Drones Aff – University of Michigan 2015
This file has two versions of the 1AC – one with a beefed up privacy advantage and one with a shorter
privacy advantage & a drone warfare advantage. If you want to make arguments about probability, the
first 1AC is for you; if you want to race to big impacts, the latter is for you.
The starter set is designed to provide equitable ground to both sides, as camp goes on you may be wise
to rewrite the plan to make the McNeal CP not competitive.
1AC Privacy
Contention 1 – Privacy
The federal government is ramping up its use of drones for domestic surveillance, this
harms the 4th amendment in unprecedented ways
Gilens 2013 (Naomi [ACLU Speech, Privacy and Technology Project]; New Documents Reveal U.S.
Marshals’ Drones Experiment, Underscoring Need for Government Transparency;
https://www.aclu.org/blog/new-documents-reveal-us-marshals-drones-experiment-underscoring-needgovernment-transparency; kdf)
The use of surveillance drones is growing rapidly in the United States, but we know little about how the
federal government employs this new technology. Now, new information obtained by the ACLU shows for the first time that
the U.S. Marshals Service has experimented with using drones for domestic surveillance. We learned this
through documents we released today, received in response to a Freedom of Information Act request. The documents are available here. (We
also released a short log of drone accidents from the Federal Aviation Administration as well as accident reports and other documents from the
U.S. Air Force.) This revelation comes a week after a bipartisan bill to protect Americans’ privacy from domestic drones was introduced in the
House. Although the Marshals Service told us it found 30 pages about its drones program in response to our FOIA request, it turned over only
two of those pages—and even they were heavily redacted. Here’s what we know from the two short paragraphs of text we were able to see.
Under a header entitled “Unmanned Aerial Vehicle, Man-Portable (UAV) Program,” an agency document overview begins: USMS Technical
Operations Group's UAV Program provides a highly portable, rapidly deployable overhead collection device that will provide a multi-role
surveillance platform to assist in [redacted] detection of targets. Another document reads: This developmental program is designed to provide
[redacted] in support of TOG [presumably the agency’s Technical Operations Group] investigations and operations. This surveillance solution
can be deployed during [multiple redactions] to support ongoing tactical operations. These heavily redacted documents reveal almost no
information about the nature of the Marshals’ drone program. However, the Marshals Service explained to the Los Angeles Times that they
tested two small drones in 2004 and 2005. The experimental program ended after both drones crashed. It is surprising that what seems like a
small-scale experiment remained hidden from the public until our FOIA unearthed it. Even more surprising is that seven years after the program
was discontinued, the Marshals still refuse to disclose almost any records about it. As
drone use becomes more and more
common, it is crucial that the government’s use of these spying machines be transparent and
accountable to the American people. All too often, though, it is unclear which law enforcement agencies are
using these tools, and how they are doing so. We should not have to guess whether our government is using
these eyes in the sky to spy on us. As my colleague ACLU staff attorney Catherine Crump told me, Americans have the
right to know if and how the government is using drones to spy on them. Drones are too invasive a tool
for it to be unclear when the public will be subjected to them. The government needs to respect
Americans’ privacy while using this invasive technology, and the laws on the books need to be brought
up to date to ensure that America does not turn into a drone surveillance state. All over the U.S., states and
localities are trying to figure out through the democratic political process exactly what kind of protections we should put in place in light of the
growing use of what Time Magazine called “the most powerful surveillance tool ever devised, on- or offline.” These debates are essential to a
healthy democracy, and are heartening to see. However, this
production from the Marshals Service underscores the
need for a federal law to ensure that the government’s use of drones remains open and transparent. A
number of federal lawmakers are already pushing to bring the law up to date. Representatives Ted Poe (RTexas) and Zoe Lofgren (D-Calif.) recently introduced the first bipartisan legislation to regulate the government’s
use of drones. The proposed legislation, which is supported by the ACLU, would enact judicial and Congressional
oversight mechanisms, require government agencies to register all drones and get a warrant when using
them for surveillance (except in emergency situations), and prohibit the domestic use of armed drones. We believe
this bill—and hopefully a future companion bill in the Senate—will provide a strong foundation for future legislation protecting our privacy
rights in the face of proliferating drone surveillance and government secrecy.
The current legal framework is inadequate at confronting the privacy concerns posed
by drones
Rothfuss 2014 (Ian F [George Mason School of Law]; Student Comment: An Economic Perspective on
the Privacy Implications of Domestic Drone Surveillance; 10 J.L. Econ. & Pol'y 441; kdf)
Introduction A sixteen-hour standoff with police began after a suspect took control of six cows that wandered on to his farm and "chased police
off his land with high powered rifles." n1 Without the suspect's knowledge, police used a Predator drone to locate and apprehend him on his
3,000-acre farm. n2 In addition to law enforcement, anyone may buy a handheld drone. The Parrot AR.Drone 2.0, for example, costs less than
three hundred dollars and can fly up to 165 feet from its controller while recording and transmitting live high-definition video from the sky. n3
Unmanned aerial vehicles (drones) have become essential to government surveillance overseas and are now being deployed
domestically for law enforcement and other purposes. The ability of drones to conduct widespread
domestic surveillance has raised serious privacy concerns. Both government and private actors may use drones. Given the
proliferation of this new technology, Congress has recently directed the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) to expedite the licensing process
and open the domestic airspace to drones. n4 Situations like the one described above will likely become more common in the near future. n5
Domestic drones [*442] have the potential to allow the government to effectively and efficiently monitor the activities of people across the
nation. Part I of this Comment examines the capabilities of drones, discusses currently planned drone deployments, and examines recent
developments that have brought the topic of domestic drone surveillance to the forefront of national security law discussions. This comment
concludes that current
law does not adequately protect privacy interests from the widespread surveillance
that could result from the unrestricted domestic use of drones. Part II discusses the sources of the right to privacy and
examines the current state of the law. Part III applies an economic perspective to determine the optimal level of domestic drone surveillance
that the law should allow. This analysis is based upon a general economic model of surveillance developed by Andrew Song following the
September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks. n6 Economic analysis shows that the uncontrolled domestic deployment of drones would lead to an
inefficient and unproductive loss of social utility. Prompt legislative action is therefore necessary to address the fundamental privacy challenges
presented by the use of drones. Part IV concludes by proposing a legal framework to balance security and other interests while safeguarding
the privacy rights of U.S. citizens. As discussed in this comment, such legislation should allow constructive use of the technology within a
framework that protects individual privacy rights. I. Background: Domestic Deployment of Drones Recent congressional legislation has directed
the FAA to expedite its current licensing process and allow the private and commercial use of drones in U.S. airspace by October 2015. n7 The
FAA has streamlined the authorization process to "less than 60 days" for nonemergency drone operations. n8 Among other requirements, the
recent legislation directs the FAA to allow government agencies to operate small drones weighing less than 4.4 pounds. n9 The use of drones
can be expected to increase dramatically in the coming years. [*443] The FAA has already authorized many police departments and other
agencies to use drones. n10 As of November 2012, the FAA oversaw 345 active Certificates of Waiver or Authorization that allow public entities
to operate drones in civil airspace. n11 Customs and Border Protection uses Predator drones along the nation's borders "to search for illegal
immigrants and smugglers" n12 and "the FBI and Drug Enforcement Administration have used Predators for other domestic investigations." n13
Predators owned by Customs and Border Protection and based at U.S. Air Force bases have been deployed on numerous occasions to assist
local law enforcement. n14 One law enforcement agency has even deployed a drone capable of being armed with lethal and non-lethal
weapons. n15 Drones also have applications beyond government law enforcement. Drones may be used to provide live video coverage of
events without the need to use piloted helicopters and by paparazzi chasing after pictures of celebrities and other public figures. n16
Individuals may use drones to spy on their neighbors, to keep an eye on their children, or to keep tabs on a potentially unfaithful spouse. n17
The possibilities for corporate espionage and the theft of trade secrets are also endless. Drones range in size from handheld units to units the
size of large aircraft and have a wide variety of capabilities. n18 Nearly fifty companies are reported to be developing an estimated 150 varieties
of drone systems. n19 Users of drones may include the military, federal and local law enforcement agencies, business entities, and private
individuals. Drones have many diverse domestic uses including surveillance of dangerous disaster sites, patrolling borders, helping law
enforcement locate suspects, monitoring traffic, crop dusting, aerial mapping, media coverage, and many others. n20 [*444] Drones
represent an unprecedented convergence of surveillance technologies that could lead to increased
security but could also jeopardize the privacy of U.S. citizens. Drones may be equipped with a variety of technologies
including high-resolution cameras, n21 face-recognition technology, n22 video-recording capability, n23 heat sensors, n24 radar systems, n25
night vision, n26 infrared sensors, n27 thermal-imaging cameras, n28 Wi-Fi and communications interception devices, n29 GPS, n30 licenseplate scanners, n31 and other systems designed to aid in surveillance. Drones
will soon be able to recognize faces and track
the movement of subjects with only minimal visual-image data [*445] obtained from aerial surveillance. n32 Drones
have the ability to break into wireless networks, monitor cell-phone calls, and monitor entire towns
while flying at high altitude. n33 These rapid technological advancements present privacy challenges that
were not contemplated when our existing laws were developed.
Drones will be used to perpetuate racism
Cyril 2015 (Malkia Amala [under and executive director of the Center for Media Justice (CMJ) and cofounder of the Media Action Grassroots Network]; Black America's State of Surveillance; Mar 30;
www.progressive.org/news/2015/03/188074/black-americas-state-surveillance; kdf)
Today, media reporting on government surveillance is laser-focused on the revelations by Edward Snowden
that millions of Americans were being spied on by the NSA. Yet my mother’s visit from the FBI reminds me that, from the slave pass system to
laws that deputized white civilians as enforcers of Jim Crow, black
people and other people of color have lived for
centuries with surveillance practices aimed at maintaining a racial hierarchy. It’s time for journalists to tell a new
story that does not start the clock when privileged classes learn they are targets of surveillance. We need to understand that data has
historically been overused to repress dissidence, monitor perceived criminality, and perpetually maintain an impoverished underclass. In an era
of big data, the Internet has increased the speed and secrecy of data collection. Thanks to new surveillance technologies, law enforcement
agencies are now able to collect massive amounts of indiscriminate data. Yet legal protections and policies have not caught up to this
technological advance. Concerned advocates see mass surveillance as the problem and protecting privacy as the goal. Targeted surveillance is
an obvious answer—it may be discriminatory, but it helps protect the privacy perceived as an earned privilege of the inherently innocent. The
trouble is,
targeted surveillance frequently includes the indiscriminate collection of the private data of
people targeted by race but not involved in any crime. For targeted communities, there is little to no
expectation of privacy from government or corporate surveillance. Instead, we are watched, either as
criminals or as consumers. We do not expect policies to protect us. Instead, we’ve birthed a complex and coded culture—from jazz to
spoken dialects—in order to navigate a world in which spying, from AT&T and Walmart to public benefits programs and beat cops on the block,
is as much a part of our built environment as the streets covered in our blood. In a recent address, New York City Police Commissioner Bill
Bratton made it clear: “2015 will be one of the most significant years in the history of this organization. It will be the year of technology, in
which we literally will give to every member of this department technology that would’ve been unheard of even a few years ago.” Predictive
policing, also known as “Total Information Awareness,” is described as using advanced technological tools and data analysis to “preempt”
crime. It utilizes trends, patterns, sequences, and affinities found in data to make determinations about when and where crimes will occur. This
model is deceptive, however, because it presumes data inputs to be neutral. They aren’t. In a racially discriminatory criminal justice system,
surveillance technologies reproduce injustice. Instead of reducing discrimination, predictive policing is a face of what author Michelle Alexander
calls the “New Jim Crow”—a de facto system of separate and unequal application of laws, police practices, conviction rates, sentencing terms,
and conditions of confinement that operate more as a system of social control by racial hierarchy than as crime prevention or punishment. In
New York City, the predictive policing approach in use is “Broken Windows.” This approach to policing places an undue focus on quality of life
crimes—like selling loose cigarettes, the kind of offense for which Eric Garner was choked to death. Without oversight, accountability,
transparency, or rights, predictive policing is just high-tech racial profiling—indiscriminate data collection that drives discriminatory policing
practices. As local law enforcement agencies increasingly adopt surveillance technologies, they use them in three primary ways: to listen in on
specific conversations on and offline; to observe daily movements of individuals and groups; and to observe data trends. Police departments
like Bratton’s aim to use sophisticated technologies to do all three. They will use technologies like license plate readers, which the Electronic
Frontier Foundation found to be disproportionately used in communities of color and communities in the process of being gentrified. They will
use facial recognition, biometric scanning software, which the FBI has now rolled out as a national system, to be adopted by local police
departments for any criminal justice purpose. They intend to use body and dashboard cameras, which have been touted as an effective step
toward accountability based on the results of one study, yet storage and archiving procedures, among many other issues, remain unclear. They
will use Stingray cellphone interceptors. According to the ACLU, Stingray technology is an invasive cellphone surveillance device that mimics
cellphone towers and sends out signals to trick cellphones in the area into transmitting their locations and identifying information. When used
to track a suspect’s cellphone, they also gather information about the phones of countless bystanders who happen to be nearby. The same is
true of domestic
drones, which are in increasing use by U.S. law enforcement to conduct routine aerial
surveillance. While drones are currently unarmed, drone manufacturers are considering arming these
remote-controlled aircraft with weapons like rubber bullets, tasers, and tear gas. They will use fusion centers.
Originally designed to increase interagency collaboration for the purposes of counterterrorism, these have instead become the local arm of the
intelligence community. According to Electronic Frontier Foundation, there are currently seventy-eight on record. They are the clearinghouse
for increasingly used “suspicious activity reports”—described as “official documentation of observed behavior reasonably indicative of preoperational planning related to terrorism or other criminal activity.” These reports and other collected data are often stored in massive
databases like e-Verify and Prism. As anybody who’s ever dealt with gang databases knows, it’s almost impossible to get off a federal or state
database, even when the data collected is incorrect or no longer true. Predictive policing
doesn’t just lead to racial and
religious profiling—it relies on it. Just as stop and frisk legitimized an initial, unwarranted contact between police and people of
color, almost 90 percent of whom turn out to be innocent of any crime, suspicious activities reporting and the dragnet
approach of fusion centers target communities of color. One review of such reports collected in Los Angeles shows
approximately 75 percent were of people of color. This is the future of policing in America, and it should terrify you as much as it terrifies me.
Unfortunately, it probably doesn’t, because my life is at far greater risk than the lives of white Americans, especially
those reporting on the issue in the media or advocating in the halls of power. One of the most terrifying aspects of high-tech surveillance is the
invisibility of those it disproportionately impacts. The
NSA and FBI have engaged local law enforcement agencies and
electronic surveillance technologies to spy on Muslims living in the United States. According to FBI training
materials uncovered by Wired in 2011, the bureau taught agents to treat “mainstream” Muslims as supporters of terrorism, to view charitable
donations by Muslims as “a funding mechanism for combat,” and to view Islam itself as a “Death Star” that must be destroyed if terrorism is to
be contained. From New York City to Chicago and beyond, local law enforcement agencies have expanded unlawful and covert racial and
religious profiling against Muslims not suspected of any crime. There is no national security reason to profile all Muslims. At the same time,
almost 450,000 migrants are in detention facilities throughout the United States, including survivors of torture, asylum seekers, families with
small children, and the elderly. Undocumented migrant communities enjoy few legal protections, and are therefore subject to brutal policing
practices, including illegal surveillance practices. According to the Sentencing Project, of the more than 2 million people incarcerated in the
United States, more than 60 percent are racial and ethnic minorities. But by far, the widest net is cast over black communities. Black people
alone represent 40 percent of those incarcerated. More black men are incarcerated than were held in slavery in 1850, on the eve of the Civil
War. Lest some misinterpret that statistic as evidence of greater criminality, a 2012 study confirms that black defendants are at least 30 percent
more likely to be imprisoned than whites for the same crime. This is not a broken system, it
is a system working perfectly as
intended, to the detriment of all. The NSA could not have spied on millions of cellphones if it were not already spying on black people,
Muslims, and migrants. As surveillance technologies are increasingly adopted and integrated by law enforcement agencies today, racial
disparities are being made invisible by a media environment that has failed to tell the story of
surveillance in the context of structural racism.
Only regulation of domestic drones can prevent warfare on citizens and bolster the
industry
Ahsanuddin et al 2014 (Sadia - principal investigator for the report and MPAC research fellow;
Domestic Drones: Implications for Privacy and Due Process in the United States; Sep 8;
www.mpac.org/publications/policy-papers/domestic-drones.php; kdf)
Drones also impact due process rights. Drones
are perhaps best known for the role they play in conducting
signature strikes against suspected militants abroad. Will civilians on American soil ever be subjected to drone attacks? Should
civilians fear the weaponization of drones or their use in delivering lethal payloads? Although the Fifth and
Fourteenth Amendments assure individuals of the right to due process before the deprivation of life, liberty, or property, these rights
have already begun to erode due to the global war on terror and the use of drones to conduct signature
strikes by virtue of executive decisions that are devoid of judicial review. With the mass introduction of
domestic drones, there remains a threat and real fear that drones may be used to deprive individuals of
life, liberty, or property with no opportunity to dispute the charges brought against them. Americans of all
ethnicities and creeds are likely to be affected by the domestic deployment of drones. American Muslims have a special contribution to make to
this discussion. Having
been subjected to special law enforcement attention and scrutiny, American Muslims
find themselves particularly susceptible to infractions of civil liberties. As representatives of the American Muslim
population and with the expertise to ground our analysis, the Muslim Public Affairs Council (MPAC) proposes the following guidelines to
address the issues of law enforcement use of drones, data collection, weaponization of drones, due process, oversight, and transparency: • Law
enforcement use of drones should be restricted. • Data collection should be strictly monitored. • The FAA should require, not merely
recommend, that test sites incorporate the Fair Information Principles into their privacy policies. • The weaponization of drones should be
prohibited. • The right to due process should be preserved. • States and individuals should have the ability to bring a cause of action against an
entity that, in operating a drone, violates their rights. • Drone deployment by federal agents must be subjected to Congressional oversight and
local public drone use should be subjected to local city council oversight. • The general public should be engaged in the development of policy
guidelines by a public body intending to operate drones. • In keeping with the principle of transparency, the FAA should make available to the
public the names of drone applicants, the holders of Certificates of Authorization, other licensees, and privacy policies of drone-operating
agencies. Adequate
protection of privacy is necessary to allow the public to take advantage of drone
technology without becoming a society in which every movement is monitored by the authorities.
Simultaneously, drone developers need regulations so that they can conduct research and development
unimpeded by protests and news reports. Additionally, the weaponization of drones on domestic soil poses a threat to due
process rights and public safety. This was acknowledged by Sen. Dianne Feinstein, who called for a total prohibition on the weaponization of
domestic drones.13 Indeed, politicians and policymakers representing a broad spectrum of political views advocate regulations for domestic
drones.
Domestic drones will become weaponized – posing unique risks to civil liberties
Greenwald 2013 (Glenn [former columnist on civil liberties and US national security issues for the
Guardian. An ex-constitutional lawyer]; The US Needs To Wake Up To Threat Of Domestic Drones; Mar
30; http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2013/mar/29/domestic-drones-unique-dangers; kdf)
The use of drones by domestic US law enforcement agencies is growing rapidly, both in terms of numbers
and types of usage. As a result, civil liberties and privacy groups led by the ACLU - while accepting that domestic drones are inevitable have been devoting increasing efforts to publicizing their unique dangers and agitating for statutory limits. These efforts are being
impeded by those who mock the idea that domestic drones pose unique dangers (often the same people who
mock concern over their usage on foreign soil). This dismissive posture is grounded not only in soft authoritarianism (a
religious-type faith in the Goodness of US political leaders and state power generally) but also ignorance over current drone
capabilities, the ways drones are now being developed and marketed for domestic use, and the
activities of the increasingly powerful domestic drone lobby. So it's quite worthwhile to lay out the key under-discussed
facts shaping this issue. I'm going to focus here most on domestic surveillance drones, but I want to say a few words about weaponized drones.
