears that a U.S. slowdown could lead to a global recession. But the cliché about
America sneezing and the rest of the world catching the cold doesn’t hold like it used to . The U.S. isn’t as
contagious as it was, and developing countries in particular are far more robust to economic shocks. That’s good
news for everyone. It means less volatility in Asia, Africa, and Latin America, which contributes to happier people, greater political
stability, and stronger long-term growth—all of which should help lift the U.S. out of its own doldrums. A team of IMF researchers
has looked at the long-term record of the world’s economies when it comes to growth and recession.
immediately sparked
They measured how long economies expanded without interruption, as well as the depth and length of downturns. Over the past two decades,
low and middle-income economies have spent more time in expansions, while downturns and recoveries have become shallower and shorter.
This suggests countries have become more resilient to shocks. In the 1970s and '80s, the median developing economy took more than 10 years
after a downturn to recover to the GDP per capita it had prior to that slump. By the early 2000s, that recovery time had dropped to two years.
In the 1970s and '80s, countries of the developing world spent more than a third of their time in downturns, but by the 2000s they spent 80
percent of their time in expansions. The first decade of the 21st century was the first time that developing economies saw more expansion and
shorter downturns than did advanced economies: Median growth in the developing world was at its highest since 1950 and volatility at its
lowest. Developing countries still face a larger risk of deeper recession when terms of trade turn against them, capital flows dry up, or advanced
economies enter recessions themselves. But the scale of that risk has diminished. That’s because low and middle-income economies have
introduced policy reforms that increase resilience: flexible exchange rates, inflation targeting, and lower debt. Economies with inflationtargeting regimes see recovery periods less than a third as long as economies without targeting, for example. Larger reserves are associated
with longer expansions. And median reserves in developing countries more than doubled as a percentage of GDP between the 1990s and 2010.
Median external debt has dropped from 60 percent to 35 percent of GDP over that same period. Such policy changes account for two-thirds of
the increased recession-resilience of developing countries since the turn of the century, suggest the IMF researchers—leaving external factors,
such as positive terms of trade, accounting for just one-third. That’s good news for the developing world—not least because volatile growth is
particularly bad for poorer people, who are most at risk of falling into malnutrition or being forced to take children out of school, which has
long-term consequences for future earnings. That might help explain the relationship between growth volatility, slower reductions in poverty,
and rising inequality. Sudden negative income shocks can also be a factor in sparking violence: When rains fail, the risk of civil war in Africa
spikes, and when coffee prices in Colombia fall, municipalities cultivating more coffee see increased drug-related conflict. The African analysis
suggests that a five percentage-point drop in income growth is associated with a 10 percent increase in the risk of civil conflict in the following
year. Finally,
because volatility increases the uncertainty attached to investments, it can also be a drag on
overall long-term economic performance. Viktoria Hnatkovska and Norman Loayza of the World Bank estimated that moving
from a comparatively stable to a relatively volatile growth trajectory is associated with a drop in average annual growth of as much as 2 percent
of GDP. Lower volatility
in the developing world and its associated long-term growth performance is also
good news for the U.S. A strong global economy is still a positive force for growth in every country, including developed nations. And
with the developing world accounting for about one-third of trade and GDP at market rates, as well as three-fifths of U.S. exports, its role in
supporting American economic performance has never been greater. Those
hoping for a recovery in U.S. output should be
grateful for stronger economic immune systems in the rest of the world.
—xt no Internal
The global economy determines the US economy, not vice versa
Rasmus 2015 (Jack; US Economy Collapses Again; May 14; www.counterpunch.org/2015/05/14/useconomy-collapses-again/; kdf)
The problem of weak, stop-go, recovery in the U.S. today is further exacerbated by a global economy that
continues to slow even more rapidly and, in case after case, slip increasingly into recessions or stagnate at best.
Signs of weakness and stress in the global economy are everywhere and growing. Despite massive money injections by its central bank in 2013,
and again in 2014, Japan’s economy has fallen in 2015, a fourth time, into recession. After having experienced two recessions since 2009,
Europe’s economy is also trending toward stagnation once more after it too, like Japan, just introduced a
US$60 billion a month central bank money injection this past winter. Despite daily hype in the business press, unemployment in the
Eurozone is still officially at 11.4 percent, and in countries like Spain and Greece, still at 24 percent. Yet we hear Spain is now the
‘poster-boy’ of the Eurozone, having returned to robust growth. Growth for whom? Certainly not the 24 percent still jobless, a rate that hasn’t
changed in years. Euro businesses in Spain are doing better, having imposed severe ‘labor market reforms’ on workers there, in order to drive
down wages to help reduce costs and boost Spanish exports. Meanwhile, Italy
remains the economic black sheep of the
Eurozone, still in recession for years now, while France officially records no growth, but is likely in recession as
well. Elites in both Italy and France hope to copy Spain’s ‘labor market reforms’ (read: cut wages, pensions, and
make it easier to layoff full time workers). In order to boost its growth, Italy is considering, or may have already decided, to redefine its way to
growth by including the services of prostitutes and drug dealers as part of its GDP. Were the USA to do the same redefinition, it would no doubt
mean a record boost to GDP. Across
the Eurozone, the greater economy of its 18 countries still hasn’t reached
levels it had in 2007, before the onset of the last recession. Unlike the U.S.’s ‘stop-go’, Europe has been ‘stop-gostop’.
Impact inevitable -- Tech Bubble
Tech bubble collapse is inevitable, letting it happen now ensures a soft-landing
Mahmood 2015 (Tallot; The Tech Industry Is In Denial, But The Bubble Is About To Burst; Jun 26;
techcrunch.com/2015/06/26/the-tech-industry-is-in-denial-but-the-bubble-is-about-to-burst/; kdf)
In the face of these trends, a small group
of well-respected and influential individuals are voicing their concern.
They are reflecting on what happened in the last dot-com bust and identifying fallacies in the current unsustainable
modus operandi. These relatively lonely voices are difficult to ignore. They include established successful entrepreneurs, respected VC and
hedge fund investors, economists and CEOs who are riding their very own unicorns. Mark Cuban is scathing in his personal blog, arguing that
this tech bubble is worse than that of 2000, because, he states, that unlike in 2000, this time the
“bubble comes from private
investors,” including angel investors and crowd funders. The problem for these investors is there is no liquidity in their
investments, and we’re currently in a market with “no valuations and no liquidity.” He was one of the fortunate ones who exited his company,
Broadcast.com, just before the 2000 boom, netting $5 billion. But he saw others around him not so lucky then, and fears the same this time
around. A number of high-profile investors have come out and said what their peers all secretly must know. Responding to concerns raised by
Bill Gurley (Benchmark) and Fred Wilson (Union Square Ventures), Marc Andreessen of Andreessen Horowitz expressed his thoughts in an 18tweet tirade. Andreessen agrees with Gurley and Wilson in that high cash burn in startups is the cause of spiralling valuations and
underperformance; the availability of capital is hampering common sense. The
tech startup space at the moment resembles
the story of the emperor with no clothes. As Wilson emphasizes, “At some point you have to build a real business, generate real
profits, sustain the company without the largess of investor’s capital, and start producing value the old fashioned way.” Gurley, a stalwart
investor, puts the discussion into context by saying “We’re in a risk bubble … we’re taking on … a level of risk that we’ve never taken on before
in the history of Silicon Valley startups.” The
tech bubble has resulted in unconventional investors, such as hedge funds,
in privately owned startups. David Einhorn of Greenlight Capital Inc. stated that although he is bullish on the tech sector, he
believes he has identified a number of momentum technology stocks that have reached prices beyond
any normal sense of valuation, and that they have shorted many of them in what they call the “bubble
basket.” Meanwhile, Noble Prize-winning economist Robert Shiller, who previously warned about both the dot-com and
housing bubbles, suspects the recent equity valuation increases are more because of fear than exuberance. Shiller believes that
“compared with history, US stocks are overvalued.” He says, “one way to assess this is by looking at the CAPE (cyclically
adjusted P/E) ratio … defined as the real stock price (using the S&P Composite Stock Price Index deflated by CPI) divided by the ten-year
average of real earnings per share.” Shiller says this has been a “good predictor of subsequent stock market returns, especially over the long
run. The CAPE ratio has recently been around 27, which is quite high by US historical standards. The only other times it is has been that high or
higher were in 1929, 2000, and 2007 — all moments before market crashes.” Perhaps the most surprising contributor to the debate on a
looming tech bubble is Evan Spiegel, CEO of Snapchat. Founded in 2011, Spiegel’s company is a certified “unicorn,” with a valuation in excess of
$15 billion. Spiegel
believes that years of near-zero interest rates have created an asset bubble that has led
people to make “riskier investments” than they otherwise would. He added that a correction was inevitable.
--xt Bubble will collapse
Bubble will collapse
Mahmood 2015 (Tallot; The Tech Industry Is In Denial, But The Bubble Is About To Burst; Jun 26;
techcrunch.com/2015/06/26/the-tech-industry-is-in-denial-but-the-bubble-is-about-to-burst/; kdf)
The fact that we are in a tech bubble is in no doubt. The fact that the bubble is about to burst, however,
is not something the sector wants to wake up to. The good times the sector is enjoying are becoming
increasingly artificial. The tech startup space at the moment resembles the story of the emperor with no
clothes. It remains for a few established, reasoned voices to persist with their concerns so the majority
will finally listen.
AT: E-commerce k2 economy
a) Ecommerce through the roof - Facebook
Adler 1/13/15 (Tim; Ecommerce sales through social media triple in 2013 for biggest US retailers;
business-reporter.co.uk/2015/01/13/e-commerce-sales-through-social-media-triple-in-2013-for-biggestus-retailers/; kdf)
The top 500 retailers in the United States earned $2.69 billion from social shopping in 2013, according to
the Internet Retailer’s Social Media 500 – up more than 60 per cent over 2012 – while the e-commerce
market as a whole grew only by 17 per cent. Growth is sure to accelerate and conversion rates should
improve as Twitter and Facebook roll out “Buy” buttons, predicts BI Intelligence. Buy buttons enable
social media users to buy by clicking on a retailer’s post or tweet. Facebook began testing buy buttons in
July, Twitter in September. Facebook is the clear leader for social-commerce referrals and sales. This is
partly because of the sheer size of its audience – 71 per cent of US adult internet users are on Facebook.
A Facebook share of an e-commerce post translates to an average $3.58 in revenue from sales
compared to just 85 cents on Twitter. But other social media sites are gaining on Facebook and Twitter.
Customers buying through fashion and style platform Polyvore spend on average $66.75 per order,
according to Shopify. Pinterest sees $65. Facebook by comparison trails at $55 per average order value
(AOV).
b) Ebay deal
Seetharaman 1/21/15 (Deepa; EBay's breakup plans may open door for e-commerce M&A;
www.reuters.com/article/2015/01/22/us-ebay-sale-idUSKBN0KV06Z20150122; kdf)
EBay Inc's plans to break up into three different companies could accommodate would-be suitors, signaling a potential
merger fight after the breakup. The company plans to spin off its payments division, PayPal, from its core marketplace division in
the second half of the year, making two standalone publicly traded companies that some analysts say could be worth more than the combined
entity. On Wednesday, eBay added that it will sell or prepare a public offering of its eBay Enterprise unit, which the company bought for $2.4
billion roughly four years ago. The announced moves are intended to give each business the ability to consider all their alternatives, including a
sale, eBay Chief Executive Officer John Donahoe said. "No one knows what's going happen down the road," Donahoe said in an interview on
Wednesday, after eBay reported fourth-quarter earnings. "But each business will have the flexibility they need to do what they need to do to
win." The moves come as Wall Street analysts question how long eBay
and PayPal can withstand growing competition
from online rivals such as Amazon.com Inc, Google Inc and Alibaba Group Holding Ltd, as well as retailers such as Wal-Mart
Stores Inc which are investing in their own e-commerce and payments platforms. As part of the moves announced on Wednesday, eBay agreed
to adopt a number of corporate governance changes championed by activist investor Carl Icahn that would limit PayPal board's ability to
prevent a takeover once it splits from eBay. Any investor who owns 20 percent of PayPal will be able to call special meetings of shareholders,
Icahn said in a separate statement that coincided with eBay's release. EBay also outlined plans to cut 7 percent of its workforce, or 2,400
positions, in the current quarter. "I
don't think that is the primary goal, but in general these moves could make for
a cleaner, or more attractive, merger or acquisition," said Baird analyst Colin Sebastian, who has previously said Google
could be a suitor for eBay. The eBay Marketplaces unit is now going after so-called "avid" shoppers hungry for a
bargain. Its enterprise division, which advises companies on how to grow online, will strengthen its relationships with top retailers and
brands. Potential buyers of eBay Enterprise include companies focused on building ties with other businesses, such as Salesforce.com Inc, IBM
Corp, Demandware Inc, Adobe Systems Inc or startup Bigcommerce, some experts said. Salesforce declined to comment, while the other
companies were not immediately available for comment.
Cloud Computing
Turn: Warming
The cloud uniquely makes warming worse
Matthews 2013 (Richard; How environmentally sustainable is cloud computing and storage?; Sep 12;
globalwarmingisreal.com/2013/09/12/sustainable-cloud-computing/; kdf)
Critique The cloud industry has also been called secretive, slow to change its practices, and overly
optimistic in its environmental assessments. The massive energy requirement of cloud computing can
create environmental problems. According to a 2012 report in the New York Times, data centers use 30
billion watts of electricity per year globally and the U.S. is responsible for one-third of that amount (10
billion watts). A Gartner report indicated that the IT industry is responsible for as much greenhouse gas
generation as the aviation industry (2 percent of the world’s carbon emissions). Just one of these
massive server farms can consume the energy equivalent of 180 000 homes. According to a McKinsey &
Company report commissioned by the Times, between 6 and 12 percent of that energy powers actual
computations; the rest keeps servers running in case of a surge or crash. “This is an industry dirty
secret,” an anonymous executive told the Times. However, cloud supporters counter that this may be
better understood as a necessary evil if data companies are to ensure that they are able to provide
reliable service at all times. Greenpeace has published a report, “A Clean Energy Road Map for Apple,”
that follows up on the organization’s April “How Clean is Your Cloud?” report. These studies indicate
that many cloud providers use energy sources that are neither clean nor sustainable. The Greenpeace
analysis showed that tech companies like Akamai and Yahoo! are the most environment-friendly while
companies like Amazon, Apple and Microsoft each rely heavily on power from fossil fuels. Cloud
computing is almost directly responsible for the carbon intensity increase at Apple, which gets 60
percent of its power from coal. Although Apple is increasing the amount of renewable energy used to
power its cloud computing, the company has been criticized by Greenpeace for moving slowly. In May
2013, Apple said that its North Carolina data center will be exclusively reliant on renewable power by
year’s end, and that all three of its major data centers will be coal-free by the end of this year. Solutions
Despite all of this convincing data, it is important to understand that saving energy does not always
mean that you are reducing your GHG emissions. To be environmentally sustainable these centers
must draw their power from renewable sources of energy. The location of cloud servers is the key issue
that determines whether this is a truly sustainable option. Ideally, cloud computing centers should be
located in places where the grid portfolio is clean. (It would be even better if these data centers
generated power themselves from renewable sources.)
Climate Change is a threat magnifier—policy making must focus on finding the best
avenue to avert disaster
Pascual and Elkind 2010 (Carlos [US Ambassador to Mexico, Served as VP of foreign policy @
Brookings]; Jonathan [principal dep ass sec for policy and int energy @ DOE]; Energy Security; p 5; kdf)
Climate change is arguably the greatest challenge facing the human race. ¶ It poses profound risks to the
natural systems that sustain life on Earth and¶ consequently creates great challenges for human lives, national economies,¶ nations' security,
and international governance. New scientific reports¶ emerging from one year to the next detail ever more alarming
potential¶ impacts and risks.¶ It is increasingly common for analysts and policymakers to refer to ¶ climate change as a threat multiplier, a
destructive force that will exacerbate¶ existing social, environmental, economic, and humanitarian
stresses .¶ The warming climate is predicted to bring about prolonged droughts¶ in already dry regions, flooding along coasts and even inland rivers, an¶ overall increase in severe weather events, rising seas, and the
Such impacts may spark conflict in¶ weak states, lead to the displacement of
millions of people, create environmental¶ refugees, and intensify competition over increasingly scarce¶
resources.¶ One of the great challenges of climate change is, indeed, the scope of¶ the phenomenon. The ongoing warming of the globe results chiefly from¶ one of the most ubiquitous of human practices, the conversion
of fossil fuels¶ into energy through simple combustion. Halting and reversing climate¶ change, however, will require both unproven-perhaps even unimaginedtechnology¶ and sustained political commitment. We must
change living¶ habits in all corners of the globe over the course of the next several decades.¶ We must
resist the impulse to leave the problem for those who follow us¶ or to relax our efforts if we achieve a few years of promising progress. The¶
profound challenge will lie in the need for successive rounds of sustained¶ policymaking, successive
waves of technological innovation, and ongoing¶ evolution of the ways in which we live our lives.
spread of¶ disease, to cite just a few examples.
Cloud Computing – Bad
Cloud computing capabilities are all hype
Marks 13 - Publisher of six best-selling books on small business management (Gene, 10/21/13, "The
Embarrassing Truth about the hybrid cloud" www.forbes.com/sites/quickerbettertech/2013/10/21/theembarrassing-truth-about-the-hybrid-cloud/)
Why the growth in hybrid cloud technology? Well, that’s the embarrassing secret no one wants to admit.
Some may say it’s validation of the cloud’s role in a company’s infrastructure. I’m not so sure. In my opinion, it actually represents the
limitations of the cloud. The
cloud has received a lot of hype over the past few years. But now smarter people
are starting to better understand its reality. “IT departments are starting to rationalize the cloud as just
part of an infrastructure,” says Mike Maples, managing partner at Palo Alto-based FLOODGATE Fund. “You can’t just let all
the bits of your enterprise go to the cloud. It’s not all or nothing. The world is becoming a more hybrid
enterprise.” Cloud based applications have exploded over the past few years. Collaboration services, mobile apps,
customer relationship management systems and document storage offerings have literally changed the
lives of consumers and employees at companies, big and small. I am accessing my customers’ data from a smartphone on a
plane at 30,000 feet. A roofer is creating a work-order for a new job while holding onto a chimney and entering the data into his tablet. A
college kid sits on a train from New York to Boston and catches up on the latest episodes of Walking Dead on her iPad. It’s glorious. It’s mindblogging. And it’s maddening too. Because with
all the hype, with all the excitement, with all the money thrown at
it, the cloud has been disappointingly and embarrassingly imperfect. Yes, I am accessing my customers’
data from 30,000 feet but the connection is so slow and drops so many times that it takes me ten times
as long to retrieve the information I’m looking for. The customer’s credit card information that the roofer is entering into his
tablet is being snagged by the guy three streets over who has hacked into his connection. That college kid audibly groans as the episode freezes
and her screen goes black, time and time again, eventually pulling out a book. The
cloud will be wondrous and fast and secure
and reliable…one day. Today, it is not. And until that day comes we have the hybrid cloud. Why else
would Carbonite, whose model has been built around delivering a cloud based backup service, release
an on-premise storage device to complement their online service? Why would VMWare and Microsoft
MSFT -0.2% duplicate data delivery to multiple servers? Why would venture capital firms plough millions into a software
base service like Egnyte so that users can get the same data that is stored in different locations? It’s because the cloud is useless unless we can
get to our data fast. The
cloud is useless if it’s not making us more productive and enabling us to do things
quicker than before. It’s useless if our data is less secure than when it was stored on our own servers.
And without hybrid cloud technologies, many companies are learning that this is very much the case. So
over the course of technology history our data has travelled from server to desktop to cloud and now back to the server again. It’s not a 360
degree turnaround. It’s a partial turnaround. A hybrid solution to make up for the cloud’s defects. The
cloud is great. But the
enormous growth of hybrid cloud technologies only proves that it still has a long way to go before it’s
fast and secure. “In the end, customers and users don’t even care about the cloud,” says Maples. “They
just have a job to do. It’s performance and convenience that an all-or-nothing cloud approach can’t
deliver.” Can’t we all admit that embarrassing truth?
Cloud computing bad – no one uses
Cloud computing is unreliable
CCA ’15 (Cloud Computing Advices, Cloud Computing advices is the one of the best leading cloud
computing blogs, where you can access the tutorials on cloud computing, breaking news, security issues,
top cloud computing providers, certifications, training programs and jobs opportunities for freshers and
experienced IT Professionals, “Cloud Computing Disadvantages”,
http://cloudcomputingadvices.com/disadvantages-cloud-computing/, 2/20/2015)//HW
Negative effects and Disadvantages of cloud computing:¶ The Greenpeace NGO announces, in its 2010
report on the ecological impact of the IT industry, the negative impacts of cloud computing.In the below
list you can see the 5 disadvantages of cloud computing as per the report.¶ 1.The main drawback is the
security issues related to storing of confidential information in the cloud. As all information is available
via internet if taken to the cloud, there may be concerns with breach of confidential information.¶
2.There is a tendency for some firms to lose their control over the piled up information in the cloud.¶
3.The legal issues including ownership of abstraction on the location data of cloud computing.¶ 4.Cloud
computing also poses problems in terms of insurance, especially when a company submits an operating
loss due to failure of the supplier. Where one company covering a risk, the insurance company offering
the cloud architecture takes more, slowing sharply compensation.¶ 5.The customer service of cloud
computing becomes dependent on the quality of the network to access this service. No cloud service
provider can guarantee 100% availability.
--xt: People don’t use the cloud
Lots of drawbacks to cloud computing – people won’t switch over
Ward ’11 (Susan, business writer and experienced business person; she and her partner run Cypress
Technologies, an IT consulting business, providing services such as software and database development,
“5 Disadvantages of Cloud Computing”, About Money,
http://sbinfocanada.about.com/od/itmanagement/a/Cloud-Computing-Disadvantages.htm,
11/8/2011)//HW
5 Disadvantages of Cloud Computing¶ 1) Possible downtime. Cloud computing makes your small
business dependent on the reliability of your Internet connection. When it's offline, you're offline. If
your internet service suffers from frequent outages or slow speeds cloud computing may not be suitable
for your business. And even the most reliable cloud computing service providers suffer server outages
now and again. (See The 10 Biggest Cloud Outages of 2013.)¶ 2) Security issues. How safe is your data?
Cloud computing means Internet computing. So you should not be using cloud computing applications
that involve using or storing data that you are not comfortable having on the Internet. Established cloud
computing vendors have gone to great lengths to promote the idea that they have the latest, most
sophisticated data security systems possible as they want your business and realize that data security is
a big concern; however, their credibility in this regard has suffered greatly in the wake of the recent NSA
snooping scandals.¶ Keep in mind also that your cloud data is accessible from anywhere on the internet,
meaning that if a data breach occurs via hacking, a disgruntled employee, or careless
username/password security, your business data can be compromised.¶ Leaving aside revelations about
the NSA, switching to the cloud can actually improve security for a small business, says Michael Redding,
managing director of Accenture Technology Labs. "Because large cloud computing companies have more
resources, he says, they are often able to offer levels of security an average small business may not be
able to afford implementing on its own servers" (Outsource IT Headaches to the Cloud (The Globe and
Mail).¶ 3) Cost. At first glance, a cloud computing application may appear to be a lot cheaper than a
particular software solution installed and run in-house, but you need to be sure you're comparing apples
and apples. Does the cloud application have all the features that the software does and if not, are the
missing features important to you?¶ You also need to be sure you are doing a total cost comparison.
While many cloud computer vendors present themselves as utility-based providers, claiming that you're
only charged for what you use, Gartner says that this isn't true; in most cases, a company must commit
to a predetermined contract independent of actual use. To be sure you're saving money, you have to
look closely at the pricing plans and details for each application.¶ In the same article, Gartner also points
out that the cost savings of cloud computing primarily occur when a business first starts using it. SaaS
(Software as a Service) applications, Gartner says, will have lower total cost of ownership for the first
two years because SaaS applications do not require large capital investment for licenses or support
infrastructure. After that, the on-premises option can become the cost-savings winner from an
accounting perspective as the capital assets involved depreciate.¶ Cloud computing costs are constantly
changing, so check current pricing.¶ 4) Inflexibility. Be careful when you're choosing a cloud computing
vendor that you're not locking your business into using their proprietary applications or formats. You
can't insert a document created in another application into a Google Docs spreadsheet, for instance.
Also make sure that you can add and subtract cloud computing users as necessary as your business
grows or contracts.¶ 5) Lack of support. In These Issues Need to be Resolved Before Cloud Computing
Becomes Ubiquitous, (OPEN Forum) Anita Campbell writes, "Customer service for Web apps leaves a lot
to be desired -- All too many cloud-based apps make it difficult to get customer service promptly – or at
all. Sending an email and hoping for a response within 48 hours is not an acceptable way for most of us
to run a business".
Disads
Court Clog DA
Brought to you by:
Alex Schein, check out his mixtape -- http://bit.ly/IqT6zt
The aff causes a court-clog
Cover 2015 (Avidan Y [Assistant Professor of Law, Case Western Reserve University School of Law;
Director, Institute for Global Security Law and Policy]; Corporate Avatars and the Erosion of the Populist
Fourth Amendment; 100 Iowa L. Rev. 1441; kdf)
These sorts of "machine-to-machine" communication of individual preferences would permit the government to decide whether it would fight for the acquisition of
that specific individual's data or whether the lack of the information would not impair its investigation. If
the government believes the data
are necessary, it would have two options: (1) provide notice to the user and, in the event of the user's
opposition (or the company's), litigate the data acquisition in court; or (2) seek a warrant from the court
authorizing the surveillance without notice. Courts may be burdened by more litigation brought by
individual users over government requests for their data. But statutory clarity through legislation such as
the Driver Privacy Act should guide the Executive and Judicial branches in determining what level of
protection particular kinds of data require. Increased litigation is, however, the necessary cost of reinserting
the individual in the conversation and negotiation with the government over her data. The Fourth Amendment
must be first and foremost the people's right against unreasonable searches and seizures, not the right of the corporation.
And Lawsuits clog US courts, turns the aff and stalls economy
Post 11(Ashely; InsideCounsel as managing editor ,"Frivolous lawsuits clogging U.S. courts, stalling economic
growth", www.insidecounsel.com/2011/07/22/frivolous-lawsuits-clogging-us-courts-stalling-eco?page=1-5, July
22, 2011)//ADS
Americans’ litigiousness and thirst for massive damages has been a boon to the legal profession. But some
researchers and litigation experts warn that the abundance of lawsuits—many of them frivolous—
flooding U.S. courts is severely weakening the economy. According to consulting firm Towers Watson,
the direct cost of the U.S. tort system in 2009 was approximately $250 billion, which was roughly 2
percent of the gross domestic product. The amount is double the estimated tort expenses in other
countries, including the U.K. and Japan. In May, the House Judiciary Committee held a hearing that
explored excessive litigation’s effect on the United States’ global competitiveness. During his
testimony, Skadden Partner John Beisner explained that plaintiffs counsel engage in five types of
litigation abuse that ultimately undermine economic growth: improperly recruiting plaintiffs, importing
foreign claims, filing suits that piggyback off government investigations and actions, pursuing aggregate
litigation and seeking third-party litigation financing. “America’s litigious nature has caused serious
damage to our country’s productivity and innovation. … The root cause is that we have created
incentives to sue—and to invest in litigation—instead of establishing disincentives for invoking judicial
process unless absolutely necessary. Other countries discourage litigation; we nuture it,” Beisner said at
the hearing. Many litigation experts resoundingly agree with Beisner’s stance on the necessity of tort
reform to ameliorate the country’s economy. “The entrepreneurial system that we’ve developed for
litigation in this country has always been an impetus to bringing cases that are close to the line or even
over the line,” says Dechert Partner Sean Wajert. “When you have that kind of encouragement, you
have a slippery slope, which sometimes people will slide down and get into questionable and even
abusive and frivolous claims along the way.” The result is clogged courts and corporate funds that
finance defense costs instead of economic investment. Small businesses and startups with less than
$20 million in revenue suffer the most because they pay a higher percentage of their revenues toward
tort costs than larger companies do, and therefore they become less able to invest in research and
development, create new jobs, and give raises and benefits to employees. One proposed solution to
frivolous litigation is the Lawsuit Abuse Reduction Act (LARA), introduced in March in the House as H.R.
966 and Senate as S. 533 by House Judiciary Committee Chairman Lamar Smith, R-Tex., and Senate
Judiciary Committee Ranking Member Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, respectively. The bill would revise and
strengthen portions of Rule 11 of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure, which provides for sanctions
against parties that file unwarranted or harassing claims. Proponents say LARA would increase plaintiffs’
accountability for meritless lawsuits and deter future frivolous claims. However, the bill faces some
opposition and obstacles to becoming law. In 1993, lawmakers made three major changes to Rule 11 in
an attempt to reduce the number of motions for sanctions and more quickly conclude federal cases. But
critics say the revisions significantly weakened Rule 11 and enabled litigation abuse. LARA essentially
would undo the 1993 revisions, which are still in effect today. First, Rule 11 allows judges to use their
discretion in imposing sanctions for meritless suits rather than making such sanctions mandatory. Many
critics disagree with this optional penalty. “If the case doesn’t meet certain standards and shouldn’t
have been filed in the first place, then there ought to be consequences,” Beisner says. Second, Rule 11
grants plaintiffs a 21-day “safe harbor” period to withdraw a claim without incurring any penalties when
defendants notify them that they’ll be seeking a motion for sanctions. Supreme Court Justice Antonin
Scalia said the change would allow parties to file “thoughtless, reckless, and harassing pleadings, secure
in the knowledge that they have nothing to lose: If objection is raised, they can retreat without penalty.”
“The problem [with the safe harbor] is that it just allows certain plaintiffs attorneys to go on a ‘fishing
expedition’ and dare you to file a motion for sanctions,” Wajert says. Finally, because the rule is
supposed to act as a deterrent for meritless claims, the court collects sanctions as monetary penalties
instead of directing the money to defendants as compensation. Without reimbursement for court costs
and legal fees, pursuing sanctions is often too costly for small businesses. “The defendant has to spend
time and money to hire a lawyer to research and draft the motion for sanctions and present it to the
other side, so there is a cost involved even if the plaintiffs end up withdrawing the action,” Wajert says.
To boost liability for parties that file questionable suits, LARA would make sanctions mandatory for any
claims that judges recognize as frivolous. LARA also would eliminate the 21-day safe harbor and award
some of the sanction money to defendants. Critics have four main arguments against LARA. Some
members of the law community say LARA doesn’t provide broad enough reform because it doesn’t
emphasize lawyers’ prelitigation duties. “We might want to look at more accountability for failing to
perform due diligence before a lawsuit is filed and for continuing to prosecute a lawsuit after learning
the claims that are being asserted are invalid,” Beisner says. Other LARA challengers claim the bill takes
tort reform too far and “swats a fly with a hammer,” Wajert says. He notes that some opponents argue
there’s not enough empirical evidence to suggest that litigation abuse is a serious problem; however,
because frivolous suits often are quickly settled so as to avoid litigation expenses, it is difficult to collect
meaningful statistics. “The same applies to the safe harbor,” Wajert notes. “If something is withdrawn
and it never gets to the judge’s attention, and therefore never gets into a published opinion, how are we
supposed to collect data on that?” Critics also worry that LARA will lead to satellite litigation—or small
trials within big trials—challenging sanctions issued by the courts. LARA supporters say that although
there will likely be some additional litigation when the Act first becomes effective, suits will slow up
once courts clarify how they are interpreting LARA. A final contention against LARA is that it will deter
valid lawsuits. But the Act’s proponents say litigants shouldn’t be afraid that judges will liberally issue
sanctions. “The Act isn’t going to change the definition of a frivolous claim,” Wajert explains. “Judges are
going to be careful to make sure that when they find frivolous, it really is frivolous. It’s unlikely that
LARA will impact those that are arguing for a good-faith extension, modification or reversal of existing
law.” Victor Schwartz, a partner at Shook, Hardy & Bacon who testified at a congressional hearing about
LARA in March, agrees. “LARA is not cutting off peoples’ rights to sue if they have a legitimate claim,” he
says. Schwartz says LARA stands a good chance of becoming law if it gets adequate support from
Congress and the president. A key factor in LARA’s advance is democratic support, which could be
difficult because trial lawyers, who don’t support the bill, are some of the top funders of the Democratic
Party. Additionally, the Senate has a democratic majority. Schwartz estimates that LARA would need the
support of at least seven Democratic senators to pass. Even if the bill were to reach the president’s desk,
Schwartz says it probably wouldn’t pass speedily. Another fairly recent tort reform bill, the Class Action
Fairness Act of 2005, took about eight years to become law, and Schwartz says that he has personally
only been involved in four bills over 25 years that were signed by the president. Nonetheless, Schwartz
and other LARA supporters remain optimistic that LARA will succeed. “In the [Jan. 25] State of the Union
address, the president said he agreed with the Republicans about [the need to reduce costs associated
with] frivolous claims. He never endorsed LARA, but he did mention it in what was a very limited menu
of topics. It would be unlikely that he would veto the bill,” Schwartz says.
That causes World War 3
James 2014 - Professor of history at Princeton University’s Woodrow Wilson School who specializes in
European economic history (Harold, “Debate: Is 2014, like 1914, a prelude to world war?” 7/3,
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/globe-debate/read-and-vote-is-2014-like-1914-a-prelude-to-worldwar/article19325504/)
Some of the dynamics of the pre-1914 financial world are now re-emerging. Then an economically
declining power, Britain, wanted to use finance as a weapon against its larger and faster growing competitors,
Germany and the United States. Now America is in turn obsessed by being overtaken by China – according to some calculations, set to become
the world’s largest economy in 2014. In the aftermath of the 2008 financial crisis,
financial institutions appear both as
dangerous weapons of mass destruction, but also as potential instruments for the application of national power. In managing
the 2008 crisis, the dependence of foreign banks on U.S. dollar funding constituted a major weakness, and required the provision of large swap
lines by the Federal Reserve. The United States provided that support to some countries, but not others, on the basis of an explicitly political
logic, as Eswar Prasad demonstrates in his new book on the “Dollar Trap.” Geo-politics is intruding into banking practice elsewhere. Before the
Ukraine crisis, Russian banks were trying to acquire assets in Central and Eastern Europe. European and U.S. banks are playing a much reduced
role in Asian trade finance. Chinese banks are being pushed to expand their role in global commerce. After the financial crisis, China started to
build up the renminbi as a major international currency. Russia and China have just proposed to create a new credit rating agency to avoid what
they regard as the political bias of the existing (American-based) agencies. The next stage in this logic is to think about how financial power can
be directed to national advantage in the case of a diplomatic tussle. Sanctions are a routine (and not terribly successful) part of the pressure
applied to rogue states such as Iran and North Korea. But financial pressure can be much more powerfully applied to countries that are deeply
embedded in the world economy. The test is in the Western imposition of sanctions after the Russian annexation of Crimea. President Vladimir
Putin’s calculation in response is that the European Union and the United States cannot possibly be serious about the financial war. It would
turn into a boomerang: Russia would be less affected than the more developed and complex financial markets of Europe and America. The
threat of systemic disruption generates a new sort of uncertainty, one that mirrors the decisive feature
of the crisis of the summer of 1914. At that time, no one could really know whether clashes would escalate
or not. That feature contrasts remarkably with almost the entirety of the Cold War, especially since the 1960s, when the strategic doctrine of
Mutually Assured Destruction left no doubt that any superpower conflict would inevitably escalate. The
idea of network disruption
relies on the ability to achieve advantage by surprise, and to win at no or low cost. But it is inevitably a gamble,
and raises prospect that others might, but also might not be able to, mount the same sort of operation.
Just as in 1914, there is an enhanced temptation to roll the dice, even though the game may be fatal.
Court Clog D-Rule
It’s a D Rule
New York Times 1860(American daily newspaper, founded and continuously published in New York
City since September 18, 1851,"Our Supreme Court Clogged",
www.nytimes.com/1860/06/16/news/our-supreme-court-clogged.html, June 16, 1860)//ADS
Some years ago the Supreme Court of this District of the State adopted a rule requiring all contested
motions to be put upon a calendar to be called a "Motion Calendar," and heard at Chambers. The reason
given by the Judges for this was, that it would enable the modest lawyers to get their motions heard as
soon as the more bold and less sensitive upon the practice of etiquette; but it did not seem to work, and
was soon abandoned -- the formula of the thing took up too much time. The great increase of Chambers
business of this Court induced the Judges at the commencement of last month to restore the "Motion
Calendar." This second attempt, after the experience of the four weeks of May and two days in June has
proved very disastrous. The most important of its evil effects is found under the proceedings to
foreclose mortgages. It is well known that much, doubt exists as to the power of the Superior or
Common Pleas Courts to grant actions in foreclosure, it having been held that County Courts do not
possess this power -- hence most of these proceedings are brought in the Supreme Court. The
mortgagor, not feeling exactly disposed to pay up the interest on his bond, or even the principal,
when it becomes due, has no trouble in being accommodated, so long as the "motion calendar" exists.
When the complaint to foreclose is served upon him all he has to do is to retain a lawyer to interpose
a simple demurrer, in two lines, "that the complaint does not set forth facts sufficient to constitute a
cause of action," and then the attorney for the plaintiff has to move to strike it out as frivolous; this
motion takes its place at the foot of the "motion calendar," with at least six hundred motions before
it; -- and as the Court frequently exhausted two days during the last month in hearing a single motion,
the time for reaching a motion may hereafter be safely set down at three months. But the delay does
not stop here; when the motion is finally reached, argued, and the motion to strike out the demurrer
granted, the next proceeding of the defendant is a motion far leave to answer, accompanied by a stay of
proceedings on the part of the plaintiff; this goes upon the calendar, and judging from the rapid increase
of the calendar, full one thousand motions will be before it, but it is finally reached and the order
granted; then comes a sham answer, and then comes another motion to strike it out, and then, indeed,
a year passes before this can be reached and stricken out. Thus we go, and a lawyer moderately
schooled in the sharp practice of the Judges' chambers, can find points to introduce motions for years
upon a case where not a particle of defence exists. Now is not this state of affairs truly alarming? In
about three weeks this Court will adjourn over to October, and thus, by reason of this "Motion
Calendar," millions of dollars will be for an indefinite time kept from the rightful owners, besides the
waste and destruction of the mortgaged property. HOMER. Swans in Central Park. To the Editor of the
New-York Times: In the absence -- so far as I have yet observed -- of any ascertained data in regard to
the much-regretted death of the swans in the Central Park, I would venture to suggest, from a long
experience as a keeper of various water-fowl, as well of this country as of Europe, what may possibly
have caused the death of these beautiful birds. I have frequently remarked when any of the various
species of "Anatidae" have been long debarred a resort to water, great mischief to have resulted on
their being at once restored to unlimited access to that element, Their plumage during confinement gets
into very bad condition, and in their eagerness on readmission to water, they wash and plunge so much
that their feathers become quilt saturated, even to the very down upon the skin. Under such
circumstances I have known death to en[???]ue, and this probably, should the incident have been as
above, may have caused the death of the poor swans. The medical gentlemen who examined the dead
birds will know whether "pneumonia" would likely be induced under such conditions. My practice was,
upon receiving similar birds from a distance, never to permit free access to water until such a length of
time had elapsed as to admit the birds, kept in proper quarters in the open air, and with plenty of fresh
water supplied in small tubs or other vessels, to rearrange their plumage and restore it to that condition
in which the plumage of all water-birds in a state of nature is, viz: quite impervious to water.
Link Extension
Empirically Civil liberty suits clog courts
Emshwiller 14(John R; senior national correspondent for the Wall Street Journal, "Justice Is Swift as
Petty Crimes Clog Courts", www.wsj.com/articles/justice-is-swift-as-petty-crimes-clog-courts1417404782, Nov. 30, 2014)//ADS
Someone facing jail time “absolutely should be able to get representation,” Mr. Padwa said. In
Washington state, the American Civil Liberties Union and others sued the cities of Mount Vernon and
Burlington in 2011 for their treatment of indigent misdemeanor defendants. Like many municipalities,
the cities contract with private lawyers. The federal judge handling the case said evidence showed
individual lawyer caseloads in those towns ran as high as 1,000 annually—more than twice the
maximum recommended by the American Bar Association and others. In a declaration filed in the case,
Angela Montague, an Afghanistan war veteran and one of the named plaintiffs, said the lawyers she was
provided, Richard Sybrandy and Morgan Witt, didn’t respond to her efforts to discuss the various
misdemeanor charges against her, including driving under the influence. “It wasn’t until I became a
plaintiff in this class-action lawsuit that Mr. Witt finally contacted me,” Ms. Montague said in her
declaration. Messrs. Sybrandy and Witt, through their own lawyer, declined to comment. In court filings,
they disputed the plaintiffs’ claims about them. Mr. Sybrandy said in one filing he did what was
“necessary to obtain a just and acceptable result for the defendant” and used “every opportunity to
speak with” his clients.
2NC Impact extensions
Federal court clog collapses the federal judiciary– decimates Supreme Court and rule
of law
Oakley 96 (John B.; Distinguished Professor of Law Emeritus US Davis School of Law, 1996 The Myth of
Cost-Free Jurisdictional Reallocation)//ADS
Personal effects: The hidden costs of greater workloads. The hallmark of federal justice traditionally has
been the searching analysis and thoughtful opinion of a highly competent judge, endowed with the time
as well as the intelligence to grasp and resolve the most nuanced issues of fact and law. Swollen dockets
create assembly-line conditions, which threaten the ability of the modern federal judge to meet this
high standard of quality in federal adjudication. No one expects a federal judge to function without an
adequate level of available tangible resources: sufficient courtroom and chambers space, competent
administrative and research staff, a good library, and a comfortable salary that relieves the judge from
personal financial pressure. Although salary levels have lagged--encouraging judges to engage in the
limited teaching and publication activities that are their sole means of meeting such newly pressing
financial obligations as the historically high mortgage expenses and college tuitions of the present
decade-in the main, federal judges have received a generous allocation of tangible resources. It is
unlikely that there is any further significant gain to be realized in the productivity of individual federal
judges through increased levels of tangible resources,13 other than by redressing the pressure to earn
supplemental income.14 On a personal level, the most important resource available to the federal
judge is time."5 Caseload pressures secondary to the indiscriminate federalization of state law are
stealing time from federal judges, shrinking the increments available for each case. Federal judges
have been forced to compensate by operating more like executives and less like judges. They cannot
read their briefs as carefully as they would like, and they are driven to rely unduly on law clerks for
research and writing that they would prefer to do themselves.16 If federal judges need more time to
hear and decide each case, an obvious and easy solution is to spread the work by the appointment of
more and more federal judges. Congress has been generous in the recent creation of new judgeships,17
and enlargement of the federal judiciary is likely to continue to be the default response, albeit a more
grudging one, to judicial concern over the caseload consequences of jurisdictional reallocation.
Systemic effects: The hidden costs of adding more judges. Increasing the size of the federal judiciary
creates institutional strains that reduce and must ultimately rule out its continued acceptability as a
countermeasure to caseload growth. While the dilution of workload through the addition of judges is
always incrementally attractive, in the long run it will cause the present system to collapse. I am not
persuaded by arguments that the problem lies in the declining quality of the pool of lawyers willing to
assume the federal bench18 or in the greater risk that, as the ranks of federal judges expand, there will
be more frequent lapses of judgment by the president and the Senate in seating the mediocre on the
federal bench.19 In my view, the diminished desirability of federal judicial office is more than offset by
the rampant dissatisfaction of modern lawyers with the excessive commercialization of the practice of
law. There is no shortage of sound judicial prospects willing and able to serve, and no sign that the
selection process-never the perfect meritocracy-is becoming less effective in screening out the unfit or
undistinguished. Far more serious are other institutional effects of continuously compounding the
number of federal judges. Collegiality among judges, consistency of decision, and coherence of doctrine
across courts are all imperiled by the growth of federal courts to cattle-car proportions. Yet the ability of
the system to tolerate proliferation of courts proportional to the proliferation of judges is limited, and
while collapse is not imminent, it cannot be postponed indefinitely. Congress could restructure the
federal trial and appellate courts without imperiling the core functions, but the limiting factor is the
capacity of the Supreme Court to maintain overall uniformity in the administration and application of
federal law. That Court is not only the crown but the crowning jewel of a 200-year-old system of the
rule of law within a constitutional democracy, and any tinkering with its size or jurisdiction would
raise the most serious questions of the future course of the nation.
Global democracy is predicated off of US judicial legitimacy
Zoccola '06 (Barbara; President of the Memphis Bar Association, "Voters hold the key for judicial
fairness" July 23, The Commercial Appeal)//ADS
It matters because the health of our American democracy depends on impartial judges who apply the
law fairly and without regard to the prevailing political mood or opinion. More than 200 years ago, the
Founders of our nation designed a constitutional democracy based on a system of checks and balances,
a form of government that is now the model for the world, especially for new democracies that have
emerged in recent years. A fundamental part of this system is the existence of an independent
judiciary - judges who are able to act without concern for the day-to-day whims of politics and
election-focused politicians, to protect every citizen's individual liberties and to prevent a tyranny of
the majority. Unfortunately, a Harris interactive poll conducted in July 2005 for the American Bar
Association found that only 55 percent of the respondents correctly identified the three branches of
government and only 64 percent correctly identified the meaning of "checks and balances”
Consolidation solves WMD conflict
Halperin 11 (Morton H.; Senior Advisor – Open Society Institute and Senior Vice President of the
Center for American Progress, "Unconventional Wisdom – Democracy is Still Worth Fighting For",
Foreign Policy, http://foreignpolicy.com/2011/01/03/unconventional-wisdom, JANUARY 3, 2011)//ADS
As the United States struggles to wind down two wars and recover from a humbling financial crisis,
realism is enjoying a renaissance. Afghanistan and Iraq bear scant resemblance to the democracies we
were promised. The Treasury is broke. And America has a president, Barack Obama, who once
compared his foreign-policy philosophy to the realism of theologian Reinhold Niebuhr: “There’s serious
evil in the world, and hardship and pain,” Obama said during his 2008 campaign. “And we should be
humble and modest in our belief we can eliminate those things.” But one can take such words of
wisdom to the extreme-as realists like former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger and writer Robert
Kaplan sometimes do, arguing that the United States can’t afford the risks inherent in supporting
democracy and human rights around the world. Others, such as cultural historian Jacques Barzun, go
even further, saying that America can’t export democracy at all, “because it is not an ideology but a
wayward historical development.” Taken too far, such realist absolutism can be just as dangerous, and
wrong, as neoconservative hubris. For there is one thing the neocons get right: As I argue in The
Democracy Advantage, democratic governments are more likely than autocratic regimes to engage in
conduct that advances U.S. interests and avoids situations that pose a threat to peace and security.
Democratic states are more likely to develop and to avoid famines and economic collapse. They are
also less likely to become failed states or suffer a civil war. Democratic states are also more likely to
cooperate in dealing with security issues, such as terrorism and proliferation of weapons of mass
destruction. As the bloody aftermath of the Iraq invasion painfully shows, democracy cannot be
imposed from the outside by force or coercion. It must come from the people of a nation working to get
on the path of democracy and then adopting the policies necessary to remain on that path. But we
should be careful about overlearning the lessons of Iraq. In fact, the outside world can make an
enormous difference in whether such efforts succeed. There are numerous examples-starting with Spain
and Portugal and spreading to Eastern Europe, Latin America, and Asia-in which the struggle to establish
democracy and advance human rights received critical support from multilateral bodies, including the
United Nations, as well as from regional organizations, democratic governments, and private groups. It
is very much in America’s interest to provide such assistance now to new democracies, such as
Indonesia, Liberia, and Nepal, and to stand with those advocating democracy in countries such as
Belarus, Burma, and China. It will still be true that the United States will sometimes need to work with a
nondemocratic regime to secure an immediate objective, such as use of a military base to support the
U.S. mission in Afghanistan, or in the case of Russia, to sign an arms-control treaty. None of that,
however, should come at the expense of speaking out in support of those struggling for their rights. Nor
should we doubt that America would be more secure if they succeed.
Independently, US model of judicial federalism is key to prevent civil war and
authoritarian consolidation
Kincaid, 1995 (John, Robert B.; Professor of Government and Public Service at Lafayette College,
Rutgers Law Journal, 26 Rutgers L. J. 913, Lexis)//ADS
Given that it is increasingly necessary to think globally while acting locally, it is pertinent to suggest that
this American experience with the new judicial federalism, however muddled, may have useful
implications for an emerging federalist revolution worldwide. n132 This potential utility lies primarily in
the concept of independent and adequate state constitutional powers that enable constituent
governments to protect rights not available from a national government, thereby providing multiple and
potentially competing forums for citizen access. The new judicial federalism shows that rights protection
cannot be entrusted to a monopoly guardian, whether it be the national government or each
constituent government acting monopolistically and autonomously within its jurisdiction. If the
American historical experience has been one of overcoming state tyrannies against individual rights, the
historical experience of much of the rest of the world has been one of overcoming central government
tyrannies against individual rights. The new judicial federalism, moreover, is situated at a critical
intersection between individual rights and local autonomy, a matter of increasing importance and
conflict in the post-Cold War era. International rights advocates, influenced by the U.S. Supreme Court
model of rights nationalization, have sought to internationalize rights. They have focused almost
exclusively on international and [*945] national rights forums, largely ignoring regional and local forums.
However, the centrifugal forces of class, race, ethnicity, religion, and language suggest that rights
principles must also be lodged securely in regional and local forums where individuals daily experience
the benefits and abuses of government. International forums have advanced rights ideas and provided
beacons for oppressed peoples, but they remain legally weak and practically inconsequential for most
individuals. The prospect of a world court performing rights functions analogous to the Warren Court for
five billion people might make for a good Star Trek episode, but it is not within reach of our pre-warp
civilization. Most national courts are better at ignoring or abusing rights than protecting rights. Yet, even
where democratization produces demands for judicial protections of rights, unitary democratic systems
with a single supreme court erected atop a pluralistic polity are buffeted by countervailing universalistic
conceptions of rights and justice held by democratic cosmopolitans and particularistic conceptions of
rights and justice held by the diverse communities that make up the polity. Additionally, prevailing
American conceptions of individual rights, particularly their individualistic foundation, contradict the
communal tenets of many cultures and are regarded in some quarters as Western cultural imperialism,
much like American social conservative reactions to Roe v. Wade n133 as liberal cultural imperialism.
The advancement of human rights, therefore, entails not only a struggle against reactionary,
undemocratic governments, but also a debate among cultures and values in a very pluralistic world. The
new judicial federalism can perhaps contribute to this debate by confronting the difficult question of
which rights should be treated as fundamental, universal, and uniform, and which rights can be subject
legitimately to variation among communities of people holding diverse values. For most Americans,
prohibiting racial discrimination in any jurisdiction is a fundamental, uniform rights requirement. But do
police searches of citizens' curbside garbage fall into the same category? Also, the new judicial
federalism suggests a democratically based process for rights decision-making in which more than one
supreme court or legislative forum is available to advance rights under conditions of human diversity.
Furthermore, the new judicial federalism allows rights not protected by the national government to be
protected at least in [*946] some regional and local jurisdictions. Nationally unprotected rights may also
include emerging rights, such as the right to die. Americans, for example, have gradually embraced this
general concept, but have not yet formed a legal and ethical consensus around it. n134 Hence, we have
state-by-state legislative and judicial efforts to define this right. This may be an important consideration
because efforts to achieve, through unitary national institutions, uniform rights protections comparable
to contemporary international standards may generate so much conflict in some emerging pluralistic
democracies as to produce violence, political paralysis, and uniform non-rights protection. The violence
generated by Roe v. Wade n135 in the United States, for example, is mild compared to the violence
generated by socially sensitive rights issues in many other nations where social fissures are cultural
chasms. Democratic nation-building is, in part, a consensus-building process because sovereign citizens
have diverse and conflicting conceptions of rights and justice. It is unrealistic, and perhaps
counterproductive, therefore, to expect every emerging pluralistic democracy to begin this process with
levels of national rights protections that were achieved by Americans and some other Western
democracies only after two or more centuries of conflicting and periodically violent consensus-building.
Many emerging democracies have adopted grandiose bills of rights based on Western democratic
models, but judicial interpretations and actual government protections of those rights often remain
distant from the daily lives of most citizens. The new judicial federalism, however, suggests a model that
would enable rights advocates to continue pressing for vigorous national and even international rights
protections, while also embedding in regional constitutions and local charters rights that cannot be
embedded in the national constitution, effectively enforced by the national government, or enforced
only at minimal levels. Such an arrangement would produce peaks and valleys of rights protection within
a nation, but this rugged rights terrain is surely preferable to a flat land of minimal or ineffectual
national rights protection. The peak jurisdictions can function, under democratic conditions, as rights
leaders for a leveling-up process. In an emerging democracy culturally hostile to women's [*947] rights,
for example, such an arrangement could embolden at least one subnational jurisdiction to
institutionalize women's rights, thus establishing a rights peak visible to the entire society without
plunging the nation into civil war or back into reactionary authoritarianism. As a corollary to this
principle, it would seem advisable to press hard for freedom of travel and interjurisdictional migration as
fundamental national rights, because even a single peak jurisdiction protecting women's rights in an
otherwise hostile environment could become a refuge for women fleeing a country's rights deserts. The
competitive pressures produced by interjurisdictional migration can have powerful leveling-up effects
on rights protection. Individual and family mobility can also loosen the bonds of communal cultures that
suppress individual rights by compelling communal elites to respond to their constituents' exit behavior.
Under conditions of federalism, or perhaps subsidiarity, such accommodations can be made in regional
and local government forums having cultural legitimacy as opposed to national institutions perceived as
being dominated by alien elites. At the very least, examining state-equivalent constitutional documents
where they exist and developing case materials on rights rulings by regional courts n136 in different
political and cultural contexts could considerably enhance our understanding of how to go about
protecting individual rights in a highly pluralistic and violence-prone world.
Escalates and goes nuclear
Gottlieb 93 (Gidon; Professor of International Law and Diplomacy University of Chicago Law School,
Nation Against State, p. 26-27)//ADS
Self-determination unleashes and unchecked by balancing principles constitutes a menace to the society
of states. There is simply no way in which all hundreds of people who aspire to sovereign independence
can be granted a state of their own without loosening fearful anarchy and disorder on a planetary scale.
The proliferation of territorial entities poses exponentially greater problems for the control of
weapons of mass destruction and multiple situations in which external intervention could threaten
the peace. It increases problems for the management of all global issues, including terrorism, AIDS,
the environment, and population growth. It creates conditions in which domestic strife in remote
territories can drag powerful neighbors into local hostilities, creating ever widening circles of conflict.
Events in the aftermath of the breakup of the Soviet Union drove this point home. Like Russian dolls,
ever smaller ethnic groups dwelling into larger units emerged to secede and to demand independence.
Georgia, for example, has to contend with the claims of South Ossetians and Abkhazians for
independence, just as Russian Federation is confronted with the separatism of Tartaristan. An
international system made up of several hundred independent territorial states cannot be the basis of
global security and prosperity.
AT: Patent Trolls Thump
Patent trolls won’t clog courts after Obama signs reform legislation
Watkins 7/5 (William J; received his B.A. in history and German summa cum laude from Clemson
University and his J.D. cum laude from the University of South Carolina School of Law., "Congress
considers taking a bite out of the patent trolls",thehill.com/blogs/congress-blog/246704-congressconsiders-taking-a-bite-out-of-the-patent-trolls, July 5, 2015)//ADS
Patent trolls — those nefarious entities who clog the courts with frivolous patent lawsuits — are
sweating. Patent litigation bills are advancing in both the House and the Senate, and President Obama
has vowed to sign reform legislation before leaving office. If the reformers win, the patent trolls will
have to scavenge elsewhere, and a broken system that has encouraged litigation rather innovation will
finally get fixed. The House Judiciary Committee has approved the Innovation Act (H.R. 9) by a 24-8 vote.
This bipartisan bill would curb abusive patent litigation by requiring plaintiffs to cite specific harms
caused by the alleged infringement, shortening the discovery period, and making it easier for
interested parties to join the litigation. It would also shift litigation costs to the losing party if the
underlying claim were deemed questionable and require disclosure to the United States Patent and
Trademark Office of individuals having an interest in the patent. The bill also allows an innocent
customer of an alleged infringing manufacturer to avoid getting entangled in protracted and expensive
litigation. Last session, an almost the identical bill passed the full House but died in the Senate, when
then-Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) torpedoed it after trial lawyers complained that it might cost
their firms money. The Senate is considering a bill similar to the one in the House, the Protecting
American Talent and Entrepreneurship Act of 2015 (PATENT) Act. This legislation tackles many of the
same issues as the Innovation Act, but does not go quite as far. For example, it does not presumptively
award fees and expenses to the winning party. Instead, the trial judge must determine whether the
losing party was not “objectively reasonable” before granting a fee award. It is good news that both
Republicans and Democrats agree patent trolling is a danger to our economy. Trolls take a toll because
they obtain seek patents not for the purpose of producing an invention or a technology, but in order to
license and enforce dubious patents. They seek broad patents likely to be infringed in a particular
industry — especially software and other computer-related products, and older technologies that might
still be used in various modern products. Then they start to shake down their prey by sending demand
letters and filing legal actions. While both the Innovation Act and PATENT Act highlight real problems in
patent litigation, both bills ignore the central problem: a one-size-fits-all patent system. Right now, the
standard period of patent protection is 20 years. This uniform duration treats vastly different industries
the same. It is ludicrous to treat software like pharmaceuticals because their manufacturing and
development costs and product lifecycles are so very different. Five years would be a gracious plenty for
software. It would allow inventors to reap profits from their work but would effectively deny trolls the
use of an older patent to threaten new inventors. Here’s another idea that is absent from the bills under
consideration: patent law could follow the lead of trademark law and require that a plaintiff prove an
intention to make use of the patent. This would address the essence of the trolling problem: patent
trolls have no intention to use an idea or invention and just want the right to sue. Under trademark law,
a person or entity may file a trademark application based on the intent to use the mark in commerce —
that is, to sell products to the public with the mark attached. The rights to a trademark can be lost if the
holder abandons or stops using the mark. Likewise, patent holders who never show any intention of
using the technologies covered would lose their right to sue. Trolls would undoubtedly try to devise
nominal uses of the technology to meet the use requirement, but the courts could evaluate the alleged
use and determine if it represents a good-faith attempt to practice the invention or is merely a minimal
effort meant to secure an open courthouse door. We should applaud the House and Senate for tackling
the problem of patent trolls even though neither addresses the one-size-fits-all patent system or dares
to consider a use requirement. Let’s hope that the compromise legislation that will likely emerge from
Congress will have real teeth to deal with the trolling crisis.
AT: Immigration Thumps
Obama not taking immigration fight to Supreme Court
Gerstein and Min Kim 5/27(Josh; White House reporter for POLITICO, specializing in legal and
national security issues, Seung; assistant editor who covers Congress for POLITICO,"Obama not taking
immigration fight to Supreme Court, yet", www.politico.com/story/2015/05/obama-not-takingimmigration-fight-to-supreme-court-yet-118342.html, May 27, 15)//ADS
The Obama administration has decided not to ask the Supreme Court for an emergency stay on a judge’s
injunction blocking President Barack Obama’s newest executive actions on immigration, opting to
instead focus on the larger underlying legal battle. The decision announced by the Justice Department
on Wednesday came one day after a three-judge panel of a federal appeals court, in a 2-1 ruling,
turned down the administration’s request to proceed with Obama’s programs to grant quasilegal
status and work permits to millions more illegal immigrants. Story Continued Below A Justice
Department spokesman said forgoing an emergency application to the Supreme Court would allow
federal government lawyers to focus on an ongoing court fight about the legal merits of Obama’s
actions rather than on the issue of whether they should or should not remain on hold. “The Department
of Justice is committed to taking steps that will resolve the immigration litigation as quickly as
possible in order to bring greater accountability to our immigration system by prioritizing deporting
the worst offenders, not people who have long ties to the United States and who are raising American
children,” spokesman Patrick Rodenbush said. “The Department believes the best way to achieve this
goal is to focus on the ongoing appeal on the merits of the preliminary injunction itself. … Although the
Department continues to disagree with the Fifth Circuit’s refusal to stay the district court’s preliminary
injunction, the Department has determined that it will not seek a stay from the Supreme Court.” The 5th
Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals has tentatively scheduled arguments on the broader issues in the case for
the week of July 6. That appeal is expected to be heard by a different panel than the one that voted
Tuesday to deny the Obama administration’s stay request.
Terrorism
Terror DA Link
Third-party data collection is necessary to fight terrorism
Ombres 2015 (Devon [J.D. 2006 from Stetson University College of Law; L.L.M. 2013 from American
University Washington College of Law; admitted in Florida, District of Columbia, United States Court of
Appeals for the 11th Circuit, and United States District Court for the Middle District of Florida]; NSA
DOMESTIC SURVEILLANCE FROM THE PATRIOT ACT TO THE FREEDOM ACT: THE UNDERLYING HISTORY,
CONSTITUTIONAL BASIS, AND THE EFFORTS AT REFORM; 39 Seton Hall Legis. J. 27; kdf)
To paraphrase the common understanding of Benjamin Franklin's quote, those who would give up an essential liberty for safety deserve neither
liberty nor safety. n154 However, it
seems we have already crossed [*56] that Rubicon as a nation. The American
public shares immeasurable amounts of information, both knowingly and unknowingly, with each other;
corporations; and now the government, through our everyday acts on social media, online purchasing, and use of cell phones. We
have reached a point where the public has few qualms with this proposition, save for the overreach of the government in collecting metadata
on all communications, not including their content. Most
Americans, too, are likely torn by the collections of
communications metadata impinging on their privacy and the necessity to conduct global surveillance
on increasingly tech savvy terrorist groups to prevent future attacks on American soil. This concern is
highlighted by the discovery of westerners, including persons from the United States, attempting to join ranks with
extremist groups, such as the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria. n155 While it would be wonderful to return to the
FISA scheme in place pre-9/11, that is no longer feasible from a technological, national security,
sociopolitical, or even infrastructure-based standpoint, given current geopolitics, international terrorist
threats, and the billions invested in surveillance and data storage infrastructure. As such, we appear to be
relegated to imperfect reforms, the best of these being the USA FREEDOM legislation, which could still further be strengthened by amending it
to include portions of the bills noted above and by creating a non-partisan joint committee within Congress, although the potential for the
latter has not garnered much support. n156 Although President Obama has taken action to reform the NSA's collection of domestic
communication data, the FREEDOM Act should be enacted, regardless of any redundancies with administration policy. The
Act will aid in
providing greater transparency and oversight to the NSA surveillance programs currently in place and
stem perceived violations of the Fourth Amendment. n157