plan
Provisions of the Surveillance State Repeal Act that substantially
curtail domestic surveillance by the United States federal government
should be enacted.
Contention 1 Human Intelligence
USA Freedom Act is insufficient – must send a better signal to reduce
surveillance.
Toomey ‘15
(et al; Patrick C. Toomey is a staff attorney in the ACLU’s National Security Project, where he works on
issues related to electronic surveillance, national security prosecutions, whistle-blowing, and racial profiling.
Mr. Toomey is a graduate of Harvard College and Yale Law School. After graduating from law school, he
served as a law clerk to the Hon. Nancy Gertner, United States District Judge for the District of
Massachusetts, and to the Hon. Barrington D. Parker, United States circuit judge for the Second Circuit
Court of Appeals. “Flip the Patriot Act’s Kill Switch” – Slate – May 5th http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/politics/2015/05/patriot_act_s_section_215_should_expire_
why_we_should_let_the_law_s_worst.html?wpsrc=sh_all_tab_tw_bot)
Congress should
leverage the opportunity presented by the scheduled sunset to enact a broad reform package. But while
the proposed bill—the USA Freedom Act—includes worthwhile elements, it doesn’t go nearly far enough.
(The American Civil Liberties Union neither supports nor opposes it.) It would allow the government to continue
storing innocent people’s records in vast intelligence databases. It would require the government to be
The more compelling argument against allowing Section 215 to sunset comes from those who believe that
more transparent about its use of some surveillance authorities, but it would allow the FBI to keep secret some of the information the public
it would end the bulk collection of call records under Section 215, it would leave
the government with the authority to engage in the broad collection of other kinds of
sensitive records. We appreciate the work of the legislators who are championing the bill—Sens. Patrick Leahy
needs most. And while
and Ron Wyden and Reps. John Conyers and Jim Sensenbrenner, in particular, deserve credit for their tireless work in the service of
surveillance reform—but they have had
to make deep concessions to the intelligence community in order to win its
the vague language in the bill’s key provisions will provide a
new lease on life to surveillance programs that haven’t yet been—and may never be—disclosed to the public. We
can’t afford to squander the opportunity that the scheduled sunset of Section 215 affords. Thanks to Snowden,
support. We can’t help but worry that
Americans now know that the government’s surveillance activities are far more extensive than is defensible in a free society. The current
coalesce
around much broader reforms than are on the table right now, the best way to begin the reform effort is by
debate in Congress reflects a growing bipartisan consensus that reform is urgently needed. Unless Congress can
letting Section 215 expire. Letting the provision die wouldn’t itself accomplish all of the changes that are necessary—not even close. But it
systemic reform we desperately need, and it would send an important and
overdue message that the era of unchecked government surveillance—the era of the Patriot Act—is at
long last coming to an end.
would be a first step toward the kind of
The new Freedom Act fails. Pen register, super-minimization, and
SST’s from the original Freedom Act would solve.
Greene ‘15
(et al; David Greene, Senior Staff Attorney and Civil Liberties Director for the Electronic Frontier Foundation.
David is also an adjunct professor at the University of San Francisco School of Law, where he teaches
classes in First Amendment and media law and an instructor in the journalism department at San Francisco
State University. David has significant experience litigating First Amendment issues in state and federal trial
and appellate courts and is one of the country's leading advocates for and commentators on freedom of
expression in the arts. “ACLU v. Clapper and the Congress: How The Second Circuit’s Decision Affects the
Legislative Landscape” - Electronic Frontier Foundation - May 11, 2015 -
https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2015/05/aclu-v-clapper-and-congress-how-second-circuits-decision-affectslegislative)
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit in ACLU v. Clapper has determined that the NSA’s telephone records
program went far beyond what Congress authorized when it passed Section 215 of the Patriot Act in 2001. The court
unequivocally rejected the government’s secret reinterpretation of Section 215. Among many important findings, the court
found that Section 215’s authorization of the collection of business records that are “relevant to an authorized
investigation” could not be read to include the dragnet collection of telephone records. The court also took issue with the
fact that this strained application of the law was accomplished in secret and approved by the secret and one-sided
Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court (FISA Court). EFF filed amicus briefs in this case in both the district and circuit
courts, and we congratulate our colleagues at the ACLU on this significant victory. The Second Circuit’s opinion stands as
The
Second Circuit’s decision, however, also marks a significant change in the context of the ongoing
legislative debate in Congress. Above all, it is clear that Congress must do more to rein in
dragnet surveillance by the NSA. Clean Reauthorization First, the Second Circuit’s opinion should
stop the idea of a "clean reauthorization" (a reauthorization with no reforms) of Section 215,
which is set to expire June 1. Last month, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell and Senate Intelligence
a clear sign that the courts are ready to step in and rule that mass surveillance is illegal. That’s great news.
Chair Richard Burr introduced S. 1035, a bill that would extend the current language of Section 215 through 2020, thereby
continuing the mass spying rubber-stamped by the FISA Court. The morning of the Second Circuit decision, both
Senators took to the Senate floor to vehemently defend the bulk collection program and push for a clean reauthorization.
But a clean reauthorization is much more complicated now. Congress can’t pretend that the Second Circuit's narrow
reading of “relevant to an authorized investigation” doesn’t exist. It’s likely that if Congress merely does a “clean”
reauthorization of Section 215, then the district court in ACLU v. Clapper will enjoin the government from using Section
215 as authorization for the call records dragnet, because the district court is bound by the Second Circuit decision.
However, if a reauthorization made it clear that Congress intended to reject the Second Circuit’s narrow reading of the
law, it could cause further confusion and the government could argue that Congress has fully embraced the dragnet.
We’re encouraging people to call Congress and tell their lawmakers to reject Senator McConnell's clean reauthorization in
order to avoid the risk that Congress might reject the Second Circuit’s decision The
USA Freedom Act Must Be
Strengthened In light of the Second Circuit’s decision, EFF asks Congress to strengthen its proposed
reform of Section 215, the USA Freedom Act. Pending those improvements, EFF is withdrawing our support of
the bill. We’re urging Congress to roll the draft back to the stronger and meaningful
reforms included in the 2013 version of USA Freedom and affirmatively embrace the Second Circuit’s
opinion on the limits of Section 215. Most importantly, the Second Circuit’s correct interpretation of the law should be
expressly embraced by Congress in order to avoid any confusion going forward about what the key
terms in the statute mean, especially the terms “relevant” and “investigation.” This recognition could be in the bill itself
or, less preferably, in legislative history. The House Judiciary Committee has already included such language in its report
to the full House of Representatives, but now the Senate must include the language in the bill or in its own legislative
history. This easy task will make sure that the law is not read as rejecting the Second Circuit’s reading and
will help
ensure that the USA Freedom Act actually accomplishes its goal of ending bulk collection.
The House Report on USA Freedom, issued today, takes a step forward by stating that: Congress’ decision to leave in
place the ‘‘relevance’’ standard for Section 501 orders should not be construed as Congress’ intent to ratify the FISA
Court’s interpretation of that term. These changes restore meaningful limits to the ‘‘relevance’’ requirement of Section 501,
consistent with the opinion of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit in ACLU v. Clapper. Ensuring that the
Senate doesn't move away from the legislative history should be a top priority as the bill moves forward. But that’s the
bare minimum Congress must do. The Second Circuit, and especially Judge Sack’s concurrence, noted a lack of both
transparency and a true adversary in the FISA Court. The 2014 and 2013 USA Freedom Act had stronger FISA Court
reforms, particularly around the creation of a special advocate who would argue against the government in the FISA
Court. The Second Circuit’s opinion also emphasizes that typical subpoenas seek only records of "suspects under
investigation, or of people or businesses that have contact with such subjects." Under the current USA Freedom Act, the
government can collect records of a "second hop,"—the numbers, and associated metadata, that have been in contact
with the numbers collected initially—without any additional authorization. The bill should be changed so that the
government must file another application for any further records it wants to collect. Automatically obtaining a "second hop"
current USA Freedom Act is also outof-sync with the court’s narrow view of permissible collection of records because it lacks a
rigorous definition of the "specific selection term" the government can use to identify the
records it wants to collect. This can be addressed by two changes: (1) drawing upon last year's
is unacceptable because it sweeps in too many people’s records. The
definition in the USA Freedom Act; and, (2) closing down potential loopholes like the definition of "address" or
the use of a "person" to include a corporate person. Restoring Important Parts of 2013’s USA Freedom Act
This is also an opportunity and a new context for Congress to address the shortcomings of the newly
introduced USA Freedom Act that we previously wrote about. Congress should put back key
provisions that were dropped along the way as well as remove those that were introduced at the behest of
the intelligence community. First, the "super minimization" procedures, which were key privacy
procedures that mandated the deletion of any information obtained about a person not
connected to the investigation, should be reintroduced. Key provisions establishing a
higher legal standard and compliance assessment for the use of pen register/trap-and-trace devices,
legal standing to sue the government over surveillance practices, and the original transparency provisions allowing
government and corporate disclosure of surveillance orders should
also be resuscitated.
Information overload drains resources and triggers a litany of
impacts
Volz, 14
(Dustin, The National Journal, “Snowden: Overreliance on Mass Surveillance Abetted
Boston Marathon Bombing: The former NSA contractor says a focus on mass
surveillance is impeding traditional intelligence-gathering efforts—and allowing terrorists
to succeed”, October 20, 2014, ak.)
Edward Snowden on Monday suggested
that if the National Security Agency focused more on
traditional intelligence gathering—and less on its mass-surveillance programs—it could have
thwarted the 2013 Boston Marathon bombings. The fugitive leaker, speaking via video to a Harvard class, said
that a preoccupation with collecting bulk communications data has led to resource
constraints at U.S. intelligence agencies, often leaving more traditional, targeted methods
of spying on the back burner. "We miss attacks, we miss leads, and investigations fail
because when the government is doing its 'collect it all,' where we're watching everybody,
we're not seeing anything with specificity because it is impossible to keep an eye on all of your
targets," Snowden told Harvard professor and Internet freedom activist Lawrence Lessig. "A good example of this is,
actually, the Boston Marathon bombings." Snowden said that Dzhokhar and Tamerlan Tsarnaev were pointed out
by Russian intelligence to U.S. officials prior to the bombings last year that killed three and left
hundreds wounded, but that such actionable intelligence was largely ignored. He argued that
targeted surveillance on known extremists and diligent pursuit of intelligence leads
provides for better counterterrorism efforts than mass spying. "We didn't really watch
these guys and the question is, why?" Snowden asked. "The reality of that is because we do have
finite resources and the question is, should we be spending 10 billion dollars a year on masssurveillance programs of the NSA to the extent that we no longer have effective means of
traditional [targeting]?" Anti-spying activists have frequently argued that bulk data collection
has no record of successfully thwarting a terrorist attack, a line of argument some federal judges
reviewing the NSA's programs have also used in their legal reviews of the activities. Snowden's suggestion—that such
mass surveillance has not only failed to directly stop a threat, but actually makes the
U.S. less safe by distracting resource-strapped intelligence officials from performing their
jobs—takes his criticism of spy programs to a new level. "We're watching everybody that we have no
reason to be watching simply because it may have value, at the expense of being able to watch
specific people for which we have a specific cause for investigating, and that's something
that we need to look carefully at how to balance," Snowden said
The plan solves1) Leads to the abandonment of wasteful, inefficient mass
surveillance tactics in favor of targeted surveillance
Walt, 14
(Stephen M. Walt is the (real papa Walt) and Robert and Renée Belfer professor of
international relations at Harvard University, “The Big Counterterrorism Counterfactual Is
the NSA actually making us worse at fighting terrorism?”,
http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2014/11/10/counterterrorism_spying_nsa_islamic_
state_terrorist_cve, November 10, 2014, ak.)
The head of the British electronic spy agency GCHQ, Robert Hannigan, created a minor flap last week in an article he
wrote for the Financial Times. In effect, Hannigan argued that more robust encryption procedures by private Internet
companies were unwittingly aiding terrorists such as the Islamic State (IS) or al Qaeda, by making it harder for
organizations like the NSA and GCHQ to monitor online traffic. The implication was clear: The more that our personal
privacy is respected and protected, the greater the danger we will face from evildoers. It's a serious issue, and
democracies that want to respect individual privacy while simultaneously keeping citizens safe are going to have to do a
much better job of reassuring us that vast and (mostly) secret surveillance capabilities overseen by unelected officials
such as Hannigan won't be abused. I tend to favor the privacy side of the argument, both because personal freedoms are
hard to get back once lost, but also because there's not much evidence that these surveillance activities are making us
significantly safer. They seem to be able to help us track some terrorist leaders, but there's a lively debate among
scholars over whether tracking and killing these guys is an effective strategy. The
fear of being tracked also
forces terrorist organizations to adopt less efficient communications procedures, but it
doesn't seem to prevent them from doing a fair bit of harm regardless. The fear of being tracked
also forces terrorist organizations to adopt less efficient communications procedures, but it doesn't seem to prevent them
from doing a fair bit of harm regardless. So here's a wild counterfactual for you to ponder: What
would the United
States, Great Britain, and other wealthy and powerful nations do if they didn't have these
vast surveillance powers? What would they do if they didn't have armed drones, cruise missiles, or
other implements of destruction that can make it remarkably easy (and in the short-term,
relatively cheap) to target anyone they suspect might be a terrorist? Assuming that there were still
violent extremists plotting various heinous acts, what would these powerful states do if the Internet was there but no
one knew how to spy on it? For starters, they'd have to rely more heavily on tried-and-true
counterterrorism measures: infiltrating extremist organizations and flipping existing
members, etc., to find out what they were planning, head attacks off before they occurred, and eventually roll up
organization themselves. States waged plenty of counterterrorism campaigns before the
Internet was invented, and while it can be difficult to infiltrate such movements and find their vulnerable points,
it's not exactly an unknown art. If we couldn't spy on them from the safety of Fort Meade,
we'd probably be doing a lot more of this. Second, if we didn't have all these expensive
high-tech capabilities, we might spend a lot more time thinking about how to discredit
and delegitimize the terrorists' message, instead of repeatedly doing things that help
them make their case and recruit new followers. Every time the United States goes and
pummels another Muslim country -- or sends a drone to conduct a "signature strike" -- it reinforces
the jihadis' claim that the West has an insatiable desire to dominate the Arab and Islamic
world and no respect for Muslim life. It doesn't matter if U.S. leaders have the best of
intentions, if they genuinely want to help these societies, or if they are responding to a
legitimate threat; the crude message that drones, cruise missiles, and targeted killings
send is rather different. If we didn't have all these cool high-tech hammers, in short, we'd
have to stop treating places like Afghanistan, Pakistan, Iraq, and Syria as if they were
nails that just needed another pounding, and we might work harder at marginalizing our
enemies within their own societies. To do that, we would have to be building more effective
partnerships with authoritative sources of legitimacy within these societies, including
religious leaders. Our failure to do more to discredit these movements is perhaps the
single biggest shortcoming of the entire war on terror, and until that failure is recognized
and corrected, the war will never end. Third, and somewhat paradoxically, if we didn't have
drones and the NSA, we'd have to think more seriously about boots on the ground, at least
in some places. But having to think harder about such decisions might be a good thing ,
because it would force the United States (or others) to decide which threats were really
serious and which countries really mattered. It might even lead to the conclusion that any sort of military
intervention is counterproductive. As we've seen over the past decade, what the NSA, CIA, and
Special Ops Command do is in some ways too easy: It just doesn't cost that much to add
a few more names to the kill list, to vacuum up a few more terabytes of data, or to launch a
few more drones in some new country, and all the more so when it's done under the veil of secrecy. I'm not saying
that our current policy is costless or that special operations aren't risky; my point is that such activities are still a
lot easier to contemplate and authorize than a true "boots on the ground" operation. By
making it easier, however, the capabilities make it easier for our leaders to skirt the more fundamental
questions about interests and strategy. It allows them to "do something," even when what is being done
won't necessarily help. Lastly, if U.S. leaders had to think harder about where to deploy
more expensive resources, they might finally start thinking about the broader set of U.S.
and Western policies that have inspired some of these movements in the first place.
Movements like IS, al Qaeda, al-Nusra Front, al-Shabab, or the Taliban are in some ways indigenous
movements arising from local circumstances, but they did not spring up out of nowhere and the United
States (and other countries) bear some (though not all) blame for their emergence and growth. To say this is neither to
there
is a causal connection between some of what we do and some of the enemies we face.
But if some of the things the United States (or its allies) is doing are making it unpopular in
certain parts of the world, and if some of that unpopularity gets translated into violent
extremism that forces us to spend hundreds of billions of dollars trying to protect ourselves,
then maybe we ought to ask ourselves if every single one of those policies makes sense
defend nor justify violent extremism, nor to assert that all U.S. policies are wrong; it is merely to acknowledge that
and is truly consistent with U.S. interests and values. And if not, then maybe we ought to change some of them, if only to
take some steam out of the extremist enterprise. What I'm suggesting, in short, is that the
"surveil and strike"
mentality that has dominated the counterterrorism effort (and which is clearly reflected in Hannigan's
plea to let Big Brother -- oops, I mean the NSA and GCHQ -- keep its eyes on our communications) is popular with
government officials because it's relatively easy, plays to our technological strengths, and
doesn't force us to make any significant foreign-policy changes or engage in any sort of self-criticism at
all. If we can solve the terrorist problem by throwing money at it, and enriching some defense contractors and former
government officials in the process, what's not to like? If we can solve the terrorist problem by throwing money at it, and
enriching some defense contractors and former government officials in the process, what's not to like? To be clear: I'm not
suggesting we dismantle the NSA, fire all our cryptographers, and revert to Cordell Hull's quaint belief that "gentlemen [or
ladies] do not read each other's mail." But until
we see more convincing evidence that the
surveillance of the sort Hannigan was defending has really and truly kept a significant number of
people safer from foreign dangers, I'm going to wonder if we aren't overemphasizing these
activities because they are relatively easy for us, and because they have a powerful but hard-tomonitor constituency in Washington and London. In short, we're just doing what comes naturally, instead
of doing what might be more effective.
2) That prevents tradeoffs with human-intel which is critical to
overall US intel.
Margolis ‘13
Gabriel Margolis – the author presently holds a Master of Arts (MA) in Conflict Management & Resolution
from UNC Wilmington and in his final semester of the program when this article was published in the peerreviewed journal Global Security Studies . Global Security Studies (GSS) is a premier academic and
professional journal for strategic issues involving international security affairs. All articles submitted to and
published in Global Security Studies (GSS) undergo a rigorous, peer-reviewed process. From the article:
“The Lack of HUMINT: A Recurring Intelligence Problem” - Global Security Studies - Spring 2013, Volume 4,
Issue 2http://globalsecuritystudies.com/Margolis%20Intelligence%20(ag%20edits).pdf
The United States has accumulated an unequivocal ability to collect intelligence as a result of the technological
advances of the 20th century. Numerous methods of collection have been employed in clandestine
operations around the world including those that focus on human, signals, geospatial, and
measurements and signals intelligence. An infatuation with technological methods of
intelligence gathering has developed within many intelligence organizations, often leaving the age old
practice of espionage as an afterthought. As a result of the focus on technical methods, some of the
worst intelligence failures of the 20th century can be attributed to an absence of human
intelligence. The 21st century has ushered in advances in technology have allowed UAVs to become
the ultimate technical intelligence gathering platform; however human intelligence is still being
neglected. The increasing reliance on UAVs will make the United States susceptible to
intelligence failures unless human intelligence can be properly integrated. In the near future UAVs
may be able to gather human level intelligence, but it will be a long time before classical espionage is a thing of the past.
Funding alone can’t solve
Tufekci ‘15
Zeynep Tufekci is a fellow at the Center for Information Technology Policy at Princeton University, an
assistant professor at the School of Information and Department of Sociology at the University of North
Carolina, and a faculty associate at the Harvard Berkman Center for Internet and Society. “Terror and the
limits of mass surveillance” – Financial Times’ The Exchange - Feb 3rd http://blogs.ft.com/theexchange/2015/02/03/zeynep-tufekci-terror-and-the-limits-of-mass-surveillance/
The most common justification given by governments for mass surveillance is that these tools
are indispensable for fighting terrorism. The NSA’s ex-director Keith Alexander says big data is “what it’s all
about”. Intelligence agencies routinely claim that they need massive amounts of data on all of us to catch the bad guys, like the French
brothers who assassinated the cartoonists of Charlie Hebdo, or the murderers of Lee Rigby, the British soldier killed by two men who
But the assertion that big data
is “what it’s all about” when it comes to predicting rare events is not supported by what we know about how
these methods work, and more importantly, don’t work. Analytics on massive datasets can be powerful
in analysing and identifying broad patterns, or events that occur regularly and frequently, but are singularly
unsuited to finding unpredictable, erratic, and rare needles in huge haystacks. In fact, the bigger the haystack
— the more massive the scale and the wider the scope of the surveillance — the less suited these
methods are to finding such exceptional events, and the more they may serve to direct resources
and attention away from appropriate tools and methods. After Rigby was killed, GCHQ, Britain’s intelligence service,
claimed the act was revenge for the UK’s involvement in the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.
was criticised by many for failing to stop his killers, Michael Adebolajo and Michael Adebowale. A lengthy parliamentary inquiry was
conducted, resulting in a 192-page report that lists all the ways in which Adebolajo and Adebowale had brushes with data surveillance, but
were not flagged as two men who were about to kill a soldier on a London street. GCHQ defended itself by saying that some of the crucial
online exchanges had taken place on a platform, believed to be Facebook, which had not alerted the agency about these men, or the
nature of their postings. The men apparently had numerous exchanges that were extremist in nature, and their accounts were suspended
repeatedly by the platform for violating its terms of service. “If only Facebook had turned over more data,” the thinking goes. But that is
misleading, and makes sense only with the benefit of hindsight. Seeking larger volumes of data, such as asking Facebook to alert
intelligence agencies every time that it detects a post containing violence, would deluge the agencies with multiple false leads that would
lead to a data quagmire, rather than clues to impending crimes. For
big data analytics to work, there needs to be
a reliable connection between the signal (posting of violent content) and the event (killing someone).
Otherwise, the signal is worse than useless. Millions of Facebook’s billion-plus users post violent content every day,
ranging from routinised movie violence to atrocious violent rhetoric. Turning over the data from all such occurrences would
merely flood the agencies with “false positives” — erroneous indications for events that actually will not happen.
Such data overload is not without cost, as it takes time and effort to sift through these millions of strands of hay to confirm that
they are, indeed, not needles — especially when we don’t even know what needles look like. All that the investigators would have would be
a lot of open leads with no resolution, taking away
resources from any real investigation. Besides, account
suspensions carried out by platforms like Facebook’s are haphazard, semi-automated and unreliable indicators. The flagging system
misses a lot more violent content than it flags, and it often flags content as inappropriate even when it is not, and suffers from many biases.
Relying on such a haphazard system is not a reasonable path at all. So is all the hype around big data analytics unjustified? Yes and no.
There are appropriate use cases for which massive datasets are intensely useful, and perform much better than any alternative we can
imagine using conventional methods. Successful examples include using Google searches to figure out drug interactions that would be too
complex and too numerous to analyse one clinical trial at a time, or using social media to detect national-level swings in our mood (we are
indeed happier on Fridays than on Mondays). In contrast, consider the “lone wolf” attacker who took hostages at, of all things, a “Lindt
Chocolat Café” in Sydney. Chocolate shops are not regular targets of political violence, and random, crazed men attacking them is not a
pattern on which we can base further identification. Yes, the Sydney attacker claimed jihadi ideology and brought a black flag with Islamic
writing on it, but given the rarity of such events, it’s not always possible to separate the jihadi rhetoric from issues of mental health — every
era’s mentally ill are affected by the cultural patterns around them. This isn’t a job for big data analytics. (The fact that the gunman was on
bail facing various charges and was known for sending hate letters to the families of Australian soldiers killed overseas suggests it was a
job for traditional policing). When confronted with their failures in predicting those rare acts of domestic terrorism, here’s what GCHQ, and
indeed the
NSA, should have said instead of asking for increased surveillance capabilities: stop asking us to collect
more and more data to perform an impossible task. This glut of data is making our job harder, not
easier, and the expectation that there will never be such incidents, ever, is not realistic.
HUMINT key to success to counter state and non-state threats.
Wilkinson ‘13
Kevin R. Wilkinson – United States Army War College. The author is a former Counterintelligence Company
Commander, 205th Military Intelligence Battalion. This thesis paper was overseen by Professor Charles D.
Allen of the Department of Command Leadership and Management. This manuscript is submitted in partial
fulfillment of the requirements of the Master of Strategic Studies Degree. The U.S. Army War College is
accredited by the Commission on Higher Education of the Middle States Association of Colleges and
Schools – “Unparalleled Need: Human Intelligence Collectors in the United States Army” - March 2013 http://www.dtic.mil/cgi-bin/GetTRDoc?AD=ADA590270
In the twenty-first century, the role of HUMINT is more important than ever. As employed during
the Cold War, a significant portion of intelligence was collected using SIGINT and GEOINT methods. The COE assessment now discerns a
hybrid threat encompassing both conventional and asymmetric warfare, which is difficult to obtain using SIGINT and GEOINT alone.
Unlike other intelligence collection disciplines, environmental conditions such as weather or terrain do
not hinder HUMINT collectors.12 HUMINT collection played a key role during Operation IRAQI FREEDOM. OIF was initially a
force-on-force ground war using traditional maneuver forces. After six months of conventional conflict and on the verge of
defeat, the Iraqi armed forces, with the assistance of insurgents, employed asymmetrical warfare. The continuation of
conventional warfare paired with the asymmetric threat created a hybrid threat. HUMINT is effective when
countering a conventional threat that consists of large signatures, such as discerning troop movement. However, it
becomes invaluable when presented with an asymmetrical threat that entails a smaller
signature, such as focusing on groups of insurgents, which other intelligence collection
disciplines cannot solely collect on.
BW and nuclear use coming. HUMINT key to stay-ahead of these
risks.
Johnson ‘9
Dr. Loch K. Johnson is Regents Professor of Political Science at the University of Georgia. He is editor of
the journal "Intelligence and National Security" and has written numerous books on American foreign policy.
Dr. Johnson served as staff director of the House Subcommittee on Intelligence Oversight from 1977 to
1979. Dr. Johnson earned his Ph.D. in political science from the University of California at Riverside.
"Evaluating "Humint": The Role of Foreign Agents in U.S. Security" Paper presented at the annual meeting
of the ISA's 50th ANNUAL CONVENTION "EXPLORING THE PAST, ANTICIPATING THE FUTURE", New
York Marriott Marquis, NEW YORK CITY, NY, USA, Feb 15, 2009 – available via:
http://citation.allacademic.com/meta/p_mla_apa_research_citation/3/1/0/6/6/p310665_index.html
The world is a dangerous place, plagued by the presence of terrorist cells; failed or failing states; competition for
scarce resources, such as oil, water, uranium, and food; chemical, biological, and nuclear
weapons, not to mention bristling arsenals of conventional armaments; and deep-seated animosities between rival
nations and factions. For self-protection, if for no other reason, government officials leaders seek information about the
capabilities and—an especially elusive topic—the intentions of those overseas (or subversives at home)
who can inflict harm upon the nation. That is the core purpose of espionage: to gather information
about threats, whether external or internal, and to warn leaders about perils facing the homeland. Further, the secret services hope to provide
leaders with data that can help advance the national interest—the opportunity side of the security
equation. Through the practice of espionage—spying or clandestine human intelligence: whichever is one's
favorite term—the central task, stated baldly, is to steal secrets from adversaries as a means for achieving a
more thorough understanding of threats and opportunities in the world. National governments study
information that is available in the public domain (Chinese newspapers, for example), but knowledge gaps
are bound to arise. A favorite metaphor for intelligence is the jigsaw puzzle. Many of the pieces to the puzzle are available in the stacks of the
Library of Congress or on the Internet; nevertheless, there will continue to be several missing pieces—perhaps the
most important ones. They may be hidden away in Kremlin vaults or in caves where members of Al Qaeda hunker down in Pakistan's western
frontier. The public pieces of the puzzle can be acquired through careful research; but often discovery of the missing secret pieces has
to rely on spying, if they can be found at all. Some things— "mysteries" in the argot of intelligence professionals—are unknowable in any definitive
way, such as who is likely to replace the current leader of North Korea. Secrets, in contrast, may be uncovered with a combination of luck and skill—say, the
Espionage can be pursued by way of
human agents or with machines, respectively known inside America's secret agencies as
human intelligence ("humint," in the acronym) and technical intelligence ("techint"). Humint consists of spy rings that rely on foreign agents
number of Chinese nuclear-armed submarines, which are vulnerable to satellite and sonar tracking.
or "assets" in the field, recruited by intelligence professionals (known as case officers during the Cold War or. in more current jargon, operations officers). _
Techint includes mechanical devises large and small, including satellites the size of Greyhound buses, equipped with fancy cameras
and listening devices that can see and hear acutely from orbits deep in space; reconnaissance aircraft, most famously the U-2; unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs)
or drones, such as the Predator—often armed with Hellfire missiles, allowing the option to kill what its handlers have just spotted through the lens of an onboard
camera); enormous ground-based listening antennae, aimed at enemy territory: listening devices clamped surreptitiously on fiber-optic communications cables that
Techint
attracts the most funding in Washington, D.C. (machines are costly, especially heavy satellites that must be launched into
carry telephone conversations; and miniature listening "bugs" concealed within sparkling cut-glass chandeliers in foreign embassies or palaces.
space), by a ratio of some nine-to-one over humint in America's widely estimated S50 billion annual intelligence budget. Human spies, though, continue to be
recruited by the United States in most every region of the globe. Some critics contend that these spies contribute little to the knowledge of Washington officials
only human agents can provide insights into
that most vital of all national security questions: the intentions of one's rivals— especially
those adversaries who are well armed and hostile. The purpose of this essay is to examine the value of humint, based
about the state of international affairs; other authorities maintain, though, that
on a review7 of the research literature on intelligence, survey data, and the author's interviews with individuals in the espionage trade. The essay is organized in
the following manner: it opens with a primer on the purpose, structure, and methods of humint; then examines some empirical data on its value; surveys more
broadly the pros and cons of this approach to spying; and concludes with an overall judgment about the value of agents for a nation's security.
Those impacts cause extinction.
Ochs ‘2
Richard - Chemical Weapons Working Group Member - “Biological Weapons must be Abolished
Immediately,” June 9, http://www.freefromterror.net/other_.../abolish.html]
the genetically engineered biological weapons, many without a known
cure or vaccine, are an extreme danger to the continued survival of life on earth. Any perceived
Of all the weapons of mass destruction,
military value or deterrence pales in comparison to the great risk these weapons pose just sitting in vials in laboratories. While a "nuclear
winter," resulting from a massive exchange of nuclear weapons, could also kill off most of life on earth and severely compromise the health
of future generations, they are easier to control. Biological weapons, on the other hand, can
get out of control very
easily, as the recent anthrax attacks has demonstrated. There is no way to guarantee the security of these doomsday weapons because
very tiny amounts can be stolen or accidentally released and then grow or be grown to horrendous proportions. The Black Death of the
Middle Ages would be small in comparison to the potential damage bioweapons could cause. Abolition of chemical weapons is less of a
priority because, while they can also kill millions of people outright, their persistence in the environment would be less than nuclear or
biological agents or more localized. Hence, chemical weapons would have a lesser effect on future generations of innocent people and the
natural environment. Like the Holocaust, once a localized chemical extermination is over, it is over. With
nuclear and
biological weapons, the killing will probably never end. Radioactive elements last tens of
thousands of years and will keep causing cancers virtually forever. Potentially worse than that, bioengineered agents by the hundreds with no known cure could wreck even greater calamity on the human
race than could persistent radiation. AIDS and ebola viruses are just a small example of recently emerging plagues with no known cure or
vaccine. Can we imagine hundreds of such plagues? HUMAN
EXTINCTION IS NOW POSSIBLE.
Accumulo fails – Boston Marathon proves it doesn’t find the needle.
Konkel ‘13
Frank Konkel is the editorial events editor for Government Executive Media Group and a technology
journalist for its publications. He writes about emerging technologies, privacy, cybersecurity, policy and other
issues at the intersection of government and technology. He began writing about technology at Federal
Computer Week. Frank is a graduate of Michigan State University. “NSA shows how big 'big data' can be” FCW - Federal Computer Week is a magazine covering technology - Jun 13, 2013 http://fcw.com/articles/2013/06/13/nsa-big-data.aspx?m=1
As reported by Information Week, the NSA relies heavily on Accumulo, "a highly distributed, massively parallel
processing key/value store capable of analyzing structured and unstructured data" to process much of its data. NSA's modified version of
Accumulo, based on Google's BigTable data model, reportedly makes it possible for the agency to
analyze data for patterns while protecting personally identifiable information – names, Social Security numbers and the like. Before
news of Prism broke, NSA officials revealed a graph search it operates on top of Accumulo at a Carnegie Melon tech conference. The
graph is based on 4.4 trillion data points, which could represent phone numbers, IP addresses, locations, or calls made and to whom;
connecting those points creates a graph with more than 70 trillion edges. For a human being, that kind of visualization is impossible, but for
a vast, high-end computer system with the right big data tools and mathematical algorithms, some signals can be pulled out. Rep. Mike
Rogers (R-Mich.), chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, publicly stated that the government's collection of phone records
thwarted a terrorist plot inside the United States "within the last few years," and other media reports have cited anonymous intelligence
insiders claiming several plots have been foiled. Needles
in endless haystacks of data are not easy to find, and
current big data analytics methodology is far from a flawless system, as evidenced by the
April 15 Boston Marathon bombings that killed three people and injured more than 200. The bombings were
carried out by Chechen brothers Dzhokhar and Tamerlan Tsarnaev, the latter of whom
was previously interviewed by the Federal Bureau of Investigation after the Russian Federal Security
Service notified the agency in 2011 that he was a follower of radical Islam. The brothers had made threats on
Twitter prior to their attack as well, meaning several data points of suspicious behavior
existed, yet no one detected a pattern in time to prevent them from setting off bombs in a public place filled with
the NSA's
people. "We're still in the genesis of big data, we haven't even scratched the surface yet," said big data expert Ari Zoldan, CEO of NewYork-based Quantum Networks. "In
many ways, the technology hasn't evolved yet, it's still a new industry."
Accumulo doesn’t solve privacy – it can’t keep info secure on its own
Pontius ‘14
Brandon H. Pontius. The author holds a B.S. from Louisiana State University and an M.B.A., Louisiana State
University. The author wrote this piece in partial fulfillment of a MASTER OF SCIENCE IN COMPUTER
SCIENCE from the NAVAL POSTGRADUATE SCHOOL. The thesis advisor that reviewed this piece is Mark
Gondree, PhD. Gondree is a security researcher associated with the Computer Science Dept at the Naval
Postgraduate School – “INFORMATION SECURITY CONSIDERATIONS FOR APPLICATIONS USING
APACHE ACCUMULO” - September 2014 http://calhoun.nps.edu/bitstream/handle/10945/43980/14Sep_Pontius_Brandon.pdf?sequence=1
NoSQL databases
are gaining popularity due to their ability to store and process large
heterogeneous data sets more efficiently than relational databases. Apache Accumulo is a NoSQL database
that introduced a unique information security feature—cell-level access control. We study Accumulo to examine its
cell-level access control policy enforcement mechanism. We survey existing Accumulo applications, focusing on
Koverse as a case study to model the interaction between Accumulo and a client application. We conclude with a discussion of potential
security concerns for Accumulo applications. We argue that Accumulo’s cell-level access control can assist developers in creating a
stronger information security policy, but Accumulo cannot provide security—particularly enforcement of
information flow policies—on its own. Furthermore, popular patterns for interaction between Accumulo and its clients
require diligence on the part of developers, which may otherwise lead to unexpected behavior that undermines
system policy. We highlight some undesirable but reasonable confusions stemming from the semantic gap between cell-level and
table-level policies, and between policies for end-users and Accumulo clients.
Contention 2 Global Internet Freedom
New Freedom Act decimates U.S Credibility- loopholes, leniency and
linguistic ambiguities
Brinkerhoff ’14 [Internally quoting Cynthia M. Wong is the senior researcher on the Internet and human rights for Human
Rights Watch. Before joining Human Rights Watch, Wong worked as an attorney at the Center for Democracy & Technology (CDT) and as
director of their Project on Global Internet Freedom. She conducted much of the organization’s work promoting global Internet freedom,
with a particular focus on international free expression and privacy. She also served as co-chair of the Policy & Learning Committee of the
Global Network Initiative (GNI), a multi-stakeholder organization that advances corporate responsibility and human rights in the technology
sector. Prior to joining CDT, Wong was the Robert L. Bernstein International Human Rights Fellow at Human Rights in China (HRIC).
There, she contributed to the organization’s work in the areas of business and human rights and freedom of expression online. Wong
earned her law degree from New York University School of Law. Human Rights Watch is an independent, international organization that
works as part of a vibrant movement to uphold human dignity and advance the cause of human rights for all. Noel Brinkerhoff is a Political
reporter and writer covering state and national politics for 15 years. “With Support of Obama Administration, House NSA Surveillance
Reform Bill Includes Gaping Loopholes” – AllGov – May 26th - http://www.allgov.com/news/top-stories/with-support-of-obamaadministration-house-nsa-surveillance-reform-bill-includes-gaping-loopholes-140526?news=853242]
Lawmakers in the U.S. House of Representatives claim they have addressed the problems of the National
Security Agency’s (NSA) notorious bulk collection of data, made so famous last year by whistleblower
Edward Snowden. But the legislation adopted to end this controversial practice contains
huge loopholes that could allow the NSA to keep vacuuming up large amounts of
Americans’ communications records, all with the blessing of the Obama administration. Dubbed the USA
Freedom Act, the bill overwhelmingly approved by the House (303 to 121) was criticized for not going
far enough to keep data out of the hands of government. “This so-called reform bill won’t restore the trust of
Internet users in the U.S. and around the world,” Cynthia Wong, senior Internet researcher at Human Rights
Watch (HRW), said. “Until Congress passes real reform, U.S. credibility and leadership on
Internet freedom will continue to fade.” Julian Sanchez, a researcher at the Cato Institute, a libertarian think tank,
warned that the changes could mean the continuation of bulk collection of phone records by another name. “The core problem
is that this only ends ‘bulk’ collection in the sense the intelligence community uses that
term,” Sanchez told Wired. “As long as there’s some kind of target, they don’t call that bulk
collection, even if you’re still collecting millions of records…If they say ‘give us the record
of everyone who visited these thousand websites,’ that’s not bulk collection, because
they have a list of targets.” HRW says the bill, which now goes to the Senate for consideration, contains
ambiguous definitions about what can and cannot be collected by the agency. For instance, an earlier version more
clearly defined the scope of what the NSA could grab under Section 215 of the Patriot Act, which has formed
the legal basis for gathering the metadata of phone calls. “Under an earlier version of the USA Freedom Act,
the government would have been required to base any demand for phone metadata or
other records on a “specific selection term” that “uniquely describe[s] a person, entity, or
account.” Under the House version, this definition was broadened to mean “a discrete term,
such as a term specifically identifying a person, entity, account, address, or device, used by the government to limit the scope” of
information sought,” according to Human Rights Watch. “This
definition is too open-ended and ambiguous to
prevent the sort of creative interpretation by intelligence agencies that has been used to justify overbroad collection
practices in the past,” the group claims. The New America Foundation’s Open Technology Institute is similarly disappointed in
the final House bill. “Taken together,” the Institute wrote, “the changes to this definition may still allow for
massive collection of millions of Americans’ private information based on very broad
selection terms such as a zip code, an area code, the physical address of a particular email provider or
financial institution, or the IP address of a web hosting service that hosts thousands of web
sites.”
Global Internet freedom declining now
Mullins ‘13
Dexter Mullins is a multimedia producer at The Wall Street Journal Digital Network. Prior to that, he worked
as a line producer, studio P.A., Desk Reporter and newsroom assistant at NBC Nightly News. Dexter has a
bachelor’s degree from North Carolina A&T in print journalism and a master’s in digital media from Columbia
Journalism School. “Internet freedom in 'global decline,' report finds” – Al Jazeera America – Oct 3rd http://america.aljazeera.com/articles/2013/10/3/report-shows-declineininternetfreedomin35countries.html
Internet freedom in countries around the world has declined sharply in the past year despite a
pushback from activists that successfully blocked some governments’ repressive laws, according to a new report. The
study, by advocacy group Freedom House, looked at online trends in 60 countries, evaluating each
nation them based on obstacles to access, limits to content and violations of user rights. It found that in 35 of the countries
monitored, governments had expanded their legal and technical surveillance powers in regards to
citizen's online activities. “Broad surveillance, new laws controlling web content and growing arrests of social media
users drove a worldwide decline in Internet freedom in the past year ,” the authors of the report concluded.
Of the countries included in the research, Iceland came top in terms of giving its citizens the highest level of freedom. China, Cuba and Iran
were listed as the most restrictive for a second consecutive year. The report noted that declines in online freedom in three democracies –
Brazil, India and the United States – were “especially troubling”. Revelations
by former National Security Agency contractor
have ignited a global debate about the U.S. government's domestic
surveillance activities, and the report says the changes in U.S. online freedom are on a
"significant" negative trajectory. Despite a 5-point decline in its score as a result of its controversial domestic
spying, the U.S. still made it to fourth in Freedom House’s list. A growing fear of social
media being used to organize national protests led many governments to pass laws restricting freedom
of expression online, the report notes. Since May 2012, 24 countries have adopted some form of
legislation restricting internet freedom. Bangladesh imposed a prison sentence of 14
years on a group of bloggers for writing posts criticizing Islam. At least 10 people were
arrested in Bahrain for "insulting the king on Twitter," an 18-year-old in Morocco was
sentenced to 18 months in prison for "attacking the nation's sacred values" over a
Facebook post that allegedly ridiculed the king, and a woman in India was arrested for
"liking" a friends Facebook status.
Edward Snowden
The US can alter global practices that threaten internet freedom – but
only when US image is seen as less hypocritical.
Wong ’13 [Cynthia M. Wong is the senior researcher on the Internet and human rights for Human Rights Watch. Before joining
Human Rights Watch, Wong worked as an attorney at the Center for Democracy & Technology (CDT) and as director of their Project on
Global Internet Freedom. She conducted much of the organization’s work promoting global Internet freedom, with a particular focus on
international free expression and privacy. She also served as co-chair of the Policy & Learning Committee of the Global Network Initiative
(GNI), a multi-stakeholder organization that advances corporate responsibility and human rights in the technology sector. Prior to joining
CDT, Wong was the Robert L. Bernstein International Human Rights Fellow at Human Rights in China (HRIC). There, she contributed to
the organization’s work in the areas of business and human rights and freedom of expression online. Wong earned her law degree from
New York University School of Law – “Surveillance and the Corrosion of Internet Freedom” - July 30, 2013 - Published in: The Huffington
Post and also available at the HRW website at this address: http://www.hrw.org/news/2013/07/30/surveillance-and-corrosion-internetfreedom]
Defenders of US and UK surveillance programs argue that collecting metadata is not as problematic
as “listening to the content of people’s phone calls” or reading emails. This is misleading. Technologists have long recognized that metadata can
reveal incredibly sensitive information, especially if it is collected at large scale over long periods of time, since digitized data can be easily combined and
The revelations have also exposed glaring contradictions about the US Internet freedom
agenda. This has emboldened the Chinese state media, for example, to cynically denounce US hypocrisy, even as the Chinese government continues to
censor the Internet, infringe on privacy rights, and curb anonymity online. Though there is hypocrisy on both sides, the widening rift between
analyzed.
US values and actions has real, unintended human rights consequences. For the human rights movement, the
Internet’s impact on rights crystalized in 2005 after we learned that Yahoo! uncritically turned user account
information over to the Chinese government, leading to a 10-year prison sentence for the journalist Shi Tao. The US
government forcefully objected to the Chinese government’s actions and urged the tech industry to act
responsibly. In the end, that incident catalyzed a set of new human rights standards that pushed some
companies to improve safeguards for user privacy in the face of government demands
for data. US support was critical back then, but it is hard to imagine the government having the
same influence or credibility now. The mass surveillance scandal has damaged the US government’s
ability to press for better corporate practices as technology companies expand globally. It
will also be more difficult for companies to resist overbroad surveillance mandates if they
are seen as complicit in mass US infringements on privacy. Other governments will feel
more entitled to ask for the same cooperation that the US receives. We can also expect governments around the
world to pressure companies to store user data locally or maintain a local presence so that governments can more easily access it, as Brazil and Russia are now
there is reason to worry about the broader precedent
the US has set. Just months before the NSA scandal broke, India began rolling out a centralized system to monitor
all phone and Internet communications in the country, without much clarity on safeguards
to protect rights. This development is chilling, considering the government’s problematic use of sedition and Internet laws in recent arrests. Over the
last few weeks, Turkish officials have condemned social media as a key tool for Gezi Park protesters. Twitter has drawn
particular ire. Now the government is preparing new regulations that would make it easier to
get data from Internet companies and identify individual users online. The Obama administration and US companies could
have been in a strong position to push back in India and Turkey. Instead, the US has
provided these governments with a roadmap for conducting secret, mass surveillance and
conscripting the help of the private sector.
debating. While comparisons to the Chinese government are overstated,
Only protections specified in the original Freedom Act solve
Ries ’14 [Internally quoting Zeke Johnson, director of Amnesty International's Security & Human Rights Program. Also internally
quoting Cynthia M. Wong is the senior researcher on the Internet and human rights for Human Rights Watch. Before joining Human Rights
Watch, Wong worked as an attorney at the Center for Democracy & Technology (CDT) and as director of their Project on Global Internet
Freedom. She conducted much of the organization’s work promoting global Internet freedom, with a particular focus on international free
expression and privacy. She also served as co-chair of the Policy & Learning Committee of the Global Network Initiative (GNI), a multistakeholder organization that advances corporate responsibility and human rights in the technology sector. Prior to joining CDT, Wong was
the Robert L. Bernstein International Human Rights Fellow at Human Rights in China (HRIC). There, she contributed to the organization’s
work in the areas of business and human rights and freedom of expression online. Wong earned her law degree from New York University
School of Law. Also internally quoting Center for Democracy and Technology Senior Counsel Harley Geiger – Brian Ries is Mashable’s
Real-Time News Editor. Prior to working at Mashable, Brian was Social Media Editor at Newsweek & The Daily Beast, responsible for using
Twitter, Facebook, and Tumblr to cover revolutions, disasters, and presidential elections. During his time at The Daily Beast, he contributed
to a team that won two Webby Awards for “Best News Site”. “Critics Slam 'Watered-Down' Surveillance Bill That Congress Just Passed” Mashable - May 22, 2014 – http://mashable.com/2014/05/22/congress-nsa-surveillance-bill/]
of its initial supporters pulled their support. “We supported the original USA
Freedom act, even though it didn’t do much for non-US persons,” Zeke Johnson, director of
Amnesty International's Security & Human Rights Program told Mashable after
Thursday's vote. He described the original version as “a good step to end bulk collection.”
However, in its current version, it's not even clear that this bill does that at all, Johnson said. He
added that Congress left a lot of "wiggle room" in the bill — something he said is a real
problem. "Where there is vagueness in a law, you can count on the administration to exploit it," Johnson
As a result, many
said. However, Laura W. Murphy, director of the ACLU Washington Legislative Office, took a more positive view of the bill. "While far from
perfect, this bill is an unambiguous statement of congressional intent to rein in the out-of-control NSA," she said in a statement. "While we
share the concerns of many — including members of both parties who rightly believe the bill does not go far enough — without it we would
be left with no reform at all, or worse, a House Intelligence Committee bill that would have cemented bulk collection of Americans’
communications into law." The Electronic Frontier Foundation simply called it "a weak attempt at NSA reform." “The
ban on bulk
collection was deliberately watered down to be ambiguous and exploitable,” said Center for
Democracy and Technology Senior Counsel Harley Geiger. “We
withdrew support for USA FREEDOM when
the bill morphed into a codification of large-scale, untargeted collection of data about
Americans with no connection to a crime or terrorism.” And Cynthia Wong, senior Internet
researcher at Human Rights Watch, said, “This so-called reform bill won’t restore the trust of
Internet users in the US and around the world. Until Congress passes real reform, U.S. credibility
and leadership on Internet freedom will continue to fade.”
Internet freedom sustains global economy, but U.S credibility vital for
national initiative push
Kalathil ’10 [Shanthi Kalathil - Adjunct Faculty and Adjunct Lecturer in the Communication, Culture, and Technology (CCT)
Master of Arts Program at Georgetown University. Kalathil has extensive experience advising the U.S. government, international
organizations and nonprofits on supporting civil society, independent media, technology, transparency and accountability. Previously a
senior Democracy Fellow at the U.S. Agency for International Development and she has authored or edited numerous policy and scholarly
publications, including the edited volume Diplomacy, Development and Security in the Information Age. She has taught courses on
international relations in the information age at the Monterey Institute of International Studies and Georgetown University. Kalathil holds
degrees from U.C. Berkeley and the London School of Economics and Political Science – “Internet Freedom: A Background Paper” –
October 2010 - Available via:
http://www.aspeninstitute.org/sites/default/files/content/images/Internet_Freedom_A_Background_Paper_0.pdf]
As use of the Internet has grown exponentially around the world, so too have concerns about
its defining attribute as a free and open means of communication. Around the world,
countries, companies and citizens are grappling with thorny issues of free expression, censorship and
trust. With starkly different visions for the Internet developing, this era presents challenges—and
also opportunities—for those who wish to ensure the Internet remains a backbone of liberty and
economic growth. U.S. officials have made clear their vision for the Internet’s future. President
Obama, in a speech before the UN General Assembly, said that the U.S. is committed to promoting new
communication tools, “so that people are empowered to connect with one another and, in repressive
societies, to do so with security. We will support a free and open Internet, so individuals have the information to make up their own
minds.” His words were reinforced by FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski: “It is essential that we preserve the open
Internet and stand firmly behind the right of all people to connect with one another and to exchange ideas freely and without fear.”1
Indeed, a free, widely accessible Internet stands at the heart of both global communication and global
commerce. Internet freedom enables dialogue and direct diplomacy between people and civilizations, facilitating the
exchange of ideas and culture while bolstering trade and economic growth. Conversely, censorship and other
blockages stifle both expression and innovation. When arbitrary rules privilege some and not others, the
investment climate suffers. Nor can access be expanded if end users have no trust in the network. However, making reality live up to
aspirations for Internet freedom can prove difficult. Numerous global
initiatives—spearheaded by governments, private sector and
enshrine the norms, principles and standards that will ensure the Internet
remains a public space for free expression. At the same time, other norms are fast
arising—particularly those defined by authoritarian countries that wish to splinter the Internet into
independently controlled fiefdoms. Even as Internet access has expanded around the world, many
governments are attempting to control, regulate and censor the Internet in all its forms: blogs, mobile
communication, social media, etc. Such governments have devoted vast resources to shaping the
Internet’s development within their own borders, and they are now seeking to shape the
Internet outside their borders as well. Indeed, Internet experts are worried that national governments of all stripes will
increasingly seek to extend their regulatory authority over the global Internet, culminating in a balkanized Internet
with limited interoperability. Hence, the next few years present a distinct window of
opportunity to elevate the principles of the free exchange of ideas, knowledge and commerce on the Internet. While
U.S. leadership within this window is vital, a global effort is necessary to ensure that these norms
become a standard part of the Internet’s supporting architecture.
civil society—are attempting to
Economic decline causes war – studies prove
Royal ‘10
(Jedediah, Director of Cooperative Threat Reduction at the U.S. Department of Defense, 2010, Economic Integration,
Economic Signaling and the Problem of Economic Crises, in Economics of War and Peace: Economic, Legal and Political
Perspectives, ed. Goldsmith and Brauer, p. 213-215)
Less intuitive is how periods of economic decline may increase the likelihood of external
conflict. Political science literature has contributed a moderate degree of attention to the impact of economic decline
and the security and defence behaviour of interdependent stales. Research in this vein has been considered at systemic,
dyadic and national levels. Several notable contributions follow. First, on the systemic level. Pollins (20081 advances
rhythms in the global economy
are associated with the rise and fall of a pre-eminent power and the often bloody
transition from one pre-eminent leader to the next. As such, exogenous shocks such as
economic crises could usher in a redistribution of relative power (see also Gilpin. 19SJ) that
leads to uncertainty about power balances, increasing the risk of miscalculation (Fcaron.
1995). Alternatively, even a relatively certain redistribution of power could lead to a permissive
environment for conflict as a rising power may seek to challenge a declining power
Modclski and Thompson's (1996) work on leadership cycle theory, finding that
(Werner. 1999). Separately. Pollins (1996) also shows that global economic cycles combined with parallel leadership
cycles impact the likelihood of conflict among major, medium and small powers, although he suggests that the causes and
connections between global economic conditions and security conditions remain unknown. Second, on a dyadic level.
Copeland's (1996. 2000) theory of trade expectations suggests that 'future expectation of trade' is a significant variable in
understanding economic conditions and security behaviour of states. He argues that interdependent states arc likely to
if the
expectations of future trade decline, particularly for difficult to replace items such as
energy resources, the likelihood for conflict increases, as states will be inclined to use
force to gain access to those resources. Crises could potentially be the trigger for decreased trade
expectations either on its own or because it triggers protectionist moves by interdependent states.4 Third, others have
considered the link between economic decline and external armed conflict at a national
level. Mom berg and Hess (2002) find a strong correlation between internal conflict and
external conflict, particularly during periods of economic downturn. They write. The linkage,
between internal and external conflict and prosperity are strong and mutually reinforcing .
Economic conflict lends to spawn internal conflict, which in turn returns the favour.
Moreover, the presence of a recession tends to amplify the extent to which international
and external conflicts self-reinforce each other (Hlomhen? & Hess. 2(102. p. X9> Economic
decline has also been linked with an increase in the likelihood of terrorism (Blombcrg. Hess. &
Wee ra pan a, 2004). which has the capacity to spill across borders and lead to external
tensions. Furthermore, crises generally reduce the popularity of a sitting government.
"Diversionary theory" suggests that, when facing unpopularity arising from economic
decline, sitting governments have increased incentives to fabricate external military
conflicts to create a 'rally around the flag' effect. Wang (1996), DcRoucn (1995), and Blombcrg. Hess,
gain pacific benefits from trade so long as they have an optimistic view of future trade relations. However,
and Thacker (2006) find supporting evidence showing that economic decline and use of force arc at least indirecti)
correlated. Gelpi (1997). Miller (1999). and Kisangani and Pickering (2009) suggest that Ihe tendency towards
diversionary tactics arc greater for democratic states than autocratic states, due to the fact that democratic leaders are
generally more susceptible to being removed from office due to lack of domestic support. DeRouen (2000) has provided
evidence showing that periods of weak economic performance in the United States, and thus weak Presidential popularity,
economic scholarship positively
correlates economic integration with an increase in the frequency of economic crises,
whereas political science scholarship links economic decline with external conflict al
are statistically linked lo an increase in the use of force. In summary, rcccni
systemic, dyadic and national levels.' This implied connection between integration, crises and armed conflict has not
featured prominently in the economic-security debate and deserves more attention.
Global Econ not resilient – a shock could reverse growth.
UNECE ‘14
UNECE is the The United Nations Economic Commission for Europe. “Global economy is improving, but
remains vulnerable to new and old headwinds that could derail growth”– UNECE Report – Published:20
January 2014 – http://www.unece.org/index.php?id=34621
Global economic growth should increase over the next two years with continuing signs of
improvement, according to the United Nations World Economic Situation and Prospects 2014 (WESP) report, launched today. The global
economy is expected to grow at a pace of 3.0 per cent in 2014 and 3.3 per cent in 2015, compared with an estimated growth of 2.1 per cent
for 2013. The world economy experienced subdued growth for a second year in 2013, but some
improvements in the last
quarter have led to the UN’s more positive forecast. The euro area has finally ended a protracted recession.
Growth in the United States strengthened somewhat. A few large emerging economies, including China and India, managed to backstop
the deceleration they experienced in the past two years and veered upwards moderately. These factors point to increasing global growth.
According to WESP, inflation will remain tame worldwide, but the employment situation will continue to be challenging. While growth in
international trade flows is expected to pick up moderately to 4.7 per cent in 2014, the prices of most primary commodities are projected to
be flat, although any unexpected supply-side shocks, including geo-political tensions, could push some of these prices higher. The report
warns that international capital flows to emerging economies are expected to become more volatile. “Our
forecast is made in
the context of many uncertainties and risks coming from possible policy missteps as well as noneconomic factors that could stymie growth,” said Shamshad Akhtar, UN Assistant Secretary-General for Economic
Development. Developed economies In the United States, fiscal tightening and a series of political gridlocks over budgetary issues weighed
heavily on growth; however, quantitative monetary easing boosted equity prices. The U.S. labour market and housing sector continued to
recover. Gross Domestic Product (GDP) in the U.S. is expected to increase 2.5 per cent in 2014. Western Europe emerged from recession
in 2013, but growth prospects remain weak, as fiscal austerity will continue and the unemployment rates remain elevated. GDP in Western
Europe is expected to grow by 1.5 per cent in 2014. Growth in Japan has been boosted by a set of expansionary policy packages, but the
effects of forthcoming structural reforms remain uncertain and an anticipated increase in Japan’s consumption tax rate is expected to curb
growth. GDP is forecast to grow by 1.5 per cent in 2014. Developing countries and economies in transition Growth prospects among large
developing countries and economies in transition are mixed. Growth in Brazil has been hampered by weak external demand, volatility in
international capital flows and tightening monetary policy, but growth is expected to rebound to 3 per cent in 2014. A slowdown in China
has been stabilized and growth is expected to maintain at a pace of about 7.5 per cent in the next few years. India experienced its lowest
growth in two decades, along with large current account and government budget deficits plus high inflation, but growth is forecast to
improve to above 5 per cent in 2014. In the Russian Federation growth weakened further in 2013, as industrial output and investment
faltered, and is expected to recover modestly to 2.9 per cent in 2014. Among developing regions, growth prospects in Africa remain
relatively robust. After an estimated growth of 4.0 per cent in 2013, GDP is projected to expand by 4.7 per cent in 2014. The report
emphasized the dependence of Africa’s growth on investment in infrastructure, trade and investment ties with emerging economies, and
improvements in economic governance and management. More detailed regional forecasts from WESP will be released in January 2014.
Risks and uncertainties threaten global economy The report stressed that the risks associated with a possible bumpy exit from the
quantitative easing programmes by the U.S Federal Reserve (Fed) threaten the global economy. As already seen somewhat during the
summer of 2013, efforts by the Fed to pull out of quantitative easing programmes could lead to a surge in long-term interest rates in
developed and developing countries. Tapering could also lead to a sell-off in global equity markets, a sharp decline of capital inflows to
emerging economies and a spike in the risk premium for external financing in emerging economies. These first-round shocks in
international financial markets could transmit quickly to developed and developing economies. The report warns that as the Fed is expected
to taper and eventually unwind its quantitative easing programmes, emerging economies will face more external shocks. While economic
fundamentals and the policy space in many emerging economies are better than when the Asian financial crisis erupted in 1997, emerging
economies with large external imbalances remain particularly vulnerable. Other uncertainties and risks include the remaining fragility in the
banking system and the real economy in the euro area and the continued political wrangling in the U.S. on the debt ceiling and the budget.
Beyond the economic domain, geopolitical
tensions in Western Asia and elsewhere remain serious
risks. These and other risk factors, unfolding unexpectedly, could derail the world economy far
beyond the report’s projections.
Impact framing – mass surveillance is inherently unethical – you have
a moral obligation to reject bigoted practices
Hudson 13 — Adam Hudson, Reporting Fellow at Truthout, holds a B.A. in
International Relations from Stanford University, 2013 (Facebook Post, July 7th,
Available Online at
https://www.facebook.com/emmarosenthal/posts/10200579042093460, Accessed 0618-2015)
My Twitter argument with Tim Wise about Edward Snowden, Glenn Greenwald, and
mass surveillance (which caused a maelstrom on Twitter because of how awful and onedimensional his arguments were) revealed a lot about how intellectually bankrupt antiracist liberalism is in the United States. Wise and a lot of so-called anti-racist liberals
(including Melissa Harris-Perry) use their anti-racist analysis to defend Obama from any
criticism rather than seriously critique his policies. They'll belittle the importance of issues
like targeted killing, indefinite detention, and mass surveillance, blame Republicans, or
defend Obama's egregious policies, even if they went on the record criticizing the same
thing when it happened under Bush. The fact of the matter is that many of Obama's
policies, such as privatizing education, mass surveillance, indefinite detention, targeted
killing and covert wars, actually (and disproportionately) harm people of color in the U.S.
and around the world. A real "anti-racist" would call this out rather than attack the people
who've exposed such egregious actions.
We still solve perception—plan’s language makes circumvention far
tougher.
Shackford ‘15
Scott Shackford is an associate editor at Reason. This article is internally quoting Mark Jaycox, a legislative
analyst for the Electronic Frontier Foundation - “Is the USA Freedom Act the Best We Can Expect Right
Now?” - Reason - 5/20 http://reason.com/blog/2015/05/20/is-the-usa-freedom-act-the-best-we-can-e
It doesn't appear to be easy to support the USA Freedom Act. The Act's full real name is
the "Uniting and Strengthening America by Fulfilling Rights and Ending Eavesdropping,
Dragnet-Collection, and Online Monitoring Act." Knowing the full name of the act helps
explain why privacy supporters aren't shouting from the rafters over the legislation, even
if they are supporting it. As is the case with many other bills with elaborate names, the
USA Freedom Act doesn't actually do what its name states. The USA Freedom Act (H.R.
2048) is Congress' response to the public revelation and the following outrage that the
National Security Agency (NSA) has been for years secretly collecting mass amounts of
domestic metadata from virtually all Americans as part of its goal of sniffing out terrorists.
It has been doing so under the aegis of Section 215 of the PATRIOT Act, which allows
the NSA and FBI to collect all sorts of data and records that are relevant to an ongoing
investigation. But the NSA and the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance (FISA) Court that
oversaw approval of records collection requests took a very, very wide view of what was
"relevant,"//// and that included, among other things, the phone records of every
single American. There was an awareness among privacy experts that this was
happening, but because the entire process was classified, the ability for anybody, even
members of Congress, to do much about it was limited. Then Edward Snowden came
around and released information showing how remarkably expansive the NSA
surveillance actually was. This all came as a surprise to Rep. James Sensenbrenner (RWis.), who introduced the PATRIOT Act in 2001. He said it was never his intent to
authorize mass collection of the data of Americans in the first place. The USA Freedom
Act, which Sensenbrenner has also sponsored, is intended to reform these procedures.
But what the USA Freedom Act actually does is fairly modest compared to the amount of
surveillance authority the NSA had claimed for itself. It will end the bulk collection of
phone metadata collection under Section 215, but that's not the only avenue by which
the federal government claims authority to collect huge amounts of private information.
Furthermore, right now we're seeing the third attempt to get the act passed, and the
strength of the reforms has been watered down along the way. Indeed, some of the
reforms called for in the act (storing the telecommunications data with the companies
rather than the government and requiring the government to request it) came from
former NSA Director Keith Alexander. The support of the Obama Administration has
itself given some pause, due to its role in fighting lawsuits against the program and the
blatant deception of current Director of Intelligence James Clapper before the Senate
about the existence of mass phone record collection. What the USA Freedom Act is
intended to do is end mass domestic data collection through Section 215, as well as in
the secretive National Security Letters, and require "specific selection terms" to limit
mass records requests. It also reforms the FISA court to designate several independent
advisors to the court to help provide "legal arguments that advance the protection of
individual privacy and civil liberties," making the FISA court a slightly more adversarial
place rather than the apparent rubber stamp factory it had been. It will also mandate a
declassification review process for FISA court decisions. But it's also really hard to try to
gauge the impact of the bill as written, and that's coloring perceptions of its value. Making
the situation more complicated is a federal court ruling that is actually friendly to privacy
reformers. On May 7, the Second Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that Section 215 never
actually authorized the NSA to engage in mass phone metadata collection in the first
place. The court ruled that the NSA had stretched the definition of "relevance" and
"investigation" too far by scooping up pretty much everything and storing it just in case it
might be useful later. But the court also did not demand any immediate changes, partly
because it knew Congress was already working on legislation to deal with the pending
sunsetting of Section 215, which expires June 1. This ruling prompted some rethinking of
the USA Freedom Act by the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF). The group had
previously endorsed each iteration of the act, increasingly reluctantly as it was watered
down with each session. In response to the court ruling, though, EFF withdrew its
support and went neutral, calling for legislators to now strengthen the act. Mark Jaycox,
a legislative analyst for EFF who has been writing about the USA Freedom Act, still has
positive things to say about it, but doesn't want Congress to settle for less than it has to.
It's the first reform of NSA surveillance since the 1970s. There should be more to it. "The
USA Freedom Act should be stronger," Jaycox says. "Congress should be pushing for
more control for themselves and more for the public." EFF would like Congress to return
to the first iteration of the act that called for a stronger adversarial position within the
FISA court, not just an adviser. They want Congress to address other authorizations
used to justify bulk metadata collection, not just Section 215 and National Security
Letters. They want better "minimization" procedures to make sure information that isn't
directly connected to an investigation is properly purged. And they want to remove an
"emergency exception" that allows the government to snoop on any "non-United States
person" for 72 hours without any court authorization at all. Given that the court ruling
determined that the NSA had been operating outside of the law's intent, should we be
concerned that any attempt to partly rein in surveillance powers without completely
eliminating them will ultimately lead back to more abuse? Who gets to decide what a
"specific selection term" is? The same people who determined that every single phone
record of every American was "relevant" to investigating potential terrorist attacks on
Americans? Jaycox is aware that this abuse concern helps feed the belief the USA
Freedom Act doesn't go nearly far enough. "We've seen the intelligence community and
the administration stretch definitions," Jaycox says. "We've seen them come up to the
line and cross it completely. Section 215 is an example. I think that's where the
hesitancy comes from." It's the FISA court that was supposed to stand in the way of the
NSA abusing the language, but that clearly didn't happen. Congress can legislate words
to be as narrow as they like, Jaycox notes, "But at the end of the day it's going to be a
judge that's reviewing these orders." And thus, there's the push for more transparency
and declassification of FISA court decisions, in the hopes of making it more clear how
the judges themselves are interpreting the law. The modest reforms weren't enough for
some privacy-minded House members like Rep. Justin Amash (R-Mich.), Rep. Thomas
Massie (R-Ky.), and Rep. Jared Polis (D-Colo.). They all voted no. Amash later
explained on Facebook that he feared passing the USA Freedom Act in the wake of the
court ruling would have the impact of authorizing bulk data collection rather than
restricting it: "H.R. 2048 falls woefully short of reining in the mass collection of
Americans' data, and it takes us a step in the wrong direction by specifically authorizing
such collection in violation of the Fourth Amendment to the Constitution. Americans, and
members of Congress, should demand that Congress instead pass the original,
bipartisan version of the USA FREEDOM Act from 2013, which strengthened—not
weakened—Section 215's relevance standard to end bulk collection, while still allowing the
government the flexibility it needs to pursue genuine threats against the United States."
And this morning Amash posted a letter signed by him and 58 others in the House who
voted no, explaining that their opposition to the USA Freedom Act was tha the
surveillance reforms did not go far enough.