The belief that weaponized drones won't be used on US soil is patently irrational. Of course they will be. It's
not just likely but inevitable. Police departments are already speaking openly about how their drones
"could be equipped to carry nonlethal weapons such as Tasers or a bean-bag gun." The drone industry has already developed
and is now aggressively marketing precisely such weaponized drones for domestic law enforcement use.
It likely won't be in the form that has received the most media attention: the type of large Predator or Reaper drones that
shoot Hellfire missiles which destroy homes and cars in Pakistan, Yemen, Somalia, Afghanistan and multiple other countries aimed at Muslims
(although US law enforcement agencies already possess Predator drones and have used them over US soil for surveillance). Instead, as I
detailed in a 2012 examination of the drone industry's own promotional materials and reports to their shareholders, domestic
weaponized drones will be much smaller and cheaper, as well as more agile - but just as lethal. The nation's
leading manufacturer of small "unmanned aircraft systems" (UAS), used both for surveillance and attack purposes, is AeroVironment, Inc. (AV).
Its 2011 Annual Report filed with the SEC repeatedly emphasizes that its business strategy depends upon expanding its market from foreign
wars to domestic usage including law enforcement: AV's annual report added: "Initial likely non-military users of small UAS include public safety
organizations such as law enforcement agencies. . . ."
These domestic marketing efforts are intensifying with the
perception that US spending on foreign wars will decrease. As a February, 2013 CBS News report noted, focusing on AV's
surveillance drones: "Now, drones are headed off the battlefield. They're already coming your way. "AeroVironment, the California company
that sells the military something like 85 percent of its fleet, is marketing them now to public safety agencies." Like many drone manufacturers,
AV is now focused on drone products - such as the "Qube" - that are so small that they can be "transported in the trunk of a police vehicle or
carried in a backpack" and assembled and deployed within a matter of minutes. One news report AV touts is headlined "Drone technology
could be coming to a Police Department near you", which focuses on the Qube. But another article prominently touted on AV's website
describes the tiny UAS product dubbed the "Switchblade", which, says the article, is "the leading edge of what is likely to be the broader, even
wholesale, weaponization of unmanned systems." The article creepily hails the Switchblade drone as "the ultimate assassin bug". That's
because, as I wrote back in 2011, "it is controlled by the operator at the scene, and it worms its way around buildings and into small areas,
sending its surveillance imagery to an i-Pad held by the operator, who can then direct the Switchblade to lunge toward and kill the target
(hence the name) by exploding in his face." AV's website right now proudly touts a February, 2013 Defense News article describing how much
the US Army loves the "Switchblade" and how it is preparing to purchase more. Time Magazine heralded this tiny drone weapon as "one of the
best inventions of 2012", gushing: "the Switchblade drone can be carried into battle in a backpack. It's a kamikaze: the person controlling it uses
a real-time video feed from the drone to crash it into a precise target - say, a sniper. Its tiny warhead detonates on impact." What possible
reason could someone identify as to why these small, portable weaponized UAS products will not imminently be used by federal, state and local
law enforcement agencies in the US? They're designed to protect their users in dangerous situations and to enable a target to be more easily
killed. Police
agencies and the increasingly powerful drone industry will tout their utility in capturing and
killing dangerous criminals and their ability to keep officers safe, and media reports will do the same. The
handful of genuinely positive uses from drones will be endlessly touted to distract attention away from the dangers they pose. One has to
be incredibly naïve to think that these "assassin bugs" and other lethal drone products will not be widely
used on US soil by an already para-militarized domestic police force. As Radley Balko's forthcoming book "Rise of the
Warrior Cop" details, the primary trend in US law enforcement is what its title describes as "The Militarization of America's Police Forces". The
history of domestic law enforcement particularly after 9/11 has been the importation of military techniques and weapons into domestic
policing. It would be shocking if these weapons were not imminently used by domestic law enforcement agencies. In contrast to weaponized
drones, even the most naïve among us do not doubt the imminent proliferation of domestic surveillance drones. With little debate, they have
already arrived. As the ACLU put it in their recent report: "US
law enforcement is greatly expanding its use of domestic
drones for surveillance." An LA Times article from last month reported that "federal authorities have stepped up
efforts to license surveillance drones for law enforcement and other uses in US airspace" and that "the Federal
Aviation Administration said Friday it had issued 1,428 permits to domestic drone operators since 2007, far more than were previously known."
Moreover, the agency "has estimated 10,000 drones could be aloft five years later" and "local and state law enforcement agencies are expected
to be among the largest customers." Concerns about the
proliferation of domestic surveillance drones are typically
dismissed with the claim that they do nothing more than police helicopters and satellites already do.
Such claims are completely misinformed. As the ACLU's 2011 comprehensive report on domestic drones explained:
"Unmanned aircraft carrying cameras raise the prospect of a significant new avenue for the surveillance
of American life." Multiple attributes of surveillance drones make them uniquely threatening. Because they are so cheap and
getting cheaper, huge numbers of them can be deployed to create ubiquitous surveillance in a way that
helicopters or satellites never could. How this works can already been seen in Afghanistan, where the US military has dubbed its
drone surveillance system "the Gorgon Stare", named after the "mythical Greek creature whose unblinking eyes turned to stone those who
beheld them". That
drone surveillance system is "able to scan an area the size of a small town" and "the
most sophisticated robotics use artificial intelligence that [can] seek out and record certain kinds of
suspicious activity". Boasted one US General: "Gorgon Stare will be looking at a whole city, so there will be no way for the adversary to
know what we're looking at, and we can see everything." The NSA already maintains ubiquitous surveillance of electronic communications, but
the Surveillance State faces serious limits on its ability to replicate that for physical surveillance. Drones easily overcome those barriers. As the
ACLU report put it: I've spoken previously about why a ubiquitous Surveillance State ushers in unique and deeply harmful effects on human
behavior and a nation's political culture and won't repeat that here (here's the video (also embedded below) and the transcript of one speech
where I focus on how that works). Suffice to say, as the ACLU explains in its domestic drone report: "routine aerial surveillance would
profoundly change the character of public life in America" because only drone technology enables such omnipresent physical surveillance.
Beyond that, the tiny size of surveillance drones enables them to reach places that helicopters obviously cannot, and to do so without
detection. They can remain in the sky, hovering over a single place, for up to 20 hours, a duration that is always increasing - obviously far more
than manned helicopters can achieve. As AV's own report put it (see page 11), their hovering capability also means they can surveil a single spot
for much longer than many military satellites, most of which move with the earth's rotation (the few satellites that remain fixed "operate nearly
25,000 miles from the surface of the earth, therefore limiting the bandwidth they can provide and requiring relatively larger, higher power
ground stations"). In sum, surveillance drones enable a pervasive, stealth and constantly hovering Surveillance State that is now well beyond
the technological and financial abilities of law enforcement agencies. One significant reason why this proliferation of domestic drones has
become so likely is the emergence of a powerful drone lobby. I detailed some of how that lobby is functioning here, so will simply note this
passage from a recent report from the ACLU of Iowa on its attempts to persuade legislators to enact statutory limits on the use of domestic
drones: "Drones have their own trade group, the Association for Unmanned Aerial Systems International, which includes some of the nation's
leading aerospace companies. And Congress now has 'drone caucuses' in both the Senate and House." Howie Klein has been one of the few
people focusing on the massive amounts of money from the drone industry now flowing into the coffers of key Congressional members from
both parties in this "drone caucus". Suffice to say, there is an enormous profit to be made from exploiting the domestic drone market, and as
usual, that factor is thus far driving the (basically nonexistent) political response to these threats. What is most often ignored by drone
proponents, or those who scoff at anti-drone activism, are the unique features of drones: the way they enable more warfare, more aggression,
and more surveillance. Drones make war more likely precisely because they entail so little risk to the war-making country. Similarly, while the
propensity of drones to kill innocent people receives the bulk of media attention, the way in which drones psychologically terrorize the
population - simply by constantly hovering over them: unseen but heard - is usually ignored, because it's not happening in the US, so few
people care (see this AP report from yesterday on how the increasing use of drone attacks in Afghanistan is truly terrorizing local villagers). It
remains to be seen how Americans will react to drones constantly hovering over their homes and their childrens' schools, though by that point,
their presence will be so institutionalized that it will be likely be too late to stop. Notably, this may be one area where an actual
bipartisan/trans-partisan alliance can meaningfully emerge, as most advocates working on these issues with whom I've spoken say that
libertarian-minded GOP state legislators have been as responsive as more left-wing Democratic ones in working to impose some limits. One bill
now pending in Congress would prohibit the use of surveillance drones on US soil in the absence of a specific search warrant, and has bipartisan
support. Only
the most authoritarian among us will be incapable of understanding the multiple dangers
posed by a domestic drone regime (particularly when their party is in control of the government and they are incapable of
perceiving threats from increased state police power). But the proliferation of domestic drones affords a real
opportunity to forge an enduring coalition in defense of core privacy and other rights that transcends
partisan allegiance, by working toward meaningful limits on their use. Making people aware of exactly what these
unique threats are from a domestic drone regime is the key first step in constructing that coalition.
Anonymity is a vital component of American democracy which is undermined by
drones, ushering in a totalitarian state
Burow 2013 (Matthew L [Candidate for JD @ New England School of Law]; The Sentinel Clouds above
the Nameless Crowd: Prosecuting Anonymity from Domestic Drones; 39 New Eng. J. on Crim. & Civ.
Confinement 443; kdf)
Walking down the street. Driving a car. Sitting on a park bench. By themselves, these actions do not exhibit an iota of privacy. The individual has
no intention to conceal their movements; no confidentiality in their purpose. The individual is in the open, enjoying a quiet day or a peaceful
Sunday drive. Yet as Chief Justice Rehnquist commented,
there is uneasiness if an individual suspected that these
innocuous and benign movements were being recorded and scrutinized for future reference. 119 If the
"uneasy" reaction to which the Chief Justice referred is not based on a sense of privacy invasion, it stems
from something very close to it-a sense that one has a right to public anonymity. 120 Anonymity is the
state of being unnamed. 121 The right to public anonymity is the assurance that, when in public, one is
unremarked and part of the undifferentiated crowd as far as the government is concerned. 122 That right is
usually surrendered only when one does or says something that merits government attention, which most often includes criminal activity. 123
But when that attention is gained by surreptitiously operated UASs that are becoming more affordable
for local law enforcement agencies, 124 "it evades the ordinary checks that constrain abusive law
enforcement practices ... : 'limited police resources and community hostility."' 12 5 This association of public anonymity and privacy is
not new. 126 Privacy expert and Columbia University Law professor Alan F. Westin points out that "anonymity [] occurs when the individual is
in public places or performing public acts but still seeks, and finds, freedom from identification and surveillance." 127 Westin continued by
stating that: [A person] may be riding a subway, attending a ball game, or walking the streets; he is among people and knows that he is being
observed; but unless he is a well-known celebrity, he does not expect to be personally identified and held to the full rules of behavior and role
that would operate if he were known to those observing him. In this state the individual is able to merge into the "situational landscape." 128
While most people would share the intuition of Chief Justice Rehnquist and professor Westin that we expect some degree of anonymity in
public, there is no such right to be found in the Constitution. Therefore,
with a potentially handcuffed judiciary, the
protection of anonymity falls to the legislature. Based on current trends in technology and a keen
interest taken by law enforcement in the advancement of UAS integration into national airspace, it is
clear that drones pose a looming threat to Americans' anonymity. 129 Even when UASs are authorized for noble uses
such as search and rescue missions, fighting wildfires, and assisting in dangerous tactical police operations, UASs are likely to be
quickly embraced by law enforcement for more controversial purposes. 130 What follows are compelling
interdisciplinary reasons why the legislature should take up the call to protect the subspecies of privacy that is anonymity. A. Philosophic: The
Panopticon Harm Between 1789 and 1812, the Panopticon prison was the central obsession of the renowned English philosopher Jeremy
Bentham's life. 131 The Panopticon is a circular building with cells occupying the circumference and the guard tower standing in the center. 132
By using blinds to obscure the guards located in the tower, "the keeper [is] concealed from the observation of the prisoners ... the sentiment of
an invisible omnipresence."'133 The effect of such architectural brilliance is simple: the lone fact that there might be a guard watching is
enough to keep the prisoners on their best behavior. 134 As the twentieth-century French philosopher Michel Foucault observed, the major
effect of the Panopticon is "to induce in the inmate a state of conscious and permanent visibility that assures the automatic functioning of
power."'135 In Bentham's vision,
there is no need for prison bars, chains or heavy locks; the person who is
subjected to the field of visibility of the omnipresent guard plays both roles and he becomes the subject
of his own subjection. 136 For Foucault, this "panopticism" was not necessarily bad when compared to other methods of exercising
control as this sort of "subtle coercion" could lead people to be more productive and efficient members of society. 137 Following Foucault's
reasoning, an
omnipresent UAS circling above a city may be similar to a Panopticon guard tower and an
effective way of keeping the peace. The mere thought of detection may keep streets safer and potential
criminals at bay. However, the impact on cherished democratic ideals may be too severe. For example, in a case
regarding the constitutionally vague city ordinance that prohibited "nightwalking," Justice Douglas commented on the importance of public
vitality and locomotion in America: The difficulty is that [walking and strolling] are historically part of the amenities of life as we have known
them. They are not mentioned in the Constitution or in the Bill of Rights. These unwritten amenities have been in part responsible for giving our
people the feeling of independence and self-confidence, the feeling of creativity. These amenities have dignified the right of dissent and have
honored the right to be nonconformists and the right to defy submissiveness. They have encouraged lives of high spirits rather than hushed,
suffocating silence. 138 As Justice Douglas understood, government
surveillance stifles the cherished ideal of an
American society that thrives on free-spiritedness in public. 39 Without the right to walk the streets in
public, free from the fear of high surveillance, our American values would dissipate into that
resembling a totalitarian state that attacks the idea of privacy as immoral, antisocial and part of the
dissident cult of individualism. 140
This dehumanization justifies the worst atrocities
Burow 2013 (Matthew L [Candidate for JD @ New England School of Law]; The Sentinel Clouds above
the Nameless Crowd: Prosecuting Anonymity from Domestic Drones; 39 New Eng. J. on Crim. & Civ.
Confinement 443; kdf)
This Note has explored the philosophical and psychological effects of panoptic surveillance and the need for protection.2 29
A mere suspicion of a
UAS flying high in sky can have a chilling effect on democracy that most Americans would consider
intolerable. 230 But what about the psychological changes UASs will bring about in law enforcement? The following is an excerpt from a news report on the
mindset of UAS pilots who operate military drones in overseas combat missions: Bugsplat is the official term used by US authorities
when humans are killed by drone missiles .... [I]t is deliberately employed as a psychological tactic to
dehumanise targets so operatives overcome their inhibition to kill .... It was Hitler who coined this
phraseology in Nazi Germany during the Holocaust. In Mein Kampf, Hitler refers to Jews as vermin (volksungeziefer) or parasites
(volksschtidling). In the infamous Nazi film, Der ewige Jude, Jews were portrayed as harmful pests that deserve to die. Similarly, in the Rwandan
genocide, the Tutsis were described as "cockroaches." This is not to infer genocidal intent in US drone
warfare, but rather to emphasise the dehumanising effect of this terminology in Nazi Germany and that
the very same terms are used by the US in respect of their Pakistani targets. 231 Will John and Jane Doe-the casual
saunterer-become part of the next group of bugs that must be swatted in the name of effective law
enforcement? In answering that question, we should look to the skies once again and pray to the better angels of
our nature for a worthy answer.
The surveillance state makes the collapse of the US likely
Scheer 2015 (Robert [Prof @ USC’s School of journalism and communication]; They Know Everything
About You; Nation Books; p. 176; kdf)
WE ARE A NATION THAT HAS LONG CELEBRATED DISSIDENTS throughout the world who dare, often at great risk, to
expose the secret actions and challenge the legitimacy of repressive governments. In some cases, we even
provide legal sanctuary or asylum for such people. However, when Americans dissent in such radical ways, the opposite is often the case-they
are vilified as disloyal and as a threat to our collective security or stability. The assumption, embraced so widely, must be that our system never
requires such a fundamental challenge to its authority, as represented by the actions of a Daniel Ellsberg, Thomas Drake, Chelsea Manning, or
Edward Snowden. We
know, however, from so many historical examples-the Roman Empire, Nazi Germany, the Soviet
Union-that unchallenged authority not only will violate human rights but also will ultimately sow the
seeds of its own ruin, increasingly blind to its own limitations and flaws. Despite our historically innovative
constitutional checks on government power, we are nevertheless always flirting with imperial hubris. We see this clearly
in the pattern of lies that defined US foreign policy after 9/11; it is quite apparent that leaving those lies largely
unchallenged in the name of classification seriously weakened the position of the United States in the
world.
The plan is the catalyst that makes privacy possible
Ahsanuddin et al 2014 (Sadia - principal investigator for the report and MPAC research fellow;
Domestic Drones: Implications for Privacy and Due Process in the United States; Sep 8;
www.mpac.org/publications/policy-papers/domestic-drones.php; kdf)
Simultaneously, the IHSS survey respondents indicated apprehensiveness over any domestic drone operations: two-thirds expressed concern
over potential surveillance in homes or public areas; 65 percent were concerned about safety; and 75 percent were concerned about the
government’s ability to regulate use.82 The
rapid pace at which drone technology is developing, the lack of clear
guidelines protecting privacy and civil liberties, and public concern over these issues indicate an urgent
need for action in Congress and state legislatures. Privacy experts agree. In an article in the Stanford Law Review Online,
Professor Ryan Calo of the University of Washington School of Law states that drones “may be just the visceral jolt society
needs to drag privacy law into the twenty-first century.” American privacy law has developed at a
“slow and uneven” pace, whereas technology has developed at a rapid speed. In spite of the development of
computers, the Internet, Global-Positioning Systems (GPS), biometrics, gigapixel cameras, face recognition technology, and the widespread use
of e-mail and other forms of electronic communication, there has been no attendant development in privacy law. Because
drones
“threaten to perfect the art of surveillance,” they make for a good catalyst to update privacy law. The
need for legislation is clear. With recent revelations that the federal government has been conducting
surveillance of the American public on an unprecedented level, the threat that unregulated and
immensely capable technologies pose to civil liberties is profound. The law must catch up with
technology.
Plan
The United States federal government should require law enforcement agents to
receive a probable cause warrant prior conducting aerial surveillance.
Contention 2 – Solvency
The plan is the only way to balance privacy and security concerns
Rothfuss 2014 (Ian F [George Mason School of Law]; Student Comment: An Economic Perspective on
the Privacy Implications of Domestic Drone Surveillance; 10 J.L. Econ. & Pol'y 441; kdf)
IV. Legislative and Policy Recommendations This section discusses the current policy and legislative recommendations regarding drone
surveillance and applies economic analysis to recommend an optimal way forward. Developing
new laws and policies to
address the privacy threats presented by domestic drone surveillance will involve the difficult balancing
of many special interests and the individual privacy rights of U.S. citizens. n147 Therefore, in drafting a legal
framework for domestic drone surveillance, Congress should consider economic factors and establish a framework
which allows the use of drones with constraints to protect the privacy interests of U.S. citizens. As an
objective methodology, these economic perspectives should lead lawmakers and policymakers to enact rules
that will efficiently maximize utility while protecting privacy interests. The new framework should address the privacy
concerns arising out of the domestic use of drones, while still allowing society to realize the technological benefits. Congress must
consider many factors when determining how to best integrate drones into U.S. airspace. n148 In addition, the
proposed policies should be compared with the policies in countries such as the United Kingdom, where general surveillance is more
commonplace. n149 In July 2012, the Association for Unmanned Vehicle Systems International (AUVSI) issued a code of conduct that attempted
to address concerns associated with the deployment of drones. n150 Among other elements, the code of conduct requires industry members
to "respect the privacy of individuals" and "comply with all federal, state, and local laws, ordinances, covenants, and restrictions." n151 The
code of conduct has been viewed as insufficient since it only lists broad topics, does not discuss specific privacy concerns, and does not
elaborate on how the provisions will be enforced. n152 Current recommendations address a number of concerns regarding the widespread
deployment of drones in the United States. Among these are recommendations from the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) n153 and
legislation currently pending in both houses of Congress. n154 The first group of recommendations to consider is usage restrictions. It is
generally accepted that drones and other means of surveillance may be used when a warrant has been issued because probable cause exists.
Therefore, the focus of [*459] pending legislation and policy recommendations is on when the use of drones should be allowed without a
warrant, if at all. The ACLU proposes that drone
use should be limited to three purposes: (1) "where there are
specific and articulable grounds to believe that the drone will collect evidence relating to a specific
instance of criminal wrongdoing or, if the drone will intrude upon reasonable expectations of privacy, where the
government has obtained a warrant based on probable cause;" n155 (2) "where there is a geographically
confined, time-limited emergency situation in which particular individuals' lives are at risk;" n156 or (3) "for reasonable
non-law enforcement purposes . . . where privacy will not be substantially affected." n157 Similarly, both the
House and Senate versions of the Preserving Freedom from Unwanted Surveillance Act of 2013 provide for three exceptions to the warrant
requirement: (1) "patrol of borders"; (2) "exigent circumstances"; and (3) "high risk" of terrorist attack, as determined by the Secretary of
Homeland Security. n158 The definition of exigent circumstances differs in the two bills. The Senate bill defines exigent circumstances to only
include action necessary to "prevent imminent danger to life," n159 while the House bill uses a broader definition that also includes "serious
damage to property, or to forestall the imminent escape of a suspect, or destruction of evidence." n160 The
broader definition of
exigent circumstances in the House of Representatives version of the bill n161 is appropriate since it will
give law enforcement more latitude to protect the American people in addition to providing for civil
liability n162 as a check against improper use of this authority. The next recommendation is to consider whether there
should be an exclusionary rule that would make any evidence gathered without a warrant or other legal authorization inadmissible in a criminal
proceeding. The Senate bill also includes an exclusionary rule that would prohibit evidence collected in violation of the Act from being used in
criminal prosecution. n163 Exclusionary rules can overdeter criminal investigations. n164 Therefore, unless a compelling case can be made as to
why it is necessary, it would be more efficient not to include an exclusionary rule in the legislation. Another consideration is whether drones
operating in the United States should be allowed to carry weapons like drones operating overseas which [*460] are used to target enemy
combatants. One recommendation is to prohibit law enforcement from arming drones. n165 Drones have the ability to conduct remote
precision strikes on suspects, but due process concerns and the dangers resulting from armed unmanned aircraft preclude the viability of this
option within the United States. Therefore, domestic drones
should be prohibited from carrying weapons of any
kind. Congress should enact rules to govern domestic drone use. One recommendation is that Congress should require
the Department of Transportation to conduct a Privacy Impact Assessment of the operation of drones domestically. n166 Pending legislation
proposes amending the FAA Modernization and Reform Act of 2012 to address drone privacy concerns. n167 With the proper focus on privacy
concerns, drones may be deployed domestically while still protecting the privacy of American citizens. In addition, Congress should
require a warrant for "extended surveillance of a particular target." n168 As discussed earlier, the Fourth Amendment
would not necessarily require a warrant in these situations. Even so, such a requirement extending warrant protections
makes sense and will provide a valuable check against law enforcement abuse of the new technology.
Congress should require authorization from an independent official for generalized surveillance that
collects personally identifiable information such as facial features and license plate numbers. n169 This
recommendation would apply to situations where a warrant was not required but personally identifiable information was still being gathered,
such as surveillance at a public event. This recommendation should be enacted as a safeguard of the public's privacy interests. To adequately
protect privacy interests, Congress should direct that the independent official, vested with decision-making power on applications for general
surveillance, be a neutral and detached magistrate who is completely separated from any law enforcement or intelligence agency. As discussed
in the previous section, legislation should be crafted to maximize the social utility from the domestic use of drones. The legislation should be
structured according to the three levels of scrutiny proposed by Song to ensure that the governmental interest in the surveillance outweighs
the disutility or social cost that will result from the loss of privacy. n170 The neutral and detached magistrate discussed above could determine
when a sufficient government interest exists to warrant allowing generalized drone surveillance. [*461] Additional policy recommendations
include an image retention restriction n171 and a requirement to file a data collection statement to obtain a FAA license to operate a drone.
n172 These recommendations should be incorporated into the legislation. Congress should require a data collection statement with
applications for a FAA license to operate a drone. A key element of the required data collection statement should address the retention of
images and other data obtained. n173 Such a restriction would mandate that all images and other sensory data gathered through surveillance
be deleted unless the information serves a valid, legal purpose that requires retention. n174 This restriction is necessary to prevent the
government or any other entity from amassing an essentially limitless database of information on the activities of U.S. citizens without a valid
and specified purpose. Collectively,
enacting these recommendations would prevent widespread, general drone
surveillance while allowing drones to be utilized domestically when reasonably warranted to maintain
security or protect the interests of American citizens. Therefore, these recommendations would adequately
protect the privacy interests of American citizens while allowing law enforcement and other entities to
utilize drones to protect our country and serve other worthwhile endeavors.
Establishing limits on drones is the only method to revitalize the fourth amendment
San Pedro 2014 (Victoria [J.D. Candidate, Stetson University College of Law]; STUDENT WORK: DRONE
LEGISLATION: KEEPING AN EYE ON LAW ENFORCEMENT'S LATEST SURVEILLANCE TECHNOLOGY; 43
Stetson L. Rev. 679; kdf)
V. CONCLUSION AND RECOMMENDATIONS With the ubiquity of drone licenses among American law enforcement agencies, n288 the drag-net
surveillance that was once a laughable concept n289 is now a reality. n290 While
state statutes and proposed federal
legislation attempt to limit law enforcement's ability to use drones in surveillance efforts, those
proposals and statutes do not adequately address the duration of the sur-veillance or the sophistication
of the technology used by law enforcement to enhance drone capabilities. Therefore, by requir-ing a warrant and
restricting law enforcement from conducting drone surveillance for a period lasting longer than twenty-four hours, the proposed legislation will
best address the issues left open by Fourth Amendment jurisprudence. [*720] Further, including
the exigent circumstances
language into the legislation will allow law enforcement agencies to better understand the
circumstances that would permit the use of a drone. Because the courts have addressed exigent circumstances on
numerous occasions, n291 law enforcement agencies may already have protocols and officer training dealing
with exigent cir-cumstances. Rather than drafting legislation that attempts to describe a circumstance meriting the use of a drone,
n292 using the exigent circumstances language will allow law enforcement agen-cies to comply with Fourth Amendment jurisprudence already
defined by the Court. Similarly,
legislation imposing a time restriction on the dura-tion of the surveillance will
provide law enforcement agencies with a bright-line rule that facilitates application across the board.
Since the current Fourth Amendment jurisprudence provides that one does not have a reasonable expectation of pri-vacy from all observations
of one's property, n293 this statutory lan-guage will provide a reasonable expectation of privacy from prolonged observations of one's
property. This
proposal would comply with current Fourth Amendment jurisprudence regarding fly-over
aerial observations and would also be consistent with the mosaic theory. n294 Further, this proposal limits law
enforcement's ability to use any form of drone technology. Given that the technological advancements in this field will likely continue to
progress at a rapid pace, any proposed legislation should incorporate an objective standard defining the permissible level of technology or an
outright prohibition on the use of all drone surveillance. In this way, we can align the use of this form of technology with Fourth Amendment
protections. Rather than providing vague standards, such as technology that is not in general public use, the general restriction provides a
bright-line rule to law enforcement agencies. [*721] Therefore, this
proposal would allow law enforcement to be exempt
from the warrant requirement for exigent circumstances, while also allowing them to obtain a warrant
from a neutral and detached magistrate when law enforcement intends to conduct long-term
surveillance, thereby ensuring that law enforcement agencies comply with the warrant requirement of the
Fourth Amendment and respect citizens' privacy rights.
Federal action is uniquely key
Harman 2015 (Jane [Former Rep, D-CA]; The undercooked debate on domestic drones; may 1;
thehill.com/opinion/op-ed/240728-the-undercooked-debate-on-domestic-drones; kdf)
Today, lawmakers worldwide are sleepwalking through a privacy and security crisis. How many secure sites have to be
compromised before we wake up to the full challenges posed by commercial and law enforcement UAVs – or, in common parlance, by drones?
The Federal Aviation Administration unveiled rules this February that would make it much easier to
operate drones in the United States: for law enforcement agencies conducting surveillance, for
commercial firms, and for private individuals. Make no mistake: eventually, the last two groups could include bad actors, even
terrorists. It’s hard to overstate how undercooked the debate on this future is. The stakes are high; our privacy and our security are at risk. The
implications for privacy and surveillance are huge. In 2012, the Supreme Court ruled that tracking a car using an attached GPS beacon, without
a warrant, is unconstitutional. But what if police use a roving drone instead? That debate is raging in Virginia now, which two years ago imposed
a two-year moratorium on warrantless drone surveillance. That’s where most of the regulatory action is happening on this issue: in concerned
states and municipalities across the country. At
the federal level, we have a leadership vacuum. With a technological
revolution on its way, Washington is AWOL. How do you square this new world with our Constitution? As Brookings Institution
senior fellow John Villasenor said in 2012, “The FAA, I would imagine, has more aviation lawyers than Fourth Amendment constitutional
lawyers.” Then there are the new security challenges. Authorities have a poor track record detecting small aircraft that fly where they
shouldn’t. In 2010, a Mexican government drone went down in an El Paso backyard; though NORAD later said it had been tracking the plane,
local officials seem to have been taken entirely by surprise. This month, a postal employee flew a (manned) gyrocopter to Capitol Hill through
some of the most restricted airspace in the country. Incidents like these severely undermine confidence in our preparedness. One day, one of
the craft slipping under our radar will do us harm. Iran has poured funds into developing a “suicide drone” – essentially a cheap, nimble cruise
missile. It’s not hard to imagine terrorists building do-it-yourself versions of the same device, a pipe bomb or pressure cooker strapped to a
small UAV. This is a concern others have raised for years, but it took a drone landing feet from the White House for the Secret Service to start
trying out jamming technology – an issue they should have been thinking about years ago. Many drone countermeasures are still primitive;
some of the solutions are worse than the problem. Popular Science advised the White House, “Simple netting, used often at drone trade shows
to keep small drones confident to their exhibitions, could also work, if the President wanted to live inside a net all the time.” We
need a
serious policy response that engages Congress; federal, state, and local government – and the private sector. This issue is
too big for the FAA, too urgent to postpone, and too important to leave off the national agenda. Lately,
Congress has devoted impressive attention to new risks in cyberspace. It should put at least as much
effort into understanding drones. One option is to encourage commercial firms—through either voluntary or mandatory
standards—to hardwire restrictions into the drones they build and sell. Some companies already program their drones to stay out of restricted
airspace and away from sensitive sites. Those efforts
need a push and a signal boost from government.
The justifications for data collection are wrought with faulty logic—only increasing the
amount of info available to public can keep us safe
Scheer 2015 (Robert [Prof @ USC’s School of journalism and communication]; They Know Everything
About You; Nation Books; p. 208-212; kdf)
WE MUST CHALLENGE THE ASSUMPTION THAT PROTECTING national security requires sacrificing the
constitutional rights of the individual. As pointed out in this book, the Fourth Amendment does not contain an absolute·
ban on searches and seizures but, rather, requires
a court-authorized warrant based on probable cause of a crime
before invading an individual's private space. All Yahoo was asking of the court was that the searches of its company's
customers meet this requirement. Instead, the government responded that the so-called War on Terrorism could not be won on that basis, and
the secret FISA court endorsed the view. As Stewart Baker, the former NSA general counsel and Homeland Security official in the Bush
administration, told the Washington Post after the Yahoo case documents were released: "I'm always astonished how people are willing to
abstract these decisions from the actual stakes." He went on to say that "[w]e're talking about trying to gather information about people who
are trying to kill us and who will succeed if we don't have robust information about their activities. "26 As demonstrated in previous chapters,
however, there
is simply no serious evidence that the mass surveillance program initiated under President Bush
provided the sort of "robust information" Baker claims was required to identify the people "trying to kill us."
Yet, as this book goes to press, we have been presented with still another case study in the rise of a terrorist
movement-the Islamic State oflraq and Syria (ISIS), whose members are creating considerable mayhem in Iraq and Syria-for which the
mass surveillance techniques of the NSA left us totally unprepared. They appeared suddenly, startlingly so, these black-clad men of ISIS,
beheading journalists and others27 as they formed their proclaimed Sunni Caliphate over a broad swath of Syria and lraq. 28 Once again, as
with the al Qaeda attacks of 9/11, the
fearsome spectacle of a terrorist enemy drove reason from the stage and
the chant of war was in the air. The New York Times carried the text ofObama's speech to the nation on September 10, 2014, in
which he vowed to "destroy the terrorist group."29 Defense Secretary Chuck Hegel said that ISIS poses an "imminent threat to every interest
all the arguments for peace and restraint were cast aside and the defense of privacy
and civil liberty seemed an unaffordable indulgence in the rush to combat an enemy of such awesome
power and mystery. Lost in the moment of fear-induced passion was the fact that these men of ISIS who so alarmed us, like their cousins
we have."30 Suddenly,
in al Qaeda, were hardly unknown or mysterious beings, but instead monsters partially of our own creation. Adam Gopnik reinforced this point
in an August 2014 article in the New Yorker. "ISIS is a horrible group doing horrible things, and there are many factors behind its rise," he wrote.
"But they came to be a threat and a power less because of all we didn't do than because of certain things we did do-foremost among them that
massive, forward intervention, the Iraq War. (The historical question to which ISIS is the answer is: What could possibly be worse than Saddam
Hussein?)"31 Now, once again-and this time as compared to 9 I 11, when
the public was so ill-served with alarmist
information about the extent of the terrorist threat-the president was presumably in possession of that
vast trove of intelligence data collected by the NSA and analyzed with the brilliant software of the best
Silicon Valley datamining companies such as the media-celebrated Palantir. And yet there is no evidence that this costly and
intrusive effort was the least bit useful in predicting the rise of ISIS. Clearly, there is a disturbing disconnect between the zeal
with which big data is collected and the lack of scientific precision in utilizing that data to make sound
policy decisions and to inform the public as to the necessity of action. It is also difficult to see just how that data,
based as it is on the minutiae of the lives of much of the world's population, is useful to an understanding of this threat. This book explains the
continued rise of a military-intelligence complex that, through the assertion of a pressing danger to national security after 9 I 11, made an
unfettered and largely unchallenged claim upon the vast amount of private data collected in a wired world by government and private
enterprises. It is a claim based on the unquestioned assumption that what passes for military intelligence is sufficiently and uniquely productive
of useful insight to warrant the costs to our democracy as well as our federal budget, and that less invasive means of research such as
scholarship, journalism, and traditional shoe-leather spy and detective work are inherently inadequate to the task of protecting us in a
cyberworld. It is a commonly persuasive argument and difficult to challenge given that the high-tech surveillance is cloaked in such tight
secrecy. In the wake of the Snowden revelations, when there was a much-heightened public awareness of the threat to privacy and a
willingness, even on the part of Congress, to address the issue more vigorously, all
it took was the appearance of a renewed
terrorist threat to develop anew a consensus that privacy needed to be surrendered as an unaffordable
risk to the nation's security. Just the opposite is the case. What now passes for military intelligence is a tech -driven oxymoron that
denies the place of historical contemplation, cultural and religious study, political complexity, and ethical restraints in assessing dangers to a
nation.
Never has our nation's foreign policy been so poorly served as in the era of the Internet, with its
enormous potential to enlighten us; but the collusions of war-mongering fanatics and profiteers are
beyond the comprehension of even the most powerful machines. They must not be beyond the purview of public
awareness, however. A fully informed public is the best safeguard against the hazardous foreign
entanglements that our founders warned were the main threat to the health of the republic. That is why
they enshrined the constitutional protections against unbridled government power they believed would subvert the American experiment in
representative governance. We must heed the wisdom of the EFF's senior attorney Lee Tien, who as much as any constitutional lawyer has
battled on behalf of those rights. As he summed up in an interview: "We need to fix the national security classification system that has classified
so much information that we don't know what's going on. It's hard to know what we should do, but we should all agree that knowing what's
happening is the first step. It's dangerous to propose a solution when you don't know what the extent of the problem is. If you asked me before
the Snowden revelations, my answer would be different. There are no personal solutions to this; there is nothing we can do individually." "This
is a systemic problem," he continued. "It's an institutional problem, it's a political problem. There can only be collective action. That's it. That
means we need to call on all of them-individuals, Internet companies, politicians, the government-to fix it, and we need to organize.
You
can't have a democracy if you don't have sufficient information. We're fighting for the soul of this
democracy."
Transparency in data collection is crucial
Scheer 2015 (Robert [Prof @ USC’s School of journalism and communication]; They Know Everything
About You; Nation Books; p. 157-8; kdf)
OUR GOVERNMENT, LIKE OTHERS THROUGHOUT history, tells us that repressive, invasive, and paranoid national
security policies are for our own good, especially in terms of our safety. Yet where do the prerogatives of a
surveillance state driven by fear and governed by secrecy really take us? The reality is that these
procedures not only are unconstitutional but all too often lead to bad government policies, both at home and
abroad. One need only review the invasion of Iraq to see the folly of toppling a regime that was an
implacable enemy of al Qaeda-an invasion driven by a fear of weapons of mass destruction that free access to the available data
would have discounted. The direct result, billions of dollars and hundreds of thousands of deaths later, is a
fractured Iraq that, at the time of this writing a decade later, seems to be in a constant state of bloody division. Or as
veteran correspondent Patrick Cockburn summarized in the London Review of Books in 2014, after the extremist Islamic State of Iraq and Syria
(ISIS) seized huge swaths of both countries: For America, Britain and the Western powers, the rise of lsis and the Caliphate is the ultimate
disaster. Whatever they intended by their invasion oflraq in 2003 and their efforts to get rid of Assad in Syria since 2011, it was not to see the
creation of a jihadi state spanning northern Iraq and Syria run by a movement a hundred times bigger and much better organised than the alQaida of Osama bin Laden. The war on terror for which civil liberties have been curtailed and hundreds of billions of dollars spent has failed
miserably.1 The
obvious lesson of that debacle, and others like it, is that an informed public with access to
accurate information-even when the facts are embarrassing to the government- is the best safeguard
against such errors. Aren't we better off knowing when our freedoms are threatened or we are being
lied to, even by our own leaders, so that we can rectify such policies? In other words, didn't Edward
Snowden, regardless of the legality of his actions, actually make us safer?
Excuses for surveillance are unmerited
Weiss 2015 (Leonard [visiting scholar at Stanford University’s Center for International Security and
Cooperation]; On fear and nuclear terror; Mar 3; Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists 2015, Vol. 71(2) 75–87;
kdf)
The rise of the national surveillance state. Lowering the
risk of terrorism, particularly the nuclear kind, is the quintessential
reason that the mandarins of the national security state have given for employing the most invasive
national surveillance system in history. “Finding the needle in the haystack” is how some describe the effort to discern terrorist
plots from telephone metadata and intercepted communications. But the haystack keeps expanding, and large elements of
the American population appear willing to allow significant encroachments on the constitutional
protections provided by the Fourth Amendment. The fear of terrorism has produced this change in the
American psyche even though there is no evidence that the collection of such data has resulted in the
discovery of terrorist plots beyond those found by traditional police and intelligence methods. It is
doubtful that we shall soon (if ever) see a return to the status quo ante regarding constitutional protections. This reduction in the
freedom of Americans from the prying eyes of the state is a major consequence of the hyping of
terrorism, especially nuclear terrorism. This is exemplified by the blithe conclusion in the previously referenced paper by
Friedman and Lewis (2014), in which readers are advised to “be more proactive in supporting our government’s actions to ameliorate potential
risks.” The National Security Agency should love this.
And, authors have motives to exaggerate the threat of terrorism
Weiss 2015 (Leonard [visiting scholar at Stanford University’s Center for International Security and
Cooperation]; On fear and nuclear terror; Mar 3; Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists 2015, Vol. 71(2) 75–87;
kdf)
There is a tendency on the part of security policy advocates to hype security threats to obtain support
for their desired policy outcomes. They are free to do so in a democratic society, and most come by their advocacy through genuine conviction
that a real security threat is receiving insufficient attention. But there is now enough evidence of how such advocacy has been
distorted for the purpose of overcoming political opposition to policies stemming from ideology that
careful public exposure and examination of data on claimed threats should be part of any such debate.
Until this happens, the most appropriate attitude toward claimed threats of nuclear terrorism, especially when accompanied by
advocacy of policies intruding on individual freedom, should be one of skepticism. Interestingly, while all this attention to nuclear terrorism goes
on, the United States and other nuclear nations have no problem promoting the use of nuclear power and national nuclear programs (only for friends, of course)
that end up creating more nuclear materials that can be used for weapons. The use of civilian nuclear programs to disguise national weapon ambitions has been a
hallmark of proliferation history ever since the Atoms for Peace program (Sokolski, 2001), suggesting that the real nuclear threat resides where it always has
resided-in national nuclear programs; but placing the threat where it properly belongs does not carry the public-relations frisson currently attached to the word
“terrorism.”
1AC Big Stick
Contention 1 – Privacy
The federal government is ramping up its use of drones for domestic surveillance, this
harms the 4th amendment in unprecedented ways
Gilens 2013 (Naomi [ACLU Speech, Privacy and Technology Project]; New Documents Reveal U.S.
Marshals’ Drones Experiment, Underscoring Need for Government Transparency;
https://www.aclu.org/blog/new-documents-reveal-us-marshals-drones-experiment-underscoring-needgovernment-transparency; kdf)
The use of surveillance drones is growing rapidly in the United States, but we know little about how the
federal government employs this new technology. Now, new information obtained by the ACLU shows for the first time that
the U.S. Marshals Service has experimented with using drones for domestic surveillance. We learned this
through documents we released today, received in response to a Freedom of Information Act request. The documents are available here. (We
also released a short log of drone accidents from the Federal Aviation Administration as well as accident reports and other documents from the
U.S. Air Force.) This revelation comes a week after a bipartisan bill to protect Americans’ privacy from domestic drones was introduced in the
House. Although the Marshals Service told us it found 30 pages about its drones program in response to our FOIA request, it turned over only
two of those pages—and even they were heavily redacted. Here’s what we know from the two short paragraphs of text we were able to see.
Under a header entitled “Unmanned Aerial Vehicle, Man-Portable (UAV) Program,” an agency document overview begins: USMS Technical
Operations Group's UAV Program provides a highly portable, rapidly deployable overhead collection device that will provide a multi-role
surveillance platform to assist in [redacted] detection of targets. Another document reads: This developmental program is designed to provide
[redacted] in support of TOG [presumably the agency’s Technical Operations Group] investigations and operations. This surveillance solution
can be deployed during [multiple redactions] to support ongoing tactical operations. These heavily redacted documents reveal almost no
information about the nature of the Marshals’ drone program. However, the Marshals Service explained to the Los Angeles Times that they
tested two small drones in 2004 and 2005. The experimental program ended after both drones crashed. It is surprising that what seems like a
small-scale experiment remained hidden from the public until our FOIA unearthed it. Even more surprising is that seven years after the program
was discontinued, the Marshals still refuse to disclose almost any records about it. As
drone use becomes more and more
common, it is crucial that the government’s use of these spying machines be transparent and
accountable to the American people. All too often, though, it is unclear which law enforcement agencies are
using these tools, and how they are doing so. We should not have to guess whether our government is using
these eyes in the sky to spy on us. As my colleague ACLU staff attorney Catherine Crump told me, Americans have the
right to know if and how the government is using drones to spy on them. Drones are too invasive a tool
for it to be unclear when the public will be subjected to them. The government needs to respect
Americans’ privacy while using this invasive technology, and the laws on the books need to be brought
up to date to ensure that America does not turn into a drone surveillance state. All over the U.S., states and
localities are trying to figure out through the democratic political process exactly what kind of protections we should put in place in light of the
growing use of what Time Magazine called “the most powerful surveillance tool ever devised, on- or offline.” These debates are essential to a
healthy democracy, and are heartening to see. However, this
production from the Marshals Service underscores the
need for a federal law to ensure that the government’s use of drones remains open and transparent. A
number of federal lawmakers are already pushing to bring the law up to date. Representatives Ted Poe (RTexas) and Zoe Lofgren (D-Calif.) recently introduced the first bipartisan legislation to regulate the government’s
use of drones. The proposed legislation, which is supported by the ACLU, would enact judicial and Congressional
oversight mechanisms, require government agencies to register all drones and get a warrant when using
them for surveillance (except in emergency situations), and prohibit the domestic use of armed drones. We believe
this bill—and hopefully a future companion bill in the Senate—will provide a strong foundation for future legislation protecting our privacy
rights in the face of proliferating drone surveillance and government secrecy.
The current legal framework is inadequate at confronting the privacy concerns posed
by drones
Rothfuss 2014 (Ian F [George Mason School of Law]; Student Comment: An Economic Perspective on
the Privacy Implications of Domestic Drone Surveillance; 10 J.L. Econ. & Pol'y 441; kdf)
Introduction A sixteen-hour standoff with police began after a suspect took control of six cows that wandered on to his farm and "chased police
off his land with high powered rifles." n1 Without the suspect's knowledge, police used a Predator drone to locate and apprehend him on his
3,000-acre farm. n2 In addition to law enforcement, anyone may buy a handheld drone. The Parrot AR.Drone 2.0, for example, costs less than
three hundred dollars and can fly up to 165 feet from its controller while recording and transmitting live high-definition video from the sky. n3
Unmanned aerial vehicles (drones) have become essential to government surveillance overseas and are now being deployed
domestically for law enforcement and other purposes. The ability of drones to conduct widespread
domestic surveillance has raised serious privacy concerns. Both government and private actors may use drones. Given the
proliferation of this new technology, Congress has recently directed the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) to expedite the licensing process
and open the domestic airspace to drones. n4 Situations like the one described above will likely become more common in the near future. n5
Domestic drones [*442] have the potential to allow the government to effectively and efficiently monitor the activities of people across the
nation. Part I of this Comment examines the capabilities of drones, discusses currently planned drone deployments, and examines recent
developments that have brought the topic of domestic drone surveillance to the forefront of national security law discussions. This comment
concludes that current
law does not adequately protect privacy interests from the widespread surveillance
that could result from the unrestricted domestic use of drones. Part II discusses the sources of the right to privacy and
examines the current state of the law. Part III applies an economic perspective to determine the optimal level of domestic drone surveillance
that the law should allow. This analysis is based upon a general economic model of surveillance developed by Andrew Song following the
September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks. n6 Economic analysis shows that the uncontrolled domestic deployment of drones would lead to an
inefficient and unproductive loss of social utility. Prompt legislative action is therefore necessary to address the fundamental privacy challenges
presented by the use of drones. Part IV concludes by proposing a legal framework to balance security and other interests while safeguarding
the privacy rights of U.S. citizens. As discussed in this comment, such legislation should allow constructive use of the technology within a
framework that protects individual privacy rights. I. Background: Domestic Deployment of Drones Recent congressional legislation has directed
the FAA to expedite its current licensing process and allow the private and commercial use of drones in U.S. airspace by October 2015. n7 The
FAA has streamlined the authorization process to "less than 60 days" for nonemergency drone operations. n8 Among other requirements, the
recent legislation directs the FAA to allow government agencies to operate small drones weighing less than 4.4 pounds. n9 The use of drones
can be expected to increase dramatically in the coming years. [*443] The FAA has already authorized many police departments and other
agencies to use drones. n10 As of November 2012, the FAA oversaw 345 active Certificates of Waiver or Authorization that allow public entities
to operate drones in civil airspace. n11 Customs and Border Protection uses Predator drones along the nation's borders "to search for illegal
immigrants and smugglers" n12 and "the FBI and Drug Enforcement Administration have used Predators for other domestic investigations." n13
Predators owned by Customs and Border Protection and based at U.S. Air Force bases have been deployed on numerous occasions to assist
local law enforcement. n14 One law enforcement agency has even deployed a drone capable of being armed with lethal and non-lethal
weapons. n15 Drones also have applications beyond government law enforcement. Drones may be used to provide live video coverage of
events without the need to use piloted helicopters and by paparazzi chasing after pictures of celebrities and other public figures. n16
Individuals may use drones to spy on their neighbors, to keep an eye on their children, or to keep tabs on a potentially unfaithful spouse. n17
The possibilities for corporate espionage and the theft of trade secrets are also endless. Drones range in size from handheld units to units the
size of large aircraft and have a wide variety of capabilities. n18 Nearly fifty companies are reported to be developing an estimated 150 varieties
of drone systems. n19 Users of drones may include the military, federal and local law enforcement agencies, business entities, and private
individuals. Drones have many diverse domestic uses including surveillance of dangerous disaster sites, patrolling borders, helping law
enforcement locate suspects, monitoring traffic, crop dusting, aerial mapping, media coverage, and many others. n20 [*444] Drones
represent an unprecedented convergence of surveillance technologies that could lead to increased
security but could also jeopardize the privacy of U.S. citizens. Drones may be equipped with a variety of technologies
including high-resolution cameras, n21 face-recognition technology, n22 video-recording capability, n23 heat sensors, n24 radar systems, n25
night vision, n26 infrared sensors, n27 thermal-imaging cameras, n28 Wi-Fi and communications interception devices, n29 GPS, n30 licenseplate scanners, n31 and other systems designed to aid in surveillance. Drones
will soon be able to recognize faces and track
the movement of subjects with only minimal visual-image data [*445] obtained from aerial surveillance. n32 Drones
have the ability to break into wireless networks, monitor cell-phone calls, and monitor entire towns
while flying at high altitude. n33 These rapid technological advancements present privacy challenges that
were not contemplated when our existing laws were developed.
Anonymity is a vital component of American democracy which is undermined by
drones, ushering in a totalitarian state
Burow 2013 (Matthew L [Candidate for JD @ New England School of Law]; The Sentinel Clouds above
the Nameless Crowd: Prosecuting Anonymity from Domestic Drones; 39 New Eng. J. on Crim. & Civ.
Confinement 443; kdf)
Walking down the street. Driving a car. Sitting on a park bench. By themselves, these actions do not exhibit an iota of privacy. The individual has
no intention to conceal their movements; no confidentiality in their purpose. The individual is in the open, enjoying a quiet day or a peaceful
Sunday drive. Yet as Chief Justice Rehnquist commented,
there is uneasiness if an individual suspected that these
innocuous and benign movements were being recorded and scrutinized for future reference. 119 If the
"uneasy" reaction to which the Chief Justice referred is not based on a sense of privacy invasion, it stems
from something very close to it-a sense that one has a right to public anonymity. 120 Anonymity is the
state of being unnamed. 121 The right to public anonymity is the assurance that, when in public, one is
unremarked and part of the undifferentiated crowd as far as the government is concerned. 122 That right is
usually surrendered only when one does or says something that merits government attention, which most often includes criminal activity. 123
But when that attention is gained by surreptitiously operated UASs that are becoming more affordable
for local law enforcement agencies, 124 "it evades the ordinary checks that constrain abusive law
enforcement practices ... : 'limited police resources and community hostility."' 12 5 This association of public anonymity and privacy is
not new. 126 Privacy expert and Columbia University Law professor Alan F. Westin points out that "anonymity [] occurs when the individual is
in public places or performing public acts but still seeks, and finds, freedom from identification and surveillance." 127 Westin continued by
stating that: [A person] may be riding a subway, attending a ball game, or walking the streets; he is among people and knows that he is being
observed; but unless he is a well-known celebrity, he does not expect to be personally identified and held to the full rules of behavior and role
that would operate if he were known to those observing him. In this state the individual is able to merge into the "situational landscape." 128
While most people would share the intuition of Chief Justice Rehnquist and professor Westin that we expect some degree of anonymity in
public, there is no such right to be found in the Constitution. Therefore,
with a potentially handcuffed judiciary, the
protection of anonymity falls to the legislature. Based on current trends in technology and a keen
interest taken by law enforcement in the advancement of UAS integration into national airspace, it is
clear that drones pose a looming threat to Americans' anonymity. 129 Even when UASs are authorized for noble uses
such as search and rescue missions, fighting wildfires, and assisting in dangerous tactical police operations, UASs are likely to be
quickly embraced by law enforcement for more controversial purposes. 130 What follows are compelling
interdisciplinary reasons why the legislature should take up the call to protect the subspecies of privacy that is anonymity. A. Philosophic: The
Panopticon Harm Between 1789 and 1812, the Panopticon prison was the central obsession of the renowned English philosopher Jeremy
Bentham's life. 131 The Panopticon is a circular building with cells occupying the circumference and the guard tower standing in the center. 132
By using blinds to obscure the guards located in the tower, "the keeper [is] concealed from the observation of the prisoners ... the sentiment of
an invisible omnipresence."'133 The effect of such architectural brilliance is simple: the lone fact that there might be a guard watching is
enough to keep the prisoners on their best behavior. 134 As the twentieth-century French philosopher Michel Foucault observed, the major
effect of the Panopticon is "to induce in the inmate a state of conscious and permanent visibility that assures the automatic functioning of
power."'135 In Bentham's vision,
there is no need for prison bars, chains or heavy locks; the person who is
subjected to the field of visibility of the omnipresent guard plays both roles and he becomes the subject
of his own subjection. 136 For Foucault, this "panopticism" was not necessarily bad when compared to other methods of exercising
control as this sort of "subtle coercion" could lead people to be more productive and efficient members of society. 137 Following Foucault's
reasoning, an
omnipresent UAS circling above a city may be similar to a Panopticon guard tower and an
effective way of keeping the peace. The mere thought of detection may keep streets safer and potential
criminals at bay. However, the impact on cherished democratic ideals may be too severe. For example, in a case
regarding the constitutionally vague city ordinance that prohibited "nightwalking," Justice Douglas commented on the importance of public
vitality and locomotion in America: The difficulty is that [walking and strolling] are historically part of the amenities of life as we have known
them. They are not mentioned in the Constitution or in the Bill of Rights. These unwritten amenities have been in part responsible for giving our
people the feeling of independence and self-confidence, the feeling of creativity. These amenities have dignified the right of dissent and have
honored the right to be nonconformists and the right to defy submissiveness. They have encouraged lives of high spirits rather than hushed,
suffocating silence. 138 As Justice Douglas understood, government
surveillance stifles the cherished ideal of an
American society that thrives on free-spiritedness in public. 39 Without the right to walk the streets in
public, free from the fear of high surveillance, our American values would dissipate into that
resembling a totalitarian state that attacks the idea of privacy as immoral, antisocial and part of the
dissident cult of individualism. 140
This dehumanization justifies the worst atrocities
Burow 2013 (Matthew L [Candidate for JD @ New England School of Law]; The Sentinel Clouds above
the Nameless Crowd: Prosecuting Anonymity from Domestic Drones; 39 New Eng. J. on Crim. & Civ.
Confinement 443; kdf)
This Note has explored the philosophical and psychological effects of panoptic surveillance and the need for protection.2 29
A mere suspicion of a
UAS flying high in sky can have a chilling effect on democracy that most Americans would consider
intolerable. 230 But what about the psychological changes UASs will bring about in law enforcement? The following is an excerpt from a news report on the
mindset of UAS pilots who operate military drones in overseas combat missions: Bugsplat is the official term used by US authorities
when humans are killed by drone missiles .... [I]t is deliberately employed as a psychological tactic to
dehumanise targets so operatives overcome their inhibition to kill .... It was Hitler who coined this
phraseology in Nazi Germany during the Holocaust. In Mein Kampf, Hitler refers to Jews as vermin (volksungeziefer) or parasites
(volksschtidling). In the infamous Nazi film, Der ewige Jude, Jews were portrayed as harmful pests that deserve to die. Similarly, in the Rwandan
genocide, the Tutsis were described as "cockroaches." This is not to infer genocidal intent in US drone
warfare, but rather to emphasise the dehumanising effect of this terminology in Nazi Germany and that
the very same terms are used by the US in respect of their Pakistani targets. 231 Will John and Jane Doe-the casual
saunterer-become part of the next group of bugs that must be swatted in the name of effective law
enforcement? In answering that question, we should look to the skies once again and pray to the better angels of
our nature for a worthy answer.
Contention 2 – Drone Warfare
Covert surveillance is just the beginning—best to block it now
Murline 2013 (Anna; Drones over America: public safety benefit or 'creepy' privacy threat?; Marc 13;
www.csmonitor.com/USA/Society/2013/0313/Drones-over-America-public-safety-benefit-or-creepyprivacy-threat; kdf)
WASHINGTON — Shortly after Alan Frazier became a part-time deputy sheriff in Grand Forks, N.D., the police began looking into the possibility
of buying some aircraft to boost their law enforcement capabilities. They wanted some help doing things like finding missing people or carrying
out rescues in a region dotted by farmsteads threatened by flooding that wipes out access to roads. Buying a turbine engine helicopter,
however, would cost $25 million, a prohibitive price tag even with 11 law enforcement agencies – eight from North Dakota and three in
western Minnesota – willing to share the cost. So Mr. Frazier, also an assistant professor of aviation at the University of North Dakota (UND),
began looking into unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) as a possible alternative. Recommended: Drone warfare: top 3 reasons it could be
dangerous for US But
what appears, on one level, to be a sensible, practical, and affordable solution for local law
enforcement – the price tag for a small UAV is about the cost of a tricked-out new police cruiser at $50,000 – has run smack into
public concerns about yet another high-tech invasion of privacy and the popular image of drones as
stealthy weapons used against terrorists. Nonetheless, the technology's potential benefits in pursuing a raft
of public safety measures at relatively low cost have enormous appeal for law enforcement agencies
across the country, since President Obama signed a bill last year directing the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) to further open US
airspace to drones for both public and private use. Even before that, the number of permits, known as certificates of authorization (COAs), that
the FAA issued to organizations to fly UAVs more than doubled from 146 in 2009 to 313 in 2011. As of February 2013 there were 327 active
COAs. The bulk of these permits go to the US military for training, and the Pentagon expects their numbers to grow considerably in the years to
come. According to a March 2011 Pentagon estimate, the Department of Defense will have 197 drones at 105 US bases by 2015. The US
Border Patrol has the country's largest fleet of UAVs for domestic surveillance, including nine Predator
drones that patrol regions like the Rio Grande, searching for illegal immigrants and drug smugglers. Unlike the missile-firing Predators used
by the Central Intelligence Agency to hunt Al Qaeda operatives and their allies, the domestic version of the aircraft – say, those used by the
border patrol – is more typically equipped with night-vision technology and long-range cameras that can read license plates. Groups like the
American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) also complain that these drones
have see-through imaging technology similar to
those used in airports, as well as facial recognition software tied to federal databases. The growth in drones is
big business. Some 50 companies are developing roughly 150 systems, according to The Wall Street Journal, ranging from miniature flying
mechanical bugs to "Battlestar Galactica"-type hovering unmanned airplanes. It's an industry expected to reach some $6 billion in US sales by
2016. Those forecasts notwithstanding, neither the FAA nor the association of UAV operators says it knows how many nonmilitary drones are
operating in the United States. The ACLU is seeking that information. The
growth in the development of UAVs by both
private companies and the US government has not gone unnoticed, creating a backlash in some communities. In
Seattle last month, community members quashed their city's drone program before it even got started. The program was being considered for
search-and-rescue operations and some criminal investigations, but was referred to by protesters as "flying government robots watching their
every move." Mayor Mike McGinn spoke with Police Chief John Diaz, "and we agreed that it was time to end the unmanned aerial vehicle
program," the mayor wrote in a statement. The drones were returned to the manufacturer. Just days earlier, Charlottesville, Va., had become
the first city in the country to pass a "no-drone zone" resolution, putting in place a two-year moratorium on the use of drones within
Charlottesville limits. "The big concern for us is that they're going to be everywhere," says John Whitehead, an attorney and president of The
Rutherford Institute, a civil liberties organization in Charlottesville, which launched a preemptive fight against drones before the city council.
The move followed an Obama administration memo justifying the use of drones overseas to kill US citizens suspected of taking part in terrorist
activities. "The
president says you can take out American citizens in foreign countries," Mr. Whitehead says.
if you can do that, you can take out somebody here as well." On March 6, Attorney General Eric Holder may
have reinforced such fears in testimony before the Senate Judiciary Committee when he refused to rule
out the use of armed drones on US soil in an emergency "to protect the homeland." If it all has an air of hysteria
"Well,
about it – Mr. Holder said there are no plans for the domestic use of armed drones and called the scenario "entirely hypothetical" and unlikely
– privacy groups point to California's Alameda County, where officials insisted they wanted drones for search-and-rescue missions. An internal
memo that surfaced from the sheriff's department, however, noted the drones
could be used for "investigative and tactical
surveillance, intelligence gathering, suspicious persons, and large crowd-control disturbances." The county
dropped its plans. The first and only known use of a drone in the arrest of a US citizen occurred in December 2011 in North Dakota, when the
Nelson County Sheriff's Department asked to borrow one of the US Customs and Border Protection UAVs. The drone provided a good view of
the three sons of the owner of a 3,000-acre farm who were involved in a standoff with law enforcement officers. As a result, police were able to
tell that the brothers were unarmed, allowing them to enter the farm and arrest the brothers without the confrontation turning into a
shootout. Whitehead imagines a day when drones
equipped with sound cannons, which release painful high-decibel
sound waves that cause crowds to disperse, could be dispatched by the government to political protests
and used as well to "effectively stifle free speech." The concern that such technologies can be misused to invade privacy and
suppress free speech "is a legitimate fear," says UND's Frazier. "Anytime we increase the technological capabilities of the
government there's a justifiable concern there. But I think these fears can be offset by the fact that the drones we're using
have very limited capabilities." Nevertheless, privacy concerns are what have prompted groups including the nonprofit Electronic Frontier
Foundation (EFF) to use the Freedom of Information Act to obtain hundreds of documents from the FAA outlining who has been requesting to
use drones in America's skies, and why. Roughly 40 percent of the drone flight requests submitted to the FAA are from the US military. "They
are flying drones pretty regularly – eight hours a day, five days a week – to train pilots so that they will be able to fly drones," says Jessica Lynch,
a staff attorney for EFF. These drones are equipped with infrared scanning capabilities and other surveillance gadgets. "Drones
have
quite a number of technologies on board, including thermal cameras and the ability to intercept
communications," Ms. Lynch says. "If they are training pilots, they are training them in these surveillance tools." FAA regulations stipulate
that weaponized drones cannot fly in unrestricted US airspace. The agency also has specific parameters for law enforcement drones. Law
enforcement groups, for example, must maintain visual contact with the drone at all times and must also fly at relatively low altitudes. These
are regulations with which the Grand Forks Sheriff's Department has become familiar in the three years since it began looking into using
drones, first establishing an Unmanned Aerial Systems unit as part of the department and then applying for COAs to use the drones. The unit,
which went fully operational Feb. 1, has conducted 250 simulated missions, but has yet to use a drone in an operation. Certification tends to be
a lengthy and arduous process, Frazier says, adding that there are also some parameters for usage that are meant to promote safety, but can
make it tricky for law enforcement to do its jobs. One provision, for example, is that the drones can fly only by day. Another early rule was that
the police had to give 48 hours' notice if they were going to use the drones. "It's tough to predict if there is going to be a fire tomorrow, or a
bank robbery the day after tomorrow," he says. The department was able to convince the FAA to let it fly the drones on one-hour notice
instead. That said, Frazier understands the public's concerns about the use of drones. For that reason, Grand Forks established a 15-member
committee – made up of one-third public safety officials, one-third UND faculty, and one-third community residents – to evaluate the use of
drones and to troubleshoot questions and concerns of the public. Every law enforcement action involving the drones is to be reviewed by the
committee. Frazier told committee members that the department did not intend to ask for the ability to use the drones for covert surveillance.
"We will not use them to, quote, spy on people," Frazier says. Even if that were the intention, he adds, "These small drones are not particularly
robust platforms for covert surveillance. I think the public can't understand that my little UAV can only fly for 15 minutes, can't fly out of my
line of sight, and can't fly in greater than 15-knot winds." Out of concern that average citizens could be filmed by sensors on the aircraft, one of
the committee's first acts was to instruct police to post road signs warning the public when UAVs are in use. Yet some of the conversations
EFF's Lynch has had with other law enforcement agencies haven't been as reassuring about privacy, she says. "We've talked to police about
this, and they've said, 'Well, we're going to fly the drones in public airspace, and if you walk around in public you don't have an expectation of
privacy in your movements.' "While that might be true for a police officer following you down the street, I don't know if that applies when a
drone can fly over and surveil everybody walking down that street for an extended period of time," Lynch says. "You can make the case that
drones are helping law enforcement better do their jobs for less [cost] and we should incorporate it," she adds. "As technology becomes
cheaper and easier to use, it's tempting to use it all the time." That is the fear of Texas state lawmaker Lance Gooden, who in February
proposed some of the toughest anti-drone legislation in the country. It would prevent drone operators from collecting images, sounds, and
smells – or hovering over any home – without permission. "Two to four years from now, it'll be impossible to get legislation passed because
every law enforcement agency will want drones," says Mr. Gooden. While the drone lobby is growing, it is not as powerful as it will become, he
adds. Currently, his bill has the support of 101 of the 150 members of the state Legislature. But some longtime drone experts say such laws are
overkill and could impede growth of technology that is useful and relatively inexpensive. "The ordinances that have been passed are absolutely
absurd," says retired Lt. Gen. David Deptula, the first deputy chief of staff for Intelligence, Reconnaissance, and Surveillance for the US Air
Force. "And what's precluded are the very valuable civilian applications in terms of traffic control, firefighting, disaster response, border
security, the monitoring of power lines – the list goes on and on." As for privacy concerns, "I can't think of another way of saying it, but that
they are unfounded," Deptula adds. "All you have to do is look up in any major metropolitan city and see the cameras all around. And have they
ever heard of satellites? Where do they think Google maps come from?" Frazier concurs. People with a good zoom lens have better cameras
than do his small drones, he adds, pointing out that one of the Grand Forks Sheriff's Department's drones has a simple off-the-shelf Panasonic.
The average GPS-enabled cellphone can now track people and their movements to within a few feet, he
notes. That said, "I understand what people mean when they say it's 'creepy,' " Frazier says. "I value my privacy as much as
anyone does – it's very sacred in this country." Even if they could do it legally, law enforcement agencies would
be making a big mistake using drones for covert surveillance – for the time being, he adds. "It would be a fatal mistake at
this point. We really need to take a crawl, walk, run approach. To go to covert surveillance brings us to a run," Frazier says of the law
enforcement community. "If that means we're not Buck Rogers in the 21st century, we're comfortable with that."
Domestic drones will become weaponized – posing unique risks to civil liberties
Greenwald 2013 (Glenn [former columnist on civil liberties and US national security issues for the
Guardian. An ex-constitutional lawyer]; The US Needs To Wake Up To Threat Of Domestic Drones; Mar
30; http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2013/mar/29/domestic-drones-unique-dangers; kdf)
The use of drones by domestic US law enforcement agencies is growing rapidly, both in terms of numbers
and types of usage. As a result, civil liberties and privacy groups led by the ACLU - while accepting that domestic drones are inevitable have been devoting increasing efforts to publicizing their unique dangers and agitating for statutory limits. These efforts are being
impeded by those who mock the idea that domestic drones pose unique dangers (often the same people who
mock concern over their usage on foreign soil). This dismissive posture is grounded not only in soft authoritarianism (a
religious-type faith in the Goodness of US political leaders and state power generally) but also ignorance over current drone
capabilities, the ways drones are now being developed and marketed for domestic use, and the
activities of the increasingly powerful domestic drone lobby. So it's quite worthwhile to lay out the key under-discussed
facts shaping this issue. I'm going to focus here most on domestic surveillance drones, but I want to say a few words about weaponized drones.
The belief that weaponized drones won't be used on US soil is patently irrational. Of course they will be. It's
not just likely but inevitable. Police departments are already speaking openly about how their drones
"could be equipped to carry nonlethal weapons such as Tasers or a bean-bag gun." The drone industry has already developed
and is now aggressively marketing precisely such weaponized drones for domestic law enforcement use.
It likely won't be in the form that has received the most media attention: the type of large Predator or Reaper drones that
shoot Hellfire missiles which destroy homes and cars in Pakistan, Yemen, Somalia, Afghanistan and multiple other countries aimed at Muslims
(although US law enforcement agencies already possess Predator drones and have used them over US soil for surveillance). Instead, as I
detailed in a 2012 examination of the drone industry's own promotional materials and reports to their shareholders, domestic
weaponized drones will be much smaller and cheaper, as well as more agile - but just as lethal. The nation's
leading manufacturer of small "unmanned aircraft systems" (UAS), used both for surveillance and attack purposes, is AeroVironment, Inc. (AV).
Its 2011 Annual Report filed with the SEC repeatedly emphasizes that its business strategy depends upon expanding its market from foreign
wars to domestic usage including law enforcement: AV's annual report added: "Initial likely non-military users of small UAS include public safety
organizations such as law enforcement agencies. . . ."
These domestic marketing efforts are intensifying with the
perception that US spending on foreign wars will decrease. As a February, 2013 CBS News report noted, focusing on AV's
surveillance drones: "Now, drones are headed off the battlefield. They're already coming your way. "AeroVironment, the California company
that sells the military something like 85 percent of its fleet, is marketing them now to public safety agencies." Like many drone manufacturers,
AV is now focused on drone products - such as the "Qube" - that are so small that they can be "transported in the trunk of a police vehicle or
carried in a backpack" and assembled and deployed within a matter of minutes. One news report AV touts is headlined "Drone technology
could be coming to a Police Department near you", which focuses on the Qube. But another article prominently touted on AV's website
describes the tiny UAS product dubbed the "Switchblade", which, says the article, is "the leading edge of what is likely to be the broader, even
wholesale, weaponization of unmanned systems." The article creepily hails the Switchblade drone as "the ultimate assassin bug". That's
because, as I wrote back in 2011, "it is controlled by the operator at the scene, and it worms its way around buildings and into small areas,
sending its surveillance imagery to an i-Pad held by the operator, who can then direct the Switchblade to lunge toward and kill the target
(hence the name) by exploding in his face." AV's website right now proudly touts a February, 2013 Defense News article describing how much
the US Army loves the "Switchblade" and how it is preparing to purchase more. Time Magazine heralded this tiny drone weapon as "one of the
best inventions of 2012", gushing: "the Switchblade drone can be carried into battle in a backpack. It's a kamikaze: the person controlling it uses
a real-time video feed from the drone to crash it into a precise target - say, a sniper. Its tiny warhead detonates on impact." What possible
reason could someone identify as to why these small, portable weaponized UAS products will not imminently be used by federal, state and local
law enforcement agencies in the US? They're designed to protect their users in dangerous situations and to enable a target to be more easily
killed. Police
agencies and the increasingly powerful drone industry will tout their utility in capturing and
killing dangerous criminals and their ability to keep officers safe, and media reports will do the same. The
handful of genuinely positive uses from drones will be endlessly touted to distract attention away from the dangers they pose. One has to
be incredibly naïve to think that these "assassin bugs" and other lethal drone products will not be widely
used on US soil by an already para-militarized domestic police force. As Radley Balko's forthcoming book "Rise of the
Warrior Cop" details, the primary trend in US law enforcement is what its title describes as "The Militarization of America's Police Forces". The
history of domestic law enforcement particularly after 9/11 has been the importation of military techniques and weapons into domestic
policing. It would be shocking if these weapons were not imminently used by domestic law enforcement agencies. In contrast to weaponized
drones, even the most naïve among us do not doubt the imminent proliferation of domestic surveillance drones. With little debate, they have
already arrived. As the ACLU put it in their recent report: "US
law enforcement is greatly expanding its use of domestic
drones for surveillance." An LA Times article from last month reported that "federal authorities have stepped up
efforts to license surveillance drones for law enforcement and other uses in US airspace" and that "the Federal
Aviation Administration said Friday it had issued 1,428 permits to domestic drone operators since 2007, far more than were previously known."
Moreover, the agency "has estimated 10,000 drones could be aloft five years later" and "local and state law enforcement agencies are expected
to be among the largest customers." Concerns about the
proliferation of domestic surveillance drones are typically
dismissed with the claim that they do nothing more than police helicopters and satellites already do.
Such claims are completely misinformed. As the ACLU's 2011 comprehensive report on domestic drones explained:
"Unmanned aircraft carrying cameras raise the prospect of a significant new avenue for the surveillance
of American life." Multiple attributes of surveillance drones make them uniquely threatening. Because they are so cheap and
getting cheaper, huge numbers of them can be deployed to create ubiquitous surveillance in a way that
helicopters or satellites never could. How this works can already been seen in Afghanistan, where the US military has dubbed its
drone surveillance system "the Gorgon Stare", named after the "mythical Greek creature whose unblinking eyes turned to stone those who
beheld them". That
drone surveillance system is "able to scan an area the size of a small town" and "the
most sophisticated robotics use artificial intelligence that [can] seek out and record certain kinds of
suspicious activity". Boasted one US General: "Gorgon Stare will be looking at a whole city, so there will be no way for the adversary to
know what we're looking at, and we can see everything." The NSA already maintains ubiquitous surveillance of electronic communications, but
the Surveillance State faces serious limits on its ability to replicate that for physical surveillance. Drones easily overcome those barriers. As the
ACLU report put it: I've spoken previously about why a ubiquitous Surveillance State ushers in unique and deeply harmful effects on human
behavior and a nation's political culture and won't repeat that here (here's the video (also embedded below) and the transcript of one speech
where I focus on how that works). Suffice to say, as the ACLU explains in its domestic drone report: "routine aerial surveillance would
profoundly change the character of public life in America" because only drone technology enables such omnipresent physical surveillance.
Beyond that, the tiny size of surveillance drones enables them to reach places that helicopters obviously cannot, and to do so without
detection. They can remain in the sky, hovering over a single place, for up to 20 hours, a duration that is always increasing - obviously far more
than manned helicopters can achieve. As AV's own report put it (see page 11), their hovering capability also means they can surveil a single spot
for much longer than many military satellites, most of which move with the earth's rotation (the few satellites that remain fixed "operate nearly
25,000 miles from the surface of the earth, therefore limiting the bandwidth they can provide and requiring relatively larger, higher power
ground stations"). In sum, surveillance drones enable a pervasive, stealth and constantly hovering Surveillance State that is now well beyond
the technological and financial abilities of law enforcement agencies. One significant reason why this proliferation of domestic drones has
become so likely is the emergence of a powerful drone lobby. I detailed some of how that lobby is functioning here, so will simply note this
passage from a recent report from the ACLU of Iowa on its attempts to persuade legislators to enact statutory limits on the use of domestic
drones: "Drones have their own trade group, the Association for Unmanned Aerial Systems International, which includes some of the nation's
leading aerospace companies. And Congress now has 'drone caucuses' in both the Senate and House." Howie Klein has been one of the few
people focusing on the massive amounts of money from the drone industry now flowing into the coffers of key Congressional members from
both parties in this "drone caucus". Suffice to say, there is an enormous profit to be made from exploiting the domestic drone market, and as
usual, that factor is thus far driving the (basically nonexistent) political response to these threats. What is most often ignored by drone
proponents, or those who scoff at anti-drone activism, are the unique features of drones: the way they enable more warfare, more aggression,
and more surveillance. Drones make war more likely precisely because they entail so little risk to the war-making country. Similarly, while the
propensity of drones to kill innocent people receives the bulk of media attention, the way in which drones psychologically terrorize the
population - simply by constantly hovering over them: unseen but heard - is usually ignored, because it's not happening in the US, so few
people care (see this AP report from yesterday on how the increasing use of drone attacks in Afghanistan is truly terrorizing local villagers). It
remains to be seen how Americans will react to drones constantly hovering over their homes and their childrens' schools, though by that point,
their presence will be so institutionalized that it will be likely be too late to stop. Notably, this may be one area where an actual
bipartisan/trans-partisan alliance can meaningfully emerge, as most advocates working on these issues with whom I've spoken say that
libertarian-minded GOP state legislators have been as responsive as more left-wing Democratic ones in working to impose some limits. One bill
now pending in Congress would prohibit the use of surveillance drones on US soil in the absence of a specific search warrant, and has bipartisan
support. Only
the most authoritarian among us will be incapable of understanding the multiple dangers
posed by a domestic drone regime (particularly when their party is in control of the government and they are incapable of
perceiving threats from increased state police power). But the proliferation of domestic drones affords a real
opportunity to forge an enduring coalition in defense of core privacy and other rights that transcends
partisan allegiance, by working toward meaningful limits on their use. Making people aware of exactly what these
unique threats are from a domestic drone regime is the key first step in constructing that coalition.
Domestic armed drones in border regions is setting an international precedentlegislation key to establish a framework for modeling
Barry 2013 (Tom Barry, senior policy analyst and director of CIP's TransBorder Project, Barry specializes in
immigration policy, homeland security, border security, and the outsourcing of national security. He co-founded
the International Relations Center (IRC), and joined CIP in 2007. He has authored or co-authored more than twenty
books on Mexico, Central America, the Caribbean, food aid, the United Nations, free trade and U.S. foreign policy.
These include The Great Divide: Challenge of U.S.-Mexico Relations in the 1990s (Grove Press), Feeding the Crisis:
U.S. Food Aid and Farm Policy in Central America (University of Nebraska), The Next Fifty Years: The United Nations
and the United States, and the award-winning Zapata’s Revenge: Free Trade and the Farm Crisis in Mexico (South
End Press). He has also edited volumes on foreign policy such as Global Focus: U.S. Foreign policy at the Turn of the
Millennium (St. Martin’s Press), Center for International Policy, “Drones Over the Homeland”,
http://stratrisks.com/geostrat/16739, April 23, 2013)
Drones are proliferating at home and abroad. A new high-tech realm is emerging, where remotely controlled and autonomous unmanned systems do our
bidding. Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) and Unmanned Aerial Systems (UAS) – commonly known as drones – are already working for us in many ways. This new CIP International Policy
the emergence of the homeland security apparatus have put
border drones at the forefront of the intensifying public debate about the proper role of drones
Report reveals how the military-industrial complex and
domestically. Drones Over the Homeland focuses on the deployment of drones by the Department of
Homeland Security (DHS), which is developing a drone fleet that it projects will be capable of quickly
responding to homeland security threats, national security threats and national emergencies across the entire
nation. In addition, DHS says that its drone fleet is available to assist local law-enforcement agencies. Due to a surge in U.S. military contracting since 2001, the United States is the world leader
in drone production and deployment. Other nations, especially China, are also rapidly gaining a larger market share of the international drone market. The United States, however, will remain
the dominant driver in drone manufacturing and deployment for at least another decade. The central U.S. role in drone proliferation is the direct result of the Pentagon’s rapidly increasing
expenditures for UAVs. Also fueling drone proliferation is UAV procurement by the Department of Homeland Security, by other federal agencies such as NASA, and by local police, as well as by
Despite its lead role in the proliferation of
drones, the U.S. government has failed to take the lead in establishing appropriate regulatory
frameworks and oversight processes. Without this necessary regulatory infrastructure – at both
individuals and corporations. Drones are also proliferating among state-level Air National Guard units.
the national and international levels – drone proliferation threatens to undermine constitutional
guarantees, civil liberties and international law. This policy report begins with a brief overview of the development and deployment of UAVs, including a
summary of the DHS drone program. The second section details and critically examines the role of Congress and industry in promoting drone proliferation. In the third part, we explore the
expanding scope of the DHS drone program, extending to public safety and national security. The report’s fourth section focuses on the stated objectives of the homeland security drone
program. It debunks the dubious assertions and myths that DHS wields in presentations to the public and Congress to justify this poorly conceived, grossly ineffective and entirely nonstrategic
border program. The report’s final section summarizes our conclusions, and then sets forward our recommendations. I. UAV OVERVIEW AND ORIGIN OF HOMELAND SECURITY DRONES UAVs
are ideal instruments for what the military calls ISR (intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance) missions. Yet, with no need for an onboard crew and with the capacity to hover unseen at
high altitudes for long periods, drones also have many nonmilitary uses. Whether deployed in the air, on the ground or in the water, unmanned drones are ideally suited for a broad range of
scientific, business, public-safety and even humanitarian tasks. That is due to what are known as the “three Ds” capabilities – Dull (they can work long hours, conducting repetitive tasks), Dirty
(drones are impervious to toxicity) and Dangerous (no lives lost if a drone is destroyed). Indicative of the many possibilities for UAV use, some human rights advocates are now suggesting
drones can be used to defend human rights, noting their ISR capabilities could be used to monitor human rights violations by repressive regimes and non-state actors in such countries as
Syria.1 Manufacturers, led by the largest military contractors, are rapidly producing drones for a boom market, whose customers include governments (with the U.S. commanding dominant
market share), law enforcement agencies, corporations, individual consumers and rogue forces. Drones are proliferating so rapidly that a consensus about their formal name has not yet
formed. The most common designation is Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs), although Unmanned Aerial Systems (UAS) is also frequently used. Other less common terms include Unmanned
Systems (US) and Remotely Piloted Aircraft (RPA). The more inclusive “Unmanned Systems” term covers ground and marine drones , while highlighting the elaborate control and
communications systems used to launch, operate and recover drones. However, because most drones require staffed command-and-control centers, Remotely Piloted Aircraft may be the best
descriptive term. DRONES TAKE OFF Although the U.S. military and intelligence sectors had been promoting drone development since the early 1960s,2 it was the Israeli Air Force in the late
1970s that led the way in drone technology and manufacture. However, after the Persian Gulf War in 1991, the U.S. intelligence apparatus and the U.S. Air Force became the major drivers in
drone development and proliferation.3 Because the intelligence budget is classified, there are no hard figures publicly available that quantify the intelligence community’s contributions to
drone development in the United States. It has been credibly estimated that prior to 2000, such contributions made up about 40% of total drone research and development (R&D)
expenditures, with the U.S. Air Force being the other major source of development funds for drone research by U.S. military contractors.4 In the early 1990s, as part of a classified weapons
project, the U.S. Air Force and the CIA underwrote and guided the development and production of what became the Predator UAV, the first war-fighting drones that were initially deployed in
ISR missions during the Balkan wars in 1995. General Atomics Aeronautical Systems (GA-SI), an affiliate of privately held, San Diego-based company General Atomics, produced the first
Predator UAVs – now known as Predator A – with research and development funding from Pentagon, the Air Force and a highly secret intelligence organization called the National
Reconnaissance Organization.5 The 1995 deployment of the unarmed Predator A by the CIA and Air Force sparked new interest within the U.S. military and intelligence apparatus, resulting in
at least $600 million in new R&D contracting for drones with General Atomics. According to a U.S. Air Force study, “The CIA’s UAV program that existed in the early 1990’s and that still exists
today gave Predator and GA-ASI an important opportunity that laid the foundation for Predator’s success.” The study goes on to document what is known of the collaboration between the
intelligence community and General Atomics.6 General Atomics is a privately held firm, owned by brothers Neal and Linden Blue. The Blue brothers bought the firm (which was originally a
start-up division of General Dynamics) in 1986 for $50 million and the next year hired Ret. Rear Admiral Thomas J. Cassidy to run GA-SI. The Blue brothers are well connected nationally and
internationally with arch-conservative, anti-communist networks. These links stem in part from their past associations with right-wing leaders; one such example being the 100,000-acre
banana and cocoa farm Neal Blue co-owned with the Somoza family in Nicaragua, another being Linden Blue’s 1961 imprisonment in Cuba shortly before the Bay of Pigs for flying into Cuban
airspace, and especially their record of providing substantial campaign support for congressional hawks.7 In 1997, the U.S. Air Force’s high-tech development and procurement divisions took
the first steps toward weaponizing the Predator. This push led to the Air Force’s “Big Safari” rapid high-tech acquisitions program, which proved instrumental in having an armed Predator
ready for deployment in 2000. The newly weaponized MQ Predator-B was in action from the first day of the invasion of Afghanistan on October 21, 2001, when a Hellfire missile was fired from
a remote operator sitting in an improvised command and control center situated in the parking lot of the CIA headquarters in Langley, Virginia.8 The post-9/11 launch of the “global war on
terrorism” opened the floodgates for drone R&D funding and procurement by the CIA and all branches of the U.S. military, led by the Air Force. Starting in Afghanistan, and later in Iraq, the
Predator transitioned from an unmanned surveillance aircraft to what General Atomics proudly called a “Hunter-Killer.” Since 2004, the CIA and the Joint Special Operations Command, a
covert unit of the U.S. military, have routinely made clandestine strikes in Pakistan and more recently in Yemen and Somalia. These clandestine strikes increased during the first Obama
The rise of the Predators
along with later drone models produced by General Atomics – the Reaper, Guardian and Avenger drones
– can be attributed to aggressive marketing, influence-peddling and lobbying initiatives by General
Atomics and General Atomics Aeronautical Systems (GA-SI). The selling of the Predator could also count on the close personal ties forged over
decades in the military-industrial complex, which resulted in key R&D grants from the military and intelligence sectors. Another important factor in the
Predator’s increasing popularity has been General Atomics’ willingness to adapt models to meet varying
demands from DOD, DHS and the intelligence community for different armed and unarmed variants. Also working
Administration and continued into the second amid growing criticism that drone strikes were unconstitutional and counterproductive.9
in General Atomics favor is its ongoing commitment to curry favor in Congress with substantial campaign contributions and special favors. Speaking at the Citadel on December 11, 2001,
President George W. Bush underscored the Predators’ central role in U.S. global counterterrorism missions: “Before the war, the Predator had skeptics because it did not fit the old ways. Now
it is clear the military does not have enough unmanned vehicles.”10 At the time, there was widespread public, media and congressional enthusiasm for UAVs
where suspected
terrorists were purportedly killed with surgical precision while UAV pilots sat in front of video screens out of harm’s way drinking coffee. Little
was known then about the high-accident rates for the UAVs or the shocking collateral damage from their targeted strikes. Nor was it well known that the Predators were being piloted from
command and control centers at the CIA and at Creech Air Force Base in Nevada.
PREDATORS ALIGHT ON THE BORDER In the late-1990s, about the same
time that the U.S. Border Patrol started contracting for ground-based electronic surveillance, the agency also began planning to integrate drone surveillance into ground-based electronic
surveillance systems. It is also when it began the practice of entering into sole-source contracts with high-tech firms.11 The Border Patrol’s grand high-tech plan was to integrate drone ISR
operations with its planned Integrated Surveillance Intelligence System (ISIS).12 The plan, albeit never detailed in the project proposal, was to integrate geospatial images from yet-to-be
acquired Border Patrol UAVs into an elaborate command, control and communications systems managed by the Border Patrol – an agency not known for its high-level technical or
management skills.13 Soon after the CIA and the U.S. Air Force began flooding General Atomics with procurement contracts for armed Predators in 2001, disarmed Predator UAVs were
summoned for border security duty. In 2003, the Border Patrol – with funding not from the Customs and Border Protection (CBP) budget but rather from the Homeland Security’s newly
In 2005, CBP took full control over the
DHS drone program, with the launch of its own Predator drone program under the supervision of
the newly created Office of Air and Marine (OAM). OAM was a CBP division that united all the aerial and marine assets of the Office of the Border
Patrol and Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). According to the CBP, “ The UAV program focuses operations on the CBP priority
mission of anti-terrorism by helping to identify and intercept potential terrorists and illegal cross-border
activity.” Tens of billions of dollars began to flow into the Department of Homeland Security for border
security – the term that superseded border control in the aftermath of 9/11 – and the DHS drone
program was propelled forward. To direct OAM, DHS appointed Michael C. Kostelnik, a retired Air Force major general. During his tenure in the Air Force, Kostelnik
supervised weapons acquisitions and was one of the leading players in encouraging General Atomics to quickly equip the Predator with bombs or missiles.14 The more
expensive, armed Predator drones and their variants became the preferred border drone as a
result of widespread enthusiasm for the surge in Predator operations in Iraq and Afghanistan and the
close collaborative relationship that developed between General Atomics Aeronautical Systems and
CBP. CBP began using its first Predator for operations in October 2005, but the drone crashed in April 2006 in the Arizona desert near Nogales due an error made by General Atomics’
created Science and Technology Directorate – began testing small, relatively inexpensive UAVs for border surveillance.
contracted pilot. Crash investigators from the National Transportation Safety Board found the pilot had shut off the drone’s engine when he thought he was redirecting the drone’s camera. As
Kostelnik explained to the Border and Marine Subcommittee of the House Homeland Security Committee, “There was a momentary loss link that switched to the second control” – and the
By early 2013, CBP had a fleet of seven Predator drones and three Guardians
drones, all stationed at military bases. Two Guardians – Predators modified for marine surveillance – are
based at the Naval Air Station in Corpus Christi, Texas, while another patrols the Caribbean as part of a
drug war mission from its base at the Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida. Four of the seven Predators are stationed
Predator fell out of the sky.15 The Fleet
at Libby Army Airfield, part of Fort Huachuca near the Mexican border in southeastern Arizona, while two have homes at the Grand Forks Air Force Base in North Dakota. The tenth Predator
drone will also be based at Cape Canaveral. According to the CBP Strategic Air and Marine Plan of 2010, OAM intends to deploy a fleet of 24 Guardians and Predators. In 2008, as part of its
acquisition strategy, CBP planned to have the 24-drone fleet ready by 2016, boasting that OAM would then be capable of deploying drones anywhere in national airspace in three hours or
less.16 In late 2012, CBP signed a major new five-drone contract with General Atomics. The $443.1 million five-year contract includes $237.7 million for the prospective purchase of up to 14
additional Predators and Predator variations, and $205.4 million for operational costs and maintenance by General Atomics crews.17 This new contract was signed, despite increasing budget
restrictions, a series of critical reports by the Congressional Research Service (CRS), Government Accountability Office and the DHS Office of Inspector General, and continuing technical failures
and poor results. Only One Source CBP insists that General Atomics Aeronautical Systems is the only “responsible source” for its drone needs and that no other suppliers or servicers can satisfy
agency requirements for these $18-20 million drones. According to CBP’s justification for sole-source contracting, U.S. national security would be put at risk if DHS switched drone contractors.
In a November 1, 2012 statement titled “Justification for Other than Full and Open Competition,” DHS contends that “The Predator-B/Guardian UAS combination is unmatched by any other
UAS available. To procure an alternative system…or support services…would detrimentally impact national security,” most notably due to “decreased interdictions of contraband (e.g., illegal
narcotics, undocumented immigrants).” Furthermore, CBP claimed, “The GA-ASI MQ-9 UAS provides the best value to OAM’s documented and approved operational requirements and
programmatic constraints. With 38% of planned systems on-online, MQ-9 operations are mature, well-understood, and a critical component of DHS’s daily Homeland Security campaign.”
When asked by this author for information documenting specific data, comparative studies, cost-benefit evaluations, record of the achievements of the drone program, or threat assessment
to support such conclusions, CBP simply responded: CBP deploys and operates the UAS only after careful examination where the UAS can most responsibly aid in countering threats of our
Nation’s security. As threats change, CBP adjusts its enforcement posture accordingly and may consider moving the location of assets.18
II. MORE DRONE
BOOSTERISM THAN OVERSIGHT IN CONGRESS The Pentagon, military, intelligence agencies and military contractors are longtime proponents of UAVs for
intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance (ISR) missions. Following President Bush’s declaration of a “global war on terrorism,” the White House became directly involved in expanding
drone deployment in foreign wars – especially in directing drone strikes.
The most unabashed advocates of drone proliferation, however,
are in Congress. They claim drones can solve many of America’s most pressing problems – from eliminating terrorists to keeping the homeland safe from unwanted immigrants.
However,
there has been little congressional oversight of drone deployments , both at home and abroad. Since the post-
9/11 congressional interest in drone issues – budgets, role in national airspace, overseas sales, border deployment and UAVs by law enforcement agencies –
drone legislation would
“increase the number of unmanned aerial vehicles and surveillance equipment….”19 Drone promotion by U.S. representatives and senators in Congress pops up in what at first may seem the
unlikeliest of places. Annually, House members join with UAS manufacturers to fill the foyer and front rooms of the Rayburn House Office Building with displays of the latest drones – an
industry show introduced in glowing speeches by highly influential House leaders, notably Buck McKeon, the Southern California Republican who chairs the House Armed Service Committee
and co-chairs the Congressional Unmanned Systems Caucus (CUSC). Advances in communications, aviation and surveillance technology have all accelerated the coming of UAVs to the home
front. Yet drones are not solely about technological advances. Money flows and political influence also factor in. Congressional Caucus on Unmanned Systems At the forefront of the
money/politics nexus is the Congressional Caucus on Unmanned Systems (CCUS). Four years ago, the CCUS (then known as the House Unmanned Aerial Vehicle Caucus) was formed by a small
group of congressional representatives – mainly Republicans and mostly hailing from districts with drone industries or bases. By late 2012, the House caucus had 60 members and had changed
its name to encompass all unmanned systems – whether aerial, marine or ground-based.20 This bipartisan caucus, together with its allies in the drone industry, has been promoting UAV use at
home and abroad through drone fairs on Capitol Hill, new legislation and drone-favored budgets. CCUS aims to “educate members of Congress and the public on the strategic, tactical, and
scientific value of unmanned systems; actively support further development and acquisition of more systems, and to more effectively engage the civilian aviation community on unmanned
system use and safety.”21 In late 2012, the caucus comprised a collection of border hawks, immigration hardliners and leading congressional voices for the military contracting industry. The
two caucus co-chairs, Howard “Buck” McKeon, R-California, and Henry Cuellar, D-Texas, are well positioned to accelerate drone proliferation. McKeon, whose southern California district
includes major drone production facilities, notably General Atomics, is the caucus founder and chair of the House Armed Services Committee. Cuellar, who represents the Texas border district
of Laredo, is the ranking member (and former chairman) of the House Subcommittee on Border and Maritime Security. Other caucus members include Brian Bilbray (R-Calif.), who heads the
House Immigration Reform Caucus; Candice Miller (R-Minn.), who heads the Homeland Security subcommittee that reviews the air and marine operations of DHS; Joe Wilson (R-SC); Jerry
Lewis (R-Calif.); Dana Rohrabacher (R-Calif.); Loretta Sanchez (D-Calif.); and Duncan Hunter (R-Calif.). Eight caucus members were also members of the powerful House Appropriations
Committee in the 112th Congress. The caucus and its leading members (along with drone proponents in the Senate) have played key roles in drone proliferation at home and abroad through
channeling earmarks to Predator manufacturer General Atomics, prodding the Department of Homeland Security to establish a major drone program, adding amendments to authorization
bills for the Federal Aviation Administration and Department of Defense to ensure the more rapid integration of UAVs into the national airspace, and increasing annual DOD and DHS budgets
for drone R&D and procurements. To accelerate drone acquisitions and deployment at home, Congress has an illustrative track record of legislative measures (see accompanying box).
Congressional support for the development and procurement of Predators dates back to 1996, and is reflected in the defense and intelligence authorization acts. An Air Force-sponsored study
of the Predator’s rise charted the increases mandated by the House Armed Service and the House Intelligence committees over the Predator budget requests made by the Air Force in its
budgets requests. Between 1996 and 2006 (ending date of study), “Congress has recommended an increase, over and above USAF requests, in the Predator budget for nearly 10 years in a row.
This has resulted in a sum total increase of over a half a billion dollars over the years.”22 Association of Unmanned Vehicle Systems CCUS cosponsors the annual drone fete with the
Association of Unmanned Vehicle Systems International (AUVSI), an industry group that brings together the leading drone manufacturers and universities with UAV research projects. AUVSI
represents the interests in the expansion of unmanned systems expressed by many of the estimated 100 U.S. companies and academic institutions involved in developing and deploying the
some 300 of the currently existing UAV models.23 The drone association has a $7.5-million annual operating budget, including $2 million a year for conferences and trade shows to encourage
government agencies and companies to use unmanned aircraft.24 AUVSI also has its own congressional advocacy committee that is closely linked to the caucus. The keynote speaker at the
drone association’s annual conference in early 2012 was Representative McKeon. The congressman was also the featured speaker at AUVSI’s AIR Day 2011, in recognition, says AUVSI’s
president, that Congressman McKeon “has been one of the biggest supporters of the unmanned systems community.” The close relationship between the congressional drone caucus and
AUVSI was reflected in a similar relationship between CBP/OAM and AUVSI. Tom Faller, the CBP official who directed the UAV program at OAM, joined the AUVSI 23-member board-ofdirectors in August 2011, a month before the association hosted a technology fair in the foyer of the Rayburn House Office Building. OAM participated in the fair. Faller resigned from the
unpaid position on Nov. 23, 2011 after the Los Angeles Times queried DHS about Faller’s unpaid position in the industry association. Faller is currently subject of a DHS internal ethics-violation
investigation.25 Contracts, contributions, earmarks and favors Once a relatively insignificant part of the military-industrial complex, the UAV development and manufacturing sector is
currently expanding faster than any other component of military contracting. Drone orders from various federal departments and agencies are rolling in to AUVSI corporate members,
including such leading military contractors as General Atomics, Lockheed Martin and Northrop Grumman.26 (Unlike most major military contractors, General Atomics is not a corporation but a
privately held firm, whose two major figures are Linden and Neal Blue, both of whom have high security clearances) U.S. government drone purchases – not counting contracts for an array of
related UAV services and “payloads” – rose from $588 million to $1.3 billion over the past five years.27 The FY2013 DOD budget includes $5.8 billion for UAVs, which does not include drone
spending by the intelligence community, DHS or other federal entities. The Pentagon says that its “high-priority” commitment to expenditures for drone defense and warfare has resulted in
“strong funding for unmanned aerial vehicles that enhance intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance capabilities.”29 While the relationship between increasing drone contracts and the
increasing campaign contributions received by drone caucus members can only be speculated, caucus members are favored recipients of contributions by AUVSI members. In the 2010 and
2012 election cycles, political action committees associated with companies that produce drones donated more than $2.4 million to members of the congressional drone caucus.30 The leading
recipient was McKeon, with Representative Silvestre Reyes, the influential Democrat from El Paso (who lost his seat in the 2012 election), coming in a close second.31 General Atomics counted
among McKeon’s top five contributors in the last election. (See Figure 1) Frank W. Pace, the director of General Atomics Aeronautical Systems, contributed to two candidates – Buck McKeon
and Jerry Lewis – during the 2012 electoral campaign. (See Figure 2) Who were the top recipients of the General Atomics campaign contributions in the 2012 cycle? Four of the top five
recipients were not surprising – Buck McKeon, Jerry Lewis, Duncan Hunter and Brian Bilbray – given their record of support for UAVs, and their position among the most influential drone
caucus members. (See Figure 3) The relationship that has been consolidating between General Atomics and the U.S. Air Force since the early 1990s has been mediated and facilitated in
Congress by influential congressional representatives, led by southern Californian Republican Rep. Jerry Lewis, a member of the House Appropriations Defense Committee and vice-chairman
of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence. Lewis, a favored recipient of General Atomics campaign contributions, used his appropriations influence to ensure that the Air Force
gained full control of the UAV program by 1998. Lewis, a prominent member of the “Drone Caucus,” has received at least $10,000 every two years in campaign contributions from General
Atomics’ political action committee – $80,000 since 1998, according to OpenSecrets.org. During the 2012 campaign cycle, General Atomics was the congressman’s top campaign donor.32 The
top ranking recipient of General Atomics’ campaign contributions is not a CUSC member. Senator Diane Feinstein’s (D-Calif.) contributions from General Atomics easily placed her at the top of
the list. Feinstein, who chairs the powerful Senate Intelligence Committee, was also favored in campaign contributions by Linden Blue, the president of General Atomics. (See Figure 4) Senator
Feinstein has been a highly consistent supporter of the intelligence community and military budgets. Her failure to oppose the clandestine drone strikes ordered by the White House and CIA
have sparked widespread criticism by those who argue the strikes are unconstitutional, illegal under international law and counterproductive as a counterterrorism tactic.33 In 2012, General
Atomics was Feinstein’s third largest campaign contributor, while other leading contributors were the military contractors General Dynamics (from which General Atomics emerged), BAE
Systems and Northrup Grumman.34 Feinstein’s connections to General Atomics extend beyond being top recipient of their campaign contributions. Rachel Miller, a former (2003-2007)
legislative assistant for Feinstein, has served as a paid lobbyist for General Atomics, both working directly for the firm (in 2011) and as a General Atomics lobbyist employed by Capitol Solutions
(2009 - present), one of the leading lobbying firms contracted by General Atomics.35 And did you know that Linden Blue plans to marry Retired Rear Adm. Ronne Froman? Few others knew
about the engagement of this high-society San Diego couple until Senator Feinstein announced the planned marriage at a mid-November 2012 meeting of the downtown San Diego business
community – news that quickly appeared in the Society pages of the San Diego Union-Tribune. There has been no explanation offered why Feinstein broke this high-society news, but the
announcement certainly did point to the senator’s likely personal connections to Blue and Froman (who was hired by General Atomics as senior vice-president in December 2007 and has since
left the firm).36 Campaign contributions and personal connections create goodwill and facilitate contracts. General Atomics also counts on the results produced by a steady stream of lobbying
dollars – which have risen dramatically since 2003, and been averaging $2.5 million annually since 2005. In 2012, General Atomics spent $2,470,000 lobbying Congress.37 Congressional
earmarks were critical to the rise of the Predator, both its earlier unarmed version as well as the later “Hunter-Killer.” The late senator Daniel K. Inouye, the Hawaii Democrat who chaired the
Senate Appropriations Committee, told the New York Times that if the House ban on commercial earmarks that was introduced in 2010 had been in effect earlier, ‘’we would not have the
Predator today.’’ Tens of millions of dollars in congressional earmarks in the 1990s went to General Atomics and other military contractors for the early development of what became the
Predator program, reported the New York Times.38 Inouye was a source of a number of these multimillion earmarks for General Atomics, whose large campaign contributions to the influential
Hawaii senator from 1998 to 2012 ($5000 in this last campaign) could be regarded as thank-you notes since Inouye faced insignificant political opposition. Besides campaign contributions,
General Atomics routinely hands out favors to congressional representatives thought likely to support drone proliferation. A 2006 report by the Center for Public Integrity identified Jerry Lewis
as one of two congressional members and more than five dozen congressional staffers who traveled overseas courtesy of General Atomics. The center’s report, The ‘Top Gun’ of Travel,
observed this “little-known California defense contractor [has] far outspent its industry competitors on travel for more than five years — and in 2005 landed promises of billions of dollars in
federal business.” Most of this business was in the form of drone development and procurement by the Pentagon and DHS. Questioned about this pattern of corporate-sponsored trips,
Thomas Cassidy, founder of General Atomics Aeronautical Systems, said, “[It’s] useful and very helpful, in fact, when you go down and talk to the government officials to have congressional
people go along and discuss the capabilities of [the plane] with them,” A follow-up investigation by the San Diego Union-Tribune reported, “Most of that was spent on overseas travel related
to the unmanned Predator spy plane made by General Atomics Aeronautical Systems, an affiliated company.”39 Looking desperately for oversight In practice, there’s more boosterism than
effective oversight in the House Homeland Security Committee and its Subcommittee on Border and Maritime Security, which oversees DHS’s rush to deploy drones to keep the homeland
secure. The same holds true for most of the more than one hundred other congressional committees that purportedly oversee the DHS and its budget.40 Since DHS’s creation, Congress has
routinely approved annual and supplementary budgets for border security that have been higher than those requested by the president and DHS. CCUS member and chair of the House Border
and Maritime Security subcommittee, Representative Candice Miller, R-Michigan, is effusive and unconditional in her support of drones. Miller described her personal conviction that drones
are the answer to border insecurity at the July 15, 2010 subcommittee hearing on UAVs.41 “You know, my husband was a fighter pilot in Vietnam theater, so—from another generation, but I
told him, I said, ‘Dear, the glory days of the fighter jocks are over.’” “The UAVs, the Unmanned Aerial Vehicles are coming,” continued Miller, “and now you see our military siting in a cubicle
sometimes in Nevada, drinking a Starbucks, running these things in theater and being incredibly, incredibly successful.” The uncritical drone boosterism in Congress was underscored in a
Washington Post article on the use of drones for border security. In his trips to testify on Capitol Hill, Kostelnik said he had never been challenged in Congress about the appropriate use of
homeland security drones. “Instead, the question is: ‘Why can’t we have more of them in my district?’” remarked the OAM chief.42 Since 2004, the DHS’s UAV program has drawn mounting
concern and criticism from the government’s own oversight and research agencies, including the Congressional Research Service, the Government Accountability Office and the DHS’s own
Office of Inspector General.43 These government entities have repeatedly raised questions about the cost-efficiency, strategic focus and performance of the homeland security drones. Yet,
rather than subjecting DHS officials to sharp questioning, the congressional committees overseeing homeland security and border security operations have, for the most part, readily and often
enthusiastically accepted the validity of undocumented assertions by testifying CBP officials. The House Subcommittee on Border and Maritime Security has been especially notorious for its
lack of critical oversight. As part of the budgetary and oversight process, the House and Senate committees that oversee DHS have not insisted that CBP undertake cost-benefit evaluations,
institute performance measures, implement comparative evaluations of its high-tech border security initiatives, or document how its UAV program responds to realistic threat assessments.
Instead of providing proper oversight and ensuring that CBP/OAM’s drone program is accountable and transparent, congressional members from both parties seem more intent on boosting
drone purchases and drone deployment. As CBP was about to begin its first drone deployments in 2005 as part of the Operation Safeguard pilot project, the Congressional Research Service
observed: “Congress will likely conduct oversight of Operation Safeguard before considering wider implementation of this technology.” Unfortunately, Congress never reviewed the results of
Operation Safeguard pilot project, and CBP declined requests by this writer to release the report of this UAV pilot project.44 Congress has been delinquent in its oversight duties. In addition to
the governmental research and monitoring institutions, it has been mainly the nongovernmental sector – including the American Civil Liberties Union, Electronic Frontier Foundation, Center
for Constitutional Rights, and the Center for International Policy – that has alerted the public about the lack of transparency and accountability in the DHS drone program and the absence of
responsible governance over the domestic and international proliferation of UAVs. In September 2012, the Senate formed its own bipartisan drone caucus, the Senate Unmanned Aerial
Systems Caucus, co-chaired by Jim Inhofe (R-Okla.) and Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.). “This caucus will help develop and direct responsible policy to best serve the interests of U.S. national defense
and emergency response, and work to address any concerns from senators, staff and their constituents,” said Inhofe.45 It is still too early to ascertain if the Senate’s drone caucus will follow its
counterpart in the House in almost exclusively focusing on promoting drone proliferation at home and abroad. It is expected, however, that caucus members will experience increased flows of
campaign contributions from the UAS industry. While Senator Manchin just won his first full-term in the 2012 election, Senator Inhofe has been favored by campaign contributions from
military contractors, including General Atomics ($14,000 in 2012), since he took office in 2007. His top campaign contributor was Koch Industries. For its part, AUVSI, the drone industry
association, gushed in its quickly offered commendation. “I would like to commend Senators Inhofe and Manchin for their leadership and commitment in establishing the caucus, which will
enable AUVSI to work with the Senate and stakeholders on the important issues that face the unmanned systems community as the expanded use of the technology transitions to the civil and
commercial markets,” said AUVSI President and CEO Michael Toscano. “It is our hope to establish the same open dialogue with the Senate caucus as we have for the past three years with the
House Unmanned Systems Caucus,” the AUVSI executive added.46 There is rising citizen concern about drones and privacy and civil rights violations. The prospective opening of national
airspace to UAVs has sparked a surge of concern among many communities and states – eleven of which are considering legislation in 2013 that would restrict how police and other agencies
would deploy drones. But paralleling new concern about the threats posed by drone proliferation is local and state interest in attracting new UAV testing facilities and airbases for the FAA and
other federal entities. FAA and industry projections about the number of UAVs (15,000 by 2020, 30,000 by 2030) that may be using national airspace – the same space used by all commercial
and private aircraft – have sparked a surge of new congressional activism, with several new bills introduced by non-drone caucus members in the new Congress that respond to the new fears
about drone proliferation. Yet there is no one committee in the House or the Senate that has assumed the responsibility for UAV oversight to lead the way toward creating a foundation of laws
there is no federal agency or congressional committee
that is providing oversight over drone proliferation – whether in regard to U.S. drone exports, the
expanding drone program of DHS, drone-related privacy concerns, or UAV use by private or public firms
and agencies. Gerald Dillingham, top official of the Government Accountability Office, testified in Congress about this oversight conundrum. When asked which part of the federal
and regulations establishing a political framework for UAV use going forward. At this point,
government was responsible for regulating drone proliferation in the interest of public safety and civil rights, the GAO director said, “At best, we can say it’s unknown at this point.”47 III.
Homeland security drones are expanding their range beyond the border, crossing over to
local law enforcement agencies, other federal civilian operations, and into national security missions.
CROSSOVER DRONES
BORDER SECURITY TO LOCAL SURVEILLANCE The rapid advance of drone technology has sparked interest by police and sheriff offices in acquiring drones. The federal government has closely
nurtured this new eagerness. Through grants, training programs and “centers of excellence,” the Departments of Justice and Homeland Security have been collaborating with the drone
industry and local law enforcement agencies to introduce unmanned aerial vehicles to the homeland. One example is DHS’s Urban Areas Security Initiative (UASI), a Federal Emergency
Management Agency (FEMA) program established to assist communities with counterterrorism projects that provides grants to enable police and sheriffs departments to launch their own
drone programs. In 2011, a DHS UASI grant of $258,000 enabled the Montgomery County Sheriffs Office in Texas to purchase a ShadowHawk drone from Vanguard Defense Industries. DHS
UASI grants also allowed the city of Arlington, Texas to buy two small drones.48 Miami also counted on DHS funding to purchase its UAV. According to DHS, UASI “provides funding to address
the unique planning, organization, equipment, training, and exercise needs of high-threat, high-density urban areas, and assists them in building an enhanced and sustainable capacity to
prevent, protect against, respond to, and recover from acts of terrorism.”49 However, in the UASI project proposals there is little or no mention of terrorism or counterterrorism. Instead, local
police forces want drones to bolster their surveillance capabilities and as an adjunct to their SWAT teams and narc squads. DHS is not the only federal department promoting drone
deployment in the homeland. Over the past four decades, the Department of Justice’s criminal-justice assistance grants have played a central role in shaping the priorities and operations of
state and local law enforcement.50 Through its National Institute of Justice, the Department of Justice (DOJ) has been working closely with industry and local law enforcement to “develop and
evaluate low-cost unmanned aircraft systems.”51 In 2011, National Institute of Justice grants went to such large military contractors and drone manufacturers as Lockheed Martin, ManTech
and L-3 Systems to operate DOJ-sponsored “centers of excellence” devoted to the use of technology by local law enforcement for surveillance, communications, biometrics and sensors.53 In
an October 4, 2012 presentation to the National Defense Industrial Association, OAM chief Kostelnik explained that the CBP drones were not limited to border control duties. The OAM was, he
said, the “leading edge of deployment of UAS in the national airspace.” This deployment wasn’t limited to what are commonly understood homeland security missions but extended to “rapid
contingency supports” for “Federal/State/Local missions.” According to CBP: OAM provides investigative air and marine support to Immigration and Customs Enforcement, as well as other
federal, state, local, and international law enforcement agencies.53 Incidents involving CBP drones in local law enforcement operations have surfaced in media reports, but CBP has thus far
DHS and CBP/OAM in particular
have failed to define the legal and constitutional limits of its drone operations. Rather than following
strict guidelines about the scope of its mission and the range of homeland security drones, Kostelnik argued before
the association of military contractors that “CBP operations [are] shaping the UAS policy debate” in the United States. According to Kostelnik, the CBP’s drones are “on
the leading edge in homeland security.” This cutting edge role of the CBP/OAM drones not only extends to local and state operations, including support for local
not released a record of its support for local and state police, despite repeated requests by media and research organizations.
law enforcement, but also to national security. “[The] CBP UAS deployment vision strengthens the National Security Response Capability.” Border Security to National Security Most of the
concern about the domestic deployment of drones by DHS has focused on the crossover to law-enforcement missions that threaten privacy and civil rights – and without more regulations in
place will accelerate the transition to what critics call a “surveillance society.” Also worth public attention and congressional review is the increasing interface between border drones and
national security and military missions. The prevalence of military jargon used by CBP officials – such as “defense in depth” and “situational awareness” – points to at least a rhetorical
overlapping of border control and military strategy. Another sign of the increasing coincidence between CBP/OAM drone program and the military is that the commanders and deputies of
OAM are retired military officers. Both Major General Michael Kostelnik and his successor Major General Randolph Alles, retired from U.S. Marines, were highly placed military commanders
involved in drone development and procurement. Kostelnik was involved in the development of the Predator by General Atomics since the mid-1990s and was an early proponent of providing
Air Force funding to weaponize the Predator. As commander of the Marine Corps Warfighting Laboratory, Alles was a leading proponent of having each military branch work with military
In promoting – and justifying
– the DHS drone program, Kostelnik routinely alluded to the national security potential of drones slated
for border security duty. On several occasions Kostelnik pointed to the seamless interoperability with DOD UAV forces. At a moment’s notice, Kostelnik said that OAM could
contractors to develop their own drone breeds, including near replicas of the Predator manufactured for the Army by General Atomics.57
be “CHOP’ed” – meaning a Change in Operational Command from DHS to DOD.58 DHS has not released operational data about CBP/OAM drone operations. Therefore, the extent of the
participation of DHS drones in domestic and international operations is unknown. But statements by CBP officials and media reports from the Caribbean point to a rapidly expanding
participation of DHS Guardian UAVs in drug-interdiction and other unspecified operations as far south as Panama. CBP states that OAM “routinely provides air and marine support to other
federal, state, and local law enforcement agencies” and “works with the U.S. military in joint international anti-smuggling operations and in support of National Security Special Events [such as
the Olympics].” According to Kostelnik, CBP planned a “Spring 2011 deployment of the Guardian to a Central American country in association with Joint Interagency Task Force South (JIATFSouth) based at the naval station in Key West, Florida.59 JIATF-South is a subordinate command to the United States Southern Command (USSOUTHCOM), whose geographical purview
includes the Caribbean, Central America and South America. In mid-2012, CBP/OAM participated in a JIATF-South collaborative venture called “Operation Caribbean Focus” that involved flight
over the Caribbean Sea and nations in the region – with the Dominican Republic acting as the regional host for the Guardian operations, which CBP/OAM considers a “prototype for future
transit zone UAS deployments.” CBP says that OAM drones have not been deployed within Mexico, but notes that “OAM works in collaboration with the Government of Mexico in addressing
border security issues,” without specifying the form and objectives of this collaboration.60 As part of the U.S. global drug war and as an extension of border security, unarmed drones are also
The U.S. Northern Command has acknowledged that the U.S. military does fly a $38million Global Hawk drone into Mexico to assist the Mexico’s war against the drug cartels.61 Communities, state
crossing the border into Mexico.
legislatures and even some congressional members are proceeding to enact legislation and revise ordinances to decriminalize or legalize the consumption of drugs, especially marijuana,
targeted by the federal government’s drug war of more than four decades. At the same time, DHS has been escalating its contributions to the domestic and international drug war – in the
name of both homeland security and national security. Drug seizures on the border and drug interdiction over coastal and neighboring waters are certainly the top operative priorities of OAM.
Enlisting its Guardian drones in SOUTHCOM’s drug interdiction efforts underscores the increasing emphasis within the entire CBP on counternarcotic operations. CBP is a DHS agency that is
almost exclusively focused on tactics. While CBP as the umbrella agency and the Office of the Border Patrol and OAM all have strategic plans, these plans are marked by their rigid military
frameworks, their startling absence of serious strategic thinking, and the diffuse distinctions between strategic goals and tactics. As a result of the border security buildup, south-north drug
flows (particularly cocaine and more high-value drugs) have shifted back to marine smuggling, mainly through the Caribbean, but also through the Gulf of Mexico and the Pacific.62 Rather than
CBP/OAM has rationalized the procurement of more UAVs on
the shifts in the geographical arenas of the drug war – albeit couching the tactical changes in the new drug war language of “transnational criminal
organizations” and “narcoterrorism.” The overriding framework for CBP/OAM operations is evolving from border security
and homeland security to national security, as recent CBP presentations about its Guardian deployments
illustrates. Shortly before retiring after seven years as OAM first chief, Major General Kostelnik told a gathering of military contractors: “CPB’s UAS Deployment Vision strengthens the
reevaluating drug prohibition and drug control frameworks for border policy,
National Security Response Capability.”63 He may well be right, but the U.S. public and Congress need to know if DHS plans to institute guidelines and limits that regulate the extent of DHS
IV. No Transparency, No Accountability, No Defined Limits to Homeland
Security Drone Missions The UAV program of CBP’s Office of Air and Marine is not top secret – there are no secret ops, no targeted killings, no “signature” strikes against
operational collaboration with DOD and the CIA.
suspected terrorists, no clandestine bases – like the CIA and U.S. military UAV operations overseas. While the UAV program under DHS isn’t classified, information about the program is scarce
– shielded by evasive program officials, the classification of key documents, and the failure of CBP/OAM to share information about the number, objectives and performance of its UAV
operations. DHS has also not been forthcoming about its partnerships and shared missions with local law enforcement, foreign governments and the U.S. military and intelligence sectors.
CBP has kept a tight lid on its drone program. Over the past nine years, CBP has steadily expanded its
UAV program without providing any detailed information about the program’s strategic plan, performance and
total costs. Information about the homeland security drones has been limited, for the most part, to a handful of CBP announcements about new drone purchases and a series of unverifiable
CBP statistics about drone-related drug seizures and immigrant arrests.
Domestic drones in the US are unique – other countries use them as a justification for
their own programs
Gucciardi 2013 (Anthony Gucciardi, creator of Storyleak, accomplished writer, producer, and seeker of
truth. His articles have been read by millions worldwide and are routinely featured on major alternative
news websites like the infamous Drudge Report, Infowars, NaturalNews, G Edward Griffin's Reality Zone,
and many others, “NEW PRECEDENT: ARMED DOMESTIC DRONE STRIKES WILL SOON BE REALITY”,
http://www.storyleak.com/armed-domestic-drone-strikes-reality/, May 23, 2013)
A new precedent has been set. Despite extensive denial that drone strikes would endanger Americans, Attorney General Eric Holder has now openly admitted
that four US citizens were killed through overseas drone strikes since 2009. While not on United States soil, the deaths of the US citizens in nations like Yemen and
Pakistan highlight the new precedent being set by US government heads who wish to use
drones as a form of lethal enforcement on US soil. With Holder admitting that Americans have already died via drone strikes
following his statements that Obama can already initiate drone strikes on US soil, we are now seeing the way
paved to go ahead and announce armed drones to fight terrorism here in the US. We all remember the initial rhetoric that
drones were ‘no real threat’, and that they were simply unarmed scouting machines used to save lives overseas. Then, we saw them rapidly enter the nation, and we heard the same tired
reassurances. We saw them killing innocents overseas with the high powered weaponry being attached to these ‘scouting’ drones, and we see them still doing so today. But, once again, we’re
told not to worry. Political talking heads like Eric Holder assure us that domestic drones, for which over 1,400 permits have been issued, are not meant to be used as weapons. Well, that is
unless Obama decides to use the drones as a weapon of war on US soil. ARMED DOMESTIC DRONES IN THE NEAR FUTURE Despite the message of assurance regarding the promise that
Holder decided to go ahead and announce that it would actually be
entirely ‘legal’ for Obama to issue a drone strike on a US citizen on domestic soil. In fact, CNN reports that
Holder does not ‘rule out’ the possibility of domestic drone strikes, and that a scenario could occur in the
future. And to strike someone with a drone, of course, you would need weaponry. You would need an armed drone. In other words, Holder is going against the
major promise by the FAA official who ‘promised’ that no armed drones will be flying on domestic soil. But
domestic drones would never turn into government-controlled war machines, Eric
don’t worry, Holder says the government has ‘no intention’ right now of issuing drone strikes on US soil. Just like the government never targeted Constitution and conservative-based groups
through the IRS and would never use domestic drones to spy on you. Quite simply, if any power is given to these individuals in government, be sure of one thing: they will use it. And knowing
the track record of drone strikes overseas and how they greatly affect the innocent,
drone strikes on US soil against citizens is an even more
serious threat. The 3,000 plus deaths from drone strikes overseas in Pakistan alone, which vastly affect the innocent and non-threatening, have even prompted Google employees
and big firms alike to develop charts and interactive maps to detail the deaths in a manner that portrays the reality of the situation. One design firm known as Pitch recently went and created
an interactive chart that, along with detailing how less than 2% of strike victims are high priority targets, documents the drone strike deaths throughout recent years.
We continue
to hear these major announcements from Holder regarding drone strikes, and each time it pushes the
precedent further. Each time, he warps the ‘law’ to justify what is being done with drone attacks, and each time we come closer to the announcement that we ‘need’ to use
Just wait for the next terrorist hunt in the US for a high profile crime case to hear
more from Holder and the gang on why we need armed domestic drones to keep us safe. It already
happened with Dorner and others.
armed drones against domestic terrorists.
Those norms set a dangerous precedent – leads to global conflict escalation –
especially in Asia
Taylor 2013 [Guy, “U.S. intelligence warily watches for threats to U.S. now that 87 nations possess
drones”, http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2013/nov/10/skys-the-limit-for-wide-wild-world-ofdrones/?page=all]
The age of the drone is here, and U.S. intelligence
agencies are warily monitoring their proliferation around the globe.
China uses them to spy on Japan near disputed islands in Asia. Turkey uses them to eyeball Kurdish activity in northern
Iraq. Bolivia uses them to spot coca fields in the Andes. Iran reportedly has given them to Syria to monitor opposition rebels. The U.S., Britain and
Israel are the only nations to have fired missiles from remote-controlled drones, but the proliferation of unmanned aerial vehicles has become so prevalent that U.S.
intelligence sources and private analysts say it
is merely a matter of time before other countries use the technology. “People in
Washington like to talk about this as if the supposed American monopoly on drones might end one day. Well, the monopoly ended years ago,” said Peter W. Singer,
who heads the Center for 21st Century Security and Intelligence at the Brookings Institution. What’s worse, clandestine
strikes carried out by
Washington in far-flung corners of the world have set a precedent that could be ugly. Mr. Singer said as many as 87 nations
possess some form of drones and conduct various kinds of surveillance either over their own territories or beyond. Among those 87, he said, 26
have either purchased or developed drones equivalent in size to the MQ-1 Predator — the model made by San Diego-based General Atomics. While American
Predators and their updated sister, the MQ-9 Reaper, are capable of carrying anti-armor Hellfire missiles, the clandestine nature of foreign drone programs makes it
difficult to determine how many other nations have armed drones. Defense industry and other sources who spoke with The Washington Times said 10 to 15 nations
are thought to be working hard on doing just that, and China and Iran are among those with the most advanced programs. “Global developments in the UAV arena
are being tracked closely,” said one U.S. intelligence official, who spoke with The Times on the condition of anonymity. “Efforts by some countries to acquire armed
UAV systems are concerning, not least because of the associated proliferation risk.” Other sources said that while the international media have focused on the
controversy and political backlash associated with civilian casualties from U.S. drone strikes in Pakistan, Yemen and Somalia, Washington’s
unprecedented success with the technology — both in targeting and killing suspected terrorists — has inspired a new kind of
arms race. “It’s natural that other nations and non-state actors, seeing the many ways the U.S. has
leveraged the technology, are keen to acquire remotely piloted aircraft,” said Lt. Gen. Robert P. Otto, Air Force
deputy chief of staff for intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance. Race to the skies The number of nations possessing drones nearly doubled from 41 to 76 from
2005 to 2011, according to a report last year by the Government Accountability Office, which highlighted the fact that U.S. companies are no longer alone in
manufacturing and marketing the technology. “Many countries acquired their UAVs from Israel,” said the report. It said Germany, France, Britain, India, Russia and
Georgia have either leased or purchased Israeli drones, including the Heron, a model that many foreign militaries see as a good alternative to the American-made
Predators and Reapers. A report this year by Teal Group, a Virginia-based aerospace and defense industry analysis corporation, said UAVs have come to represent
the “most dynamic growth sector” of the global aerospace industry, with spending on drones projected to more than double from roughly $5.2 billion a year today
to more than $11 billion in 2022. China is widely seen as a potential powerhouse in the market. Chinese companies have “marketed both armed drones and
weapons specifically designed for UAV use,” said Steven J. Zaloga, a top analyst at Teal Group. “It’s a case where if they don’t have the capability today, they’ll have
it soon.” Although there is concern in Washington that China will sell the technology to American adversaries, sources say, the U.S. also is pushing ahead with
development of its own secretive “next generation” drones. Today’s models emerged in the post-9/11 era of nonconventional conflict — a time when American use
of both weaponized and surveillance-only drones has been almost exclusively over chaotic patches of the planet void of traditional anti-aircraft defenses. With little
or no need to hide, relatively bulky drones such as the MQ-1 Predator dominated the market. But the “big secret,” Mr. Zaloga said, “is that the U.S. is already
working on both armed and unarmed UAVs that can operate in defended airspace.” Another factor likely to fuel the proliferation of armed drones, he said, centers
on a global push to make “very small weapons” that can be tailored to fit smaller aircraft. This matters because of the roughly 20,000 drones now in existence, only
about 350 are large enough to carry the slate of weapons on the current market. “What the new munitions will do is mean that if you’re operating the smaller
UAVs, you’ll be able to put weapons on them,” said Mr. Zaloga. “And those smaller UAVs are being manufactured now by quite a few countries.” In the wrong
hands? One
serious concern in Washington is that smaller drones could be used by groups such as al Qaeda
or Hezbollah, the Iran-backed militant and political organization based in Lebanon that is engaged in a protracted war with Israel. The U.S. intelligence official
who spoke with The Times on the condition of anonymity said it is “getting easier for non-state actors to acquire this technology.” Hezbollah leader Hassan
Nasrallah made headlines by claiming his group flew a drone into Israeli airspace last year, after Israel announced that it had shot a UAV out of the sky. Although Mr.
Nasrallah said the drone was made in Iran and assembled in Lebanon, little is known about precisely what type it was — or whether it was armed. Armed or not,
U.S. officials are wary. “No one is turning a blind eye to the growing use of surveillance-only UAV systems — including by non-state actors — even if these systems
have a host of beneficial civil applications,” said the official who spoke with The Times. “ One
problem is that countries may perceive
these systems as less provocative than armed platforms and might use them in cross-border operations
in a way that actually stokes regional tension.” That appears to be happening in Asia, where Japan
recently threatened to shoot down Chinese drones flying near the disputed Senkaku Islands in the East
China Sea. Northeast Asian countries are likely to invest heavily in drone technology, said Patrick M. Cronin,
senior director of the Asia-Pacific Security Program at the Center for a New American Security in
Washington. “But even before these investments are manifested in wider deployments, Japan will be relying on UAVs for wider and better surveillance,
particularly around its southwest island chain, while China will be using them to variably challenge Japanese administrative control and, indirectly, pressure the
United States to restrain its ally,” said Mr. Cronin. “This vital new technology is improving situational awareness. But, paradoxically, if
used more
offensively the same technology may also accelerate a maritime crisis in the East or even South China
Sea.” U.S. precedents Others say the U.S. and its closest allies have set a precedent with clandestine drone strikes in foreign lands. Although British forces have
carried out hundreds of drone strikes in Afghanistan and Israel has used drone-fired missiles to kill suspected terrorists in Egypt’s Sinai Peninsula, as well as Islamic
militants in Gaza, the most widespread use has been directed by the U.S. military and CIA. In addition to strikes in Libya and Somalia, the U.S. has carried out more
than 375 strikes in Pakistan and as many as 65 in Yemen over the past nine years, according to the London-based Bureau of Investigative Journalism. The concern,
said the Brookings Institution’s Mr. Singer, is that adversaries
will point to U.S. behavior as an excuse for carrying out
cross-border targeting of “high-value” individuals. “That’s where you have the problem,” he said. “Turkey carries
out a strike in northern Iraq and then cites U.S. precedent in Pakistan to justify it. Or Iran carries out a drone strike inside Syria that the Syrian government says it’s
fine with because it’s a lawless area where what they call ‘terrorists’ are hanging out, and then they
throw the precedent back at the U.S.
“That would make it sticky for us,” said Mr. Singer. “That’s not the broader norm we want out there.”
Only regulation of domestic drones can prevent warfare on citizens and bolster the
industry
Ahsanuddin et al 2014 (Sadia - principal investigator for the report and MPAC research fellow;
Domestic Drones: Implications for Privacy and Due Process in the United States; Sep 8;
www.mpac.org/publications/policy-papers/domestic-drones.php; kdf)
Drones also impact due process rights. Drones
are perhaps best known for the role they play in conducting
signature strikes against suspected militants abroad. Will civilians on American soil ever be subjected to drone attacks? Should
civilians fear the weaponization of drones or their use in delivering lethal payloads? Although the Fifth and
Fourteenth Amendments assure individuals of the right to due process before the deprivation of life, liberty, or property, these rights
have already begun to erode due to the global war on terror and the use of drones to conduct signature
strikes by virtue of executive decisions that are devoid of judicial review. With the mass introduction of
domestic drones, there remains a threat and real fear that drones may be used to deprive individuals of
life, liberty, or property with no opportunity to dispute the charges brought against them. Americans of all
ethnicities and creeds are likely to be affected by the domestic deployment of drones. American Muslims have a special contribution to make to
this discussion. Having been subjected to special law enforcement attention and scrutiny, American Muslims
find themselves
particularly susceptible to infractions of civil liberties. As representatives of the American Muslim population and with the
expertise to ground our analysis, the Muslim Public Affairs Council (MPAC) proposes the following guidelines to address the issues of law
enforcement use of drones, data collection, weaponization of drones, due process, oversight, and transparency: • Law enforcement use of
drones should be restricted. • Data collection should be strictly monitored. • The FAA should require, not merely recommend, that test sites
incorporate the Fair Information Principles into their privacy policies. • The weaponization of drones should be prohibited. • The right to due
process should be preserved. • States and individuals should have the ability to bring a cause of action against an entity that, in operating a
drone, violates their rights. • Drone deployment by federal agents must be subjected to Congressional oversight and local public drone use
should be subjected to local city council oversight. • The general public should be engaged in the development of policy guidelines by a public
body intending to operate drones. • In keeping with the principle of transparency, the FAA should make available to the public the names of
drone applicants, the holders of Certificates of Authorization, other licensees, and privacy policies of drone-operating agencies. Adequate
protection of privacy is necessary to allow the public to take advantage of drone technology without
becoming a society in which every movement is monitored by the authorities. Simultaneously, drone
developers need regulations so that they can conduct research and development unimpeded by
protests and news reports. Additionally, the weaponization of drones on domestic soil poses a threat to due process rights and public
safety. This was acknowledged by Sen. Dianne Feinstein, who called for a total prohibition on the weaponization of domestic drones.13 Indeed,
politicians and policymakers representing a broad spectrum of political views advocate regulations for domestic drones.
Plan
The United States federal government should require law enforcement agents to
receive a probable cause warrant prior conducting aerial surveillance.
Contention 2 – Solvency
The plan is the only way to balance privacy and security concerns
Rothfuss 2014 (Ian F [George Mason School of Law]; Student Comment: An Economic Perspective on
the Privacy Implications of Domestic Drone Surveillance; 10 J.L. Econ. & Pol'y 441; kdf)
IV. Legislative and Policy Recommendations This section discusses the current policy and legislative recommendations regarding drone
surveillance and applies economic analysis to recommend an optimal way forward. Developing
new laws and policies to
address the privacy threats presented by domestic drone surveillance will involve the difficult balancing
of many special interests and the individual privacy rights of U.S. citizens. n147 Therefore, in drafting a legal
framework for domestic drone surveillance, Congress should consider economic factors and establish a framework
which allows the use of drones with constraints to protect the privacy interests of U.S. citizens. As an
objective methodology, these economic perspectives should lead lawmakers and policymakers to enact rules
that will efficiently maximize utility while protecting privacy interests. The new framework should address the privacy
concerns arising out of the domestic use of drones, while still allowing society to realize the technological benefits. Congress must
consider many factors when determining how to best integrate drones into U.S. airspace. n148 In addition, the
proposed policies should be compared with the policies in countries such as the United Kingdom, where general surveillance is more
commonplace. n149 In July 2012, the Association for Unmanned Vehicle Systems International (AUVSI) issued a code of conduct that attempted
to address concerns associated with the deployment of drones. n150 Among other elements, the code of conduct requires industry members
to "respect the privacy of individuals" and "comply with all federal, state, and local laws, ordinances, covenants, and restrictions." n151 The
code of conduct has been viewed as insufficient since it only lists broad topics, does not discuss specific privacy concerns, and does not
elaborate on how the provisions will be enforced. n152 Current recommendations address a number of concerns regarding the widespread
deployment of drones in the United States. Among these are recommendations from the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) n153 and
legislation currently pending in both houses of Congress. n154 The first group of recommendations to consider is usage restrictions. It is
generally accepted that drones and other means of surveillance may be used when a warrant has been issued because probable cause exists.
Therefore, the focus of [*459] pending legislation and policy recommendations is on when the use of drones should be allowed without a
warrant, if at all. The ACLU proposes that drone
use should be limited to three purposes: (1) "where there are
specific and articulable grounds to believe that the drone will collect evidence relating to a specific
instance of criminal wrongdoing or, if the drone will intrude upon reasonable expectations of privacy, where the
government has obtained a warrant based on probable cause;" n155 (2) "where there is a geographically
confined, time-limited emergency situation in which particular individuals' lives are at risk;" n156 or (3) "for reasonable
non-law enforcement purposes . . . where privacy will not be substantially affected." n157 Similarly, both the
House and Senate versions of the Preserving Freedom from Unwanted Surveillance Act of 2013 provide for three exceptions to the warrant
requirement: (1) "patrol of borders"; (2) "exigent circumstances"; and (3) "high risk" of terrorist attack, as determined by the Secretary of
Homeland Security. n158 The definition of exigent circumstances differs in the two bills. The Senate bill defines exigent circumstances to only
include action necessary to "prevent imminent danger to life," n159 while the House bill uses a broader definition that also includes "serious
damage to property, or to forestall the imminent escape of a suspect, or destruction of evidence." n160 The
broader definition of
exigent circumstances in the House of Representatives version of the bill n161 is appropriate since it will
give law enforcement more latitude to protect the American people in addition to providing for civil
liability n162 as a check against improper use of this authority. The next recommendation is to consider whether there
should be an exclusionary rule that would make any evidence gathered without a warrant or other legal authorization inadmissible in a criminal
proceeding. The Senate bill also includes an exclusionary rule that would prohibit evidence collected in violation of the Act from being used in
criminal prosecution. n163 Exclusionary rules can overdeter criminal investigations. n164 Therefore, unless a compelling case can be made as to
why it is necessary, it would be more efficient not to include an exclusionary rule in the legislation. Another consideration is whether drones
operating in the United States should be allowed to carry weapons like drones operating overseas which [*460] are used to target enemy
combatants. One recommendation is to prohibit law enforcement from arming drones. n165 Drones have the ability to conduct remote
precision strikes on suspects, but due process concerns and the dangers resulting from armed unmanned aircraft preclude the viability of this
option within the United States. Therefore, domestic drones
should be prohibited from carrying weapons of any
kind. Congress should enact rules to govern domestic drone use. One recommendation is that Congress should require
the Department of Transportation to conduct a Privacy Impact Assessment of the operation of drones domestically. n166 Pending legislation
proposes amending the FAA Modernization and Reform Act of 2012 to address drone privacy concerns. n167 With the proper focus on privacy
concerns, drones may be deployed domestically while still protecting the privacy of American citizens. In addition, Congress should
require a warrant for "extended surveillance of a particular target." n168 As discussed earlier, the Fourth Amendment
would not necessarily require a warrant in these situations. Even so, such a requirement extending warrant protections
makes sense and will provide a valuable check against law enforcement abuse of the new technology.
Congress should require authorization from an independent official for generalized surveillance that
collects personally identifiable information such as facial features and license plate numbers. n169 This
recommendation would apply to situations where a warrant was not required but personally identifiable information was still being gathered,
such as surveillance at a public event. This recommendation should be enacted as a safeguard of the public's privacy interests. To adequately
protect privacy interests, Congress should direct that the independent official, vested with decision-making power on applications for general
surveillance, be a neutral and detached magistrate who is completely separated from any law enforcement or intelligence agency. As discussed
in the previous section, legislation should be crafted to maximize the social utility from the domestic use of drones. The legislation should be
structured according to the three levels of scrutiny proposed by Song to ensure that the governmental interest in the surveillance outweighs
the disutility or social cost that will result from the loss of privacy. n170 The neutral and detached magistrate discussed above could determine
when a sufficient government interest exists to warrant allowing generalized drone surveillance. [*461] Additional policy recommendations
include an image retention restriction n171 and a requirement to file a data collection statement to obtain a FAA license to operate a drone.
n172 These recommendations should be incorporated into the legislation. