NEGATIVE STRATEGIES ON
THE SURVEILLANCE TOPIC
Rich Edwards
Baylor University
2015-16 National Policy Topic
Resolved: The United States federal government should
substantially curtail its domestic surveillance.
THE TERRORIST THREAT OUTWEIGHS
PRIVACY CONCERNS
Scott Glick, (Prof., Law, Hofstra U.), INDIANA
LAW JOURNAL, 2015, 36. Fourth Amendment
reasonableness should be viewed contextually
and assessed under particular facts and
circumstances. In the context of the threatened
use of certain WMDs, it is hard to imagine a
governmental interest more compelling than
the preservation and protection of society from
existential threats, massive destruction, or
catastrophic loss of life, which is clearly a
constitutional value of the “highest order of
magnitude.” Indeed, Article IV of the
Constitution imposes an affirmative obligation
on the federal government to protect the
nation
BROAD PRESIDENTIAL POWER TO
DEFEND THE NATION IS VITAL
John Eastman, (Prof., Law, Chapman U.), The
President has authority of his own directly from
Article II of the Constitution, authority that cannot
be restricted by an Act of Congress. The open
question is whether the ability to conduct
surveillance of enemy communications during
time of war, even if one end of those
communications is within the borders of the
United States, is part of the President’s
constitutional authority. . . .
Here’s the ruling by the highest court to have
considered the issue, directly on point: “We take
for granted that the President does have [inherent
authority to conduct warrantless searches to
obtain foreign intelligence information], and,
assuming that is so, FISA could not encroach on the
President’s constitutional power.”
Available at: http://www.cato-unbound.org/2010/08/11/john-eastman/surveillance-our-enemies-during-wartime-im-shocked
SOUSVEILLANCE IS THE PROPER
RESPONSE TO SURVEILLANCE
David Brin, (Ph.D., Physics, U.
California, San Diego), DOMESTIC
SURVEILLANCE, 2015, 73. Those
who deride sousveillance as
“utopian” ignore one fact: It’s
what already worked. The great
enlightenment method of
reciprocal accountability and
adversarially determined truth –
leveling the playing field by
pitting elites against each other –
is the very thing that underlies
science, markets, democracy and
all of our success.
Panopticon Analogy Is Wrong
Kees Boersma, (Prof., Social Science, VU University, Amsterdam),
INTERNET AND SURVEILLANCE: THE CHALLENGES OF WEB 2.0 AND
SOCIAL MEDIA, 2012, 7. There are authors who want to demolish the
metaphor of the panopticon and do not find it useful for explaining
contemporary surveillance and networked forms of surveillance. They
argue that surveillance systems such as the Internet are decentralized
forms of surveillance, whereas the notion of the panopticon assumes
centralized data collection and control. “Certainly, surveillance today is
more decentralized, less subject to spatial and temporal constraints
(location, time of day, etc.), and less organized than ever before by the
dualisms of observer and observed, subject and object, individual and
mass.
People Don’t Care
Siva Vaidhyanathan, (Pres., Media Studies, U. Virginia), THE
GOOGLIZATION OF EVERYTHING, 2012, 112. The forces at work in
Europe, North America, and much of the rest of the world are the
opposite of a Panopticon: they involve not the subjection of the
individual to the gaze of a single, centralized authority, but the
surveillance of the individual, potentially by all, always by many.
We have a “cryptopticon” (for lack of a better word). Unlike
Bentham’s prisoners, we don’t know all the ways in which we are
being watched or profiled – we simply know that we are. And we
don’t regulate our behavior under the gaze of surveillance:
instead, we don’t seem to care.
Surveillance May Actually
Promote Creativity
Siva Vaidhyanathan, (Prof., Media Studies, U. Virginia), HEDGEHOG REVIEW, Spr. 2015.
http://www.iasc-culture.org/THR/THR_article_2015_Spring_Vaidhyanathan.php
People will act as they wish regardless of the number of cameras pointed at them. The
thousands of surveillance cameras in London and New York City do not deter the
eccentric and avant-garde. Today, the example of reality television suggests that there
may even be a positive correlation between the number of cameras and observers
watching subjects and their willingness to act strangely and relinquish all pretensions of
dignity. There is no empirical reason to believe that awareness of surveillance limits the
imagination or stifles creativity in a market economy in an open, non-totalitarian state.
People Want to Be Seen
John Gilliom, (Prof., Political Science, Ohio U.), SUPERVISION: AN INTRODUCTION TO
THE SURVEILLANCE SOCIETY, 2013, 49. People use social networking sites to see and
be seen. Rather than being a prisonlike panopticon where trapped people follow the
rules because they’re afraid someone is watching, with Facebook and similar sites
people are probably more afraid that no one is watching, that no one cares what
they’re up to. So, many users discipline themselves in a different way by divulging as
much as possible about their lives and thoughts. In this medium, being connected
means actively – and sometimes obsessively – participating, even if the content is
shallow or trite.
Synopticon Is a Better
Metaphor
Jack Goldsmith, (Prof., Law, Harvard Law School), POWER AND
CONSTRAINT, 2012, 206. The direction of the panopticon can be
reversed, however, creating a “synopticon” in which many can watch
one, including the government. . . . This new media content can be
broadcast on the Internet and through other channels to give citizens
synoptical power over the government – a power that some describe
as “sousveillance” (watching from below). These and related forms of
watching can have a disciplining effect on government akin to Brin’s
reciprocal transparency.
Surveillance Limits the Police
State
Caren Morrison, (Prof., Law, Georgia State U.), JOURNAL OF CIVIL
RIGHTS AND ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT, Winter 2015, 764. If there
were a record of everything that ever happened, we could know the
truth. We could know what really happened between Trayvon Martin
and George Zimmerman on that night in February 2012. We would be
able to solve all the unsolved shootings and disappearances and faulty
eyewitness identifications.
Surveillance Also Protects
Lolita Buckner-Inniss, (Prof., Law, Cleveland-Marshall College of Law),
VIDEO SURVEILLANCE AS WHITE WITNESSES, Sept. 30, 2012.
http://innissfls.blogspot.com/2012/09/video-surveillance-as-whitewitnesses.html. Contemporary video surveillance video fulfills a
similar valorizing function for people who would be little likely to be
believed in a battle of divergent recollections. This is perhaps nowhere
more clear than in the case of video surveillance in retail stores. While
the presence of such technology may upset some people, I am oddly
comforted by it. Fairly often I am the object of close human
observation when I enter such stores. I am, more often than I care to
acknowledge (it is embarrassing, really) followed by store security or
subjected to insincere offers to “help” me that are intended as a
means to hasten my exit.
No Evidence for the
Stultification Thesis
David Sklansky, (Prof., Law, Stanford Law School), CALIFORNIA LAW
REVIEW, Oct. 2014, 107. The widespread acceptance of the
stultification thesis owes something, at least among academics, to its
resonance with Michel Foucault’s hugely influential argument that
power is exercised in modern societies through “disciplinary”
processes modeled consciously or unconsciously on Jeremy Bentham’s
Panopticon. Nonetheless, as Neil Richards notes, claims about the
chilling effects of surveillance ultimately are “empirical.” And it is
striking how little empirical support has been marshaled for the
stultification thesis.
No Evidence for the
Stultification Thesis
David Sklansky, (Prof., Law, Stanford Law School), CALIFORNIA LAW
REVIEW, Oct. 2014, 1099. Not only is empirical support for the
stultification thesis limited, there is some suggestive evidence against
it. That evidence begins with a phenomenon that is all around us: the
sharing of personal information on the Internet, especially through
social media, and especially by the young.
No Evidence for the
Stultification Thesis
David Sklansky, (Prof., Law, Stanford Law School), CALIFORNIA LAW
REVIEW, Oct. 2014, 1099. People quickly become accustomed to
monitoring and then ignore it. Something similar happens when
criminal suspects are recorded when talking to the police. Law
enforcement officials often oppose the recording of interrogations,
because they fear that it will deter candor. In practice, though, it has
virtually no effect: minutes after the recording device is turned on, the
suspect forgets about it. And despite Justice Harlan’s warning that
warrantless, surreptitious recording of conversations by confidential
informants “might well smother [the] spontaneity . . . that liberates
daily life,” we have now lived with that practice for four decades, and
it has had no observable impact on the vigor of national discourse.
[ellipsis in original]
Government Is Not the Main
Threat
David Sklansky, (Prof., Law, Stanford Law School), CALIFORNIA LAW
REVIEW, Oct. 2014, 1099. Digital natives may think differently about
privacy than their elders. (For one thing, they are likely to worry more
about monitoring by their parents than by the government or by
corporations.) Reasons to doubt the stultification thesis are not
limited to the young, though. For example, a study of government
employees in Canada suggested that freedom of information laws –
contrary to fears – do not affect the quantity or the quality of recordkeeping or intra-governmental communication. That will come as little
surprise to anyone who uses email on a workplace network subject to
employer monitoring: evidence of self-censorship on such networks is
difficult to find.
Why Blind the Government?
Stephen Schulhofer, (Prof., Law, Vanderbilt U. Law School), MORE
ESSENTIAL THAN EVER: THE FOURTH AMENDMENT IN THE TWENTYFIRST CENTURY, 2012, 5. Because Internet browsing and on-line
shopping already expose much of our lives to commercial data banks,
in ways over which we have almost no control, why should
government officials charged with our safety be the only ones denied
access to that information?
Watching the Watchers
David Brin, (Ph.D., Physics, U. California, San Diego), DOMESTIC
SURVEILLANCE, 2015, 72. “I do not want to live in a world where
everything I do and say is recorded,” proclaimed Snowden, with
unintended irony, as he ripped veils off those he disliked. But as I held
in The Transparent Society, the answer isn’t to cower or hide from Big
Brother, nor to blind our watchdogs. The solution is to answer
surveillance with sousveillance [the recording of events by their
participants], or looking back at the mighty from below. Holding light
accountable with reciprocal light. Letting our watchdogs see but
imposing choke-chain limits on what they do. That distinction is
crucial. Instead of obsessing on what the FBI and NSA may know, let’s
demand fierce tools of supervision to keep the dog from becoming a
wolf.
Mass Surveillance Is an
Alternative to Racial Profiling
Caren Morrison, (Prof., Law, Georgia State U.), JOURNAL OF CIVIL
RIGHTS AND ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT, Winter 2015, 761-762. If
everyone were equally surveilled, it might achieve what Randall
Kennedy suggested some years ago: rather than burdening particular
individuals with a "racial tax," universal surveillance would increase
taxes across the board. It is the same argument that can be made in
favor of police checkpoints - everyone is a little bit inconvenienced so
that a few don't have to be singled out and bear the burden for
everyone else.
Just and Unjust Laws
Martin Luther King, Jr., LETTER FROM A BIRMINGHAM JAIL, 1963.
http://www.africa.upenn.edu/Articles_Gen/Letter_Birmingham.html
Let us consider a more concrete example of just and unjust laws. An
unjust law is a code that a numerical or power majority group compels
a minority group to obey but does not make binding on itself. This is
difference made legal. By the same token, a just law is a code that a
majority compels a minority to follow and that it is willing to follow
itself.
The Best Answer to Surveillance Is
More Surveillance
David Brin, (Ph.D., Space Science, U. California at San Diego), NEW
YORK TIMES, July 25, 2013. Retrieved Apr. 13, 2015 from Nexis. It is
fallacious to base our freedom and safety upon blinding of elites. First,
can you name one time in human annals when that actually
happened? When those on top forsook any powers of vision? Forbid,
and you'll drive it underground. As the author Robert Heinlein said,
the chief effect of a privacy law is to ''make the [spy] bugs smaller.''
And smaller they become! Faster than Moore's Law, cameras get
cheaper, better, more mobile, more numerous and smaller each year.
If laws banish such things, who will be thwarted? Only normal folk,
while elites – government, corporate, wealth, criminal and foreign –
will have the new omniscience.
SURVEILLANCE ESSENTIAL TO STOP
CYBER ATTACKS
Nirode Mohanty, (Associate Editor,
International Journal in Telecommunications
and Networking), RADICALISM IN ISLAM:
RESURGENCE AND RAMIFICATIONS, 2012,
409. In cyberattacks, damage can range from
an individual computer malfunctioning, to
distorting an entire country’s cell phone
networks, jamming espionage,
communications, and navigational satellites,
or crashing its electrical grid or air traffic
control systems. In terms of human and
property loss, it can be no less damaging than
the detonation of a WMD.
ATTACK IS LIKELY
Roland Heickero, (Prof., Swedish National Defense College), THE
DARK SIDES OF THE INTERNET: ON CYBER THREATS AND
INFORMATION WARFARE, 2013, 13. In a 2003 intelligence report on
cyber defence by the U.S. Navy the following estimate was done: A
group of some thirty hackers, strategically located and with a
budget of less than 10 million U.S. dollars, could shut down large
parts of the critical infrastructure in the United States in a well coordinated attack.
FIFTEEN MINUTES IS ENOUGH
Richard Clarke, (Prof., Security Studies, Harvard U.), CYBER WAR: THE
NEXT THREAT TO NATIONAL SECURITY AND WHAT TO DO ABOUT IT,
2012, 67-68. Power will not come back up because nuclear plants have
gone into secure lockdown and many conventional plants have had
their generators permanently damaged. High-tension transmission
lines on several key routes have caught fire and melted. Unable to get
cash from ATMs or bank branches, some Americans will begin to loot
stores. Police and emergency services will be overwhelmed. In all the
wars America has fought, no nation has ever done this kind of damage
to our cities. A sophisticated cyber war attack by one of several nationstates could do that today, in fifteen minutes, without a single terrorist
or soldier ever appearing in this country.
FIFTEEN MINUTES IS ENOUGH
The Economist, CYBERCRIME, 2014, 142. What will cyber war look
like? In a new book Richard Clarke, a former White House staffer in
charge of counterterrorism and cybersecurity, envisages a catastrophic
breakdown within 15 minutes. Computer bugs bring down military email systems; oil refineries and pipelines explode; air-traffic-control
systems collapse; freight and metro trains derail; financial data are
scrambled; the electrical grid goes down in the eastern United States;
orbiting satellites spin out of control. Society soon breaks down as
food becomes scarce and money runs out.
NEW DARK AGE
Paul Day, (IT Specialist & White Hat Hacker/Founder, P/H-UK
Magazine), CYBER ATTACK: THE TRUTH ABOUT DIGITAL
CRIME, CYBER WARFARE AND GOVERNMENT
SNOOPING, 2014, 6. When 94 per cent of the world’s
information is digital, it doesn’t take much to tip the balance of
civilization into a “New Dark Age”. If cyber-criminals bring our
society to a halt through ill-advised use of malware and RATS,
nobody will be able to get any money from the ATMs and
purchasing using a credit card will become impossible.
MASS PANIC
Shane Harris, (Fellow, New America Foundation), @WAR: THE RISE
OF THE MILITARY-INTERNET COMPLEX, 2014, 141. [Bush adm. Aid,
John Mcconnell, discussing a cyber terror attack]: The trillions of
dollars that sloshed around the world every day did so through
computer networks. The “money” was really just data. It was
balances in accounts. A distributed network of electronic ledgers
that kept track of who bought and sold what, who moved money
where, and to whom. Corrupt just a portion of that information, or
destroy it, and mass panic would ensue, McConnell said. Whole
economies could collapse just for lack of confidence, to say nothing
of whether all banks and financial institutions would ever be able to
recover the data they lost.
MILITARY SYSTEMS AT RISK
Nirode Mohanty, (Associate Editor, International Journal in
Telecommunications and Networking), RADICALISM IN ISLAM:
RESURGENCE AND RAMIFICATIONS, 2012, 55-56. Nuclear weapons
and some military installations may not be physically connected to
the territories where terrorists reside, but even with the best
computer security, encryption, decryption, and firewalls, computers
and the Internet are vulnerable to cybercrimes and hacking. Any
battlefield, business, and financial systems, plus traffic control,
airport security, power generation and distribution or any other
devices that are controlled by computers can be infested with a
virus, or undesired, disruptive commands. They are subject to
hacking as part of information warfare.
CRIPPLE THE U.S.
Kevin Freeman, (Sr. Fellow, Center for Security Policy), GAME PLAN:
HOW TO PROTECT YOURSELF FROM THE COMING CYBERECONOMIC ATTACK, 2014, 16. In January 2013 the secretary of
homeland security, Janet Napolitano, warned that a cyberattack
from abroad could cripple the United States. She mentioned the
possibility of a “cyber 9/11,” which she said could happen
“imminently” and threaten water, electricity, and gas for Americans.
DRUG SURVEILLANCE ESSENTIAL TO
STOP TERRORISM
Paul Stockton, (U.S. Undersecretary of
Defense for Homeland Security), BOOTS ON
THE GROUND OR EYES IN THE SKY, House
Hrg., Apr. 17, 2012, 8. Drug trafficking and
related transnational organized crime
presents a significant threat to our Nation.
The movement of large amounts of drugs
across our borders is the most immediate
concern, but the potential for these drug
smuggling networks to be used for infiltrating
terrorists and weapons of mass destruction
cannot be discounted. As such, countering
drug trafficking across our borders and
around the world is a National priority.
FINANCIAL SURVEILLANCE IS
ESSENTIAL TO STOP TERRORISM
Adam Wallwork, (JD, U. of Chicago Law
School), SOUTHERN UNIVERSITY LAW
REVIEW, Fall 2013, 3. Combating terrorist
financing is an essential element of United
States and global counterterrorism efforts.
International terrorist networks require
funds to support their infrastructures. It
takes money to recruit and train terrorists,
procure weapons and safe-houses, pay for
travel, support families of so-called
"martyrs," issue propaganda, and provide
social services to win local support. Even
small sums can be used to fund devastating
attacks.
BORDER ENFORCEMENT ESSENTIAL
TO IMMIGRATION REFORM
Daniel Morales, (Prof., Law, DePaul
U. College of Law),
NORTHWESTERN UNIVERSITY LAW
REVIEW COLLOQUY, July 2013, 36.
Comprehensive immigration
reform law will emerge--if at all-from the following bargain:
conservatives will agree to legalize
millions of "illegal" immigrants in
exchange for liberals' agreement to
more robust immigration
enforcement measures.
TOPICALITY ARGUMENTS
Rich Edwards
Baylor University
2015-16 National Policy Topic
Resolved: The United States federal government should
substantially reduce its domestic surveillance.
Likely Topicality Arguments
“Substantially” means more than 25% of the U.S.
population
“Substantially” means without material qualification
“Curtail” does not mean abolition
“Curtail” does not mean self-restraint
“Its” means the U.S. federal government, not local
police or state welfare agencies
“Domestic” means not foreign
Surveillance is not supervision
Surveillance watches people, not programs or
resources
CASE RESPONSES TO
PARTICULAR AFFIRMATIVE
CASES
Rich Edwards
Baylor University
2015-16 National Policy Topic
Resolved: The United States federal government should
substantially curtail its domestic surveillance.
FISA COURT REFORM
John Bates, (U.S. District Court Judge &
Dir., Administrative Office of U.S. Courts),
LETTER TO DIANE FEINSTEIN, Jan. 13,
2014.
http://www.feinstein.senate.gov/public/i
ndex.cfm/files/serve/?File_id=3bcc8fbcd13c-4f95-8aa9-09887d6e90ed. The
participation of a privacy advocate is
unnecessary – and could prove
counterpoductive – in the vast majority
of FISA matters, which involve the
application of a probable cause or other
factual standard to case-specific facts
and typically implicate the privacy
interests of few persons other than the
specified target.
BULK COLLECTION
John Inglis, (Dir., National Security
Agency), STRENGTHENING PRIVACY
RIGHTS AND NATIONAL SECURITY:
OVERSIGHT OF FISA SURVEILLANCE
PROGRAMS, Senate Judiciary Comm.
Hearing, July 31, 2013, 55. In simple
terms, you are looking for a needle, in this
case a number, in a haystack. But not just
any number. You want to make a focused
query against a body of data that returns
only those numbers that are connected to
the one you have reasonable suspicion is
connected to a terrorist group. But unless
you have the haystack – in this case all the
records of who called whom – you cannot
answer the question.
BIG DATA
Daniel Castro, (Dir., Center for Data Innovation), BIG
DATA STUDY, Mar. 31, 2014, 5.
Fundamentally, data analysis helps people and
organizations make better decisions. In the private
sector, these decisions may take the form of a
company buying from one vendor instead of another,
a farmer planting at a particular place and time, or a
person at home choosing to bring an umbrella on an
outing. Key decisions in the government that can be
aided with data analysis include determining which
programs to cut, which companies to audit, and
which business processes to implement. Government
has an important role to play in encouraging big data
use in fields including health care, education, road
safety, weather prediction, financial reporting,
mapping and macroeconomic forecasting.
PRIVATIZE THE TSA
Bennie Thompson, (U.S. Representative, Mississippi), EXAMINING TSA’S
MANAGEMENT OF THE SCREENING PARTNERSHIP PROGRAM, House Hrg., July 29,
2014, 6.
After 9/11 it was clear to the vast majority of Members of Congress and the Bush
administration that transitioning to a Federal screener workforce was the right
thing to do for the security of our Nation. And, it worked. There has not been a
successful attack against our aviation system on U.S. soil since 9/11.
FBI INFORMANTS
Paul Sperry, (Former
Washington Bureau
Chief), INVESTOR’S
BUSINESS DAILY, Feb. 20,
2015, A15. Between 2010
and 2013, the Obama
administration imported
almost 300,000 new
immigrants from Muslim
nations
Beau Barnes, (JD Candidate, Boston U. School
of Law), BOSTON UNIVERSITY LAW REVIEW,
Oct. 2012, 1636. The effectiveness of
confidential informants in homegrown
terrorism investigations is borne out by
statistics. One study found that
approximately sixty-two percent of the
prosecutions in the fifty highest profile
terrorist plots since 2001 relied on
confidential informants. Another study
examined eighty-nine thwarted domestic
terrorist plots, finding that sixty-six "were
prevented at least in part as a result of the
work of undercover agents and informants,
or tips from the public." Approximately fifty
percent of terrorism prosecutions since 2009
have involved informants.
BORDER SURVEILLANCE
Sylvia Longmire, (Former U.S. Air Force Officer &
Intelligence Analyst), BORDER INSECURITY: WHY
BIG MONEY, FENCES, AND DRONES AREN’T
MAKING US SAFER, 2014, 134. There is no doubt
that there are many terrorist groups and their
sympathizers who would love nothing more than
to see another 9/11 occur on American soil.
There is also no doubt that members and
sympathizers of some of these groups have a
presence in Latin America, in Mexico, and in the
United States. There is ample evidence to prove
some of these individuals arrived in the United
States by way of crossing the US-Mexico border,
either legally or illegally, and the mere presence
in our nation of these groups’ affiliates is
completely unacceptable and worthy of much
concern.
DRONE SURVEILLANCE
Chris Schlag, (JD Candidate), UNIVERSITY
OF PITTSBURGH JOURNAL OF
TECHNOLOGY LAW & POLICY, Spr. 2013,
7-8. Drone surveillance features include
technologies such as automated object
detection, GPS surveillance, gigapixel
cameras, and enhanced image resolution.
Due to its relative cost effectiveness,
drone aerial surveillance has quickly
become the most efficient tool for
monitoring livestock movements,
mapping wildlife habitats, maintaining
property security, performing road
patrols, and combating piracy, among
others.
CYBER ATTACKS
Nichol Perlroth, (Staff), NEW YORK TIMES, Sept. 5,
2013. Retrieved Feb. 13, 2015 from
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/09/06/us/nsa-foilsmuch-internetencryption.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0. The N.S.A.,
which has specialized in code-breaking since its
creation in 1952, sees that task as essential to its
mission. If it cannot decipher the messages of
terrorists, foreign spies and other adversaries, the
United States will be at serious risk, agency officials
say. Just in recent weeks, the Obama administration
has called on the intelligence agencies for details of
communications by leaders of Al Qaeda about a
terrorist plot and of Syrian officials’ messages about
the chemical weapons attack outside Damascus. If
such communications can be hidden by unbreakable
encryption, N.S.A. officials say, the agency cannot do
its work.
GEOLOCATION
SURVEILLANCE
Stephanie Pell, (Prof., Cyber Ethics, U.S.
Military Academy at West Point’s Cyber
Institute), HARVARD JOURNAL OF LAW &
TECHNOLOGY, Fall 2014, 54. Passive
interception technology that once cost
tens of thousands of dollars can now be
built at home for as little as $15. Similarly,
whereas cellular interception was once a
black art practiced by those in the
intelligence community, today, professors
assign the task of decrypting cellular
communications to their computer
science students. (Stingray Devices)
FAMILIAL DNA
Colin McFerrin, (JD Candidate,
Texas Wesleyan School of Law),
TEXAS WESLEYAN LAW REVIEW,
Spr. 2013, 973. The cases of the
“Bind, Torture, Kill” (“BTK”) serial
killer and the “Grim Sleeper”
killer are two prolific examples of
law enforcement and prosecutors
using DNA evidence to identify –
and eventually convict – suspects.
In both cases, however, law
enforcement identified their
suspects using familial searching.
CENSUS SURVEILLANCE
American Association of Public Opinion
Research, THE PROS AND CONS OF MAKING
THE CENSUS BUREAU’S AMERICAN
COMMUNITY SURVEY VOLUNTARY, House
Oversight and Government Reform Comm.
Hearing, Mar. 6, 2012, 34. In addition, the
Voting Rights Act relies on ACS data to make
determinations under section 203, which
requires jurisdictions with a high percentage
of people who are not English language
proficient to offer bilingual voting materials.
Both the government and business sector
rely on ACS data to help ensure appropriate
employment opportunities for racial
minorities, disabled persons, and veterans.
WELFARE SURVEILLANCE
Michelle Gilman, (Prof., Law,
U. Baltimore School of Law),
BROOKLYN LAW REVIEW,
Summer 2012, 1391. Welfare
administration is highly
devolved in that states and
localities have great discretion
in how they structure their
welfare programs.
IRS SURVEILLANCE
U.S. Internal Revenue Service, Restriction of Political
Campaign Intervention by Section 501(c)(3) Tax-Exempt
Organizations, Jan. 6, 2016. http://www.irs.gov/Charities-&-NonProfits/Charitable-Organizations/The-Restriction-of-Political-CampaignIntervention-by-Section-501%28c%29%283%29-Tax-Exempt-Organizations.
Under the Internal Revenue Code, all section 501(c)(3)
organizations are absolutely prohibited from directly or
indirectly participating in, or intervening in, any political
campaign on behalf of (or in opposition to) any candidate
for elective public office. Contributions to political
campaign funds or public statements of position (verbal
or written) made on behalf of the organization in favor of
or in opposition to any candidate for public office clearly
violate the prohibition against political campaign activity.
EDUCATIONAL
SURVEILLANCE
Bill Hammond, (Staff), NEW YORK DAILY NEWS, July
9, 2014, 28. Channeling Tea Party paranoia, [Rob
Astorino] frames the whole thing as a Washington
plot: "You can't tell me it's not the federal
government's long arm into education, here. It truly
is." No, it truly is not. In fact, the Common Core was
created by officials from 48 states - through the
National Governors Association and the Council of
Chief State School Officers. Microsoft tycoon Bill
Gates supported the project, financially and
politically. But committees of educators and experts
did the nitty-gritty standard-setting - with many
opportunities for debate.
MUSLIM CHARITIES
Sam Adelsberg, (JD Candidate), HARVARD NATIONAL
SECURITY JOURNAL, 2013, 288. While Humanitarian
Law Project highlighted the government's broad
authority to prosecute under the material support
statute, a survey of cases filed against defendants who
have allegedly provided material support to foreign
terrorist organizations suggests that the government
does not pursue all individuals within the reach of this
statute. Instead, the general pattern of prosecution
indicates that the government typically targets
individuals who satisfy three more restrictive criteria:
(1) they provide direct, often physical, support to
terrorist activity; (2) they funnel aid through clearly
identified terrorist organizations; and (3) they intend
to further terrorist aims through the provision of
material support.
DRUG SURVEILLANCE
Jonathan Caulkins, (Prof., Public Policy, Carnegie
Mellon U.), MARIJUANA LEGALIZATION: WHAT
EVERYONE NEEDS TO KNOW, 2012, 114-115.
Making a drug legal does not entirely eliminate
the law-enforcement problem. Any regulation or
any tax strict enough or high enough to actually
restrict or change behavior will face defiance and
require enforcement. About a million and a half
arrests are made each year on the charge of
driving under the influence of alcohol: nearly
twice as many as for all marijuana violations
combined. That's in addition to arrests for sales
to minors, possession by minors, drinking in
public, and drunk and disorderly conduct.
SURVEILLANCE OF ATTORNEYCLIENT CONTACT
Michelle Malkin, (Analyst, Independent Institute), THE LEFT’S
VALENTINE TO DEFIANT JIHAD-ENABLER LYNNE STEWART, Feb. 7, 2013.
Retrieved May 5, 2015 from http://michellemalkin.com/2014/02/07/the-lefts-valentineto-defiant-jihad-enabler-lynne-stewart/. Stewart was convicted in 2005 of helping
terrorist Omar Abdel Rahman — the murderous Blind Sheik — smuggle
coded messages of Islamic violence to outside followers in violation of
an explicit pledge to abide by her client’s court-ordered isolation.
Rahman, Stewart’s “political client,” had called on Muslims to “destroy”
the West, “burn their companies, eliminate their interests, sink their
ships, shoot down their planes, kill them on the sea, air or land.” He
issued bloody fatwas against U.S. “infidels” that inspired the 1993 WTC
bombing, the 1997 massacre of Western tourists in Luxor, Egypt, and
the 9/11 attacks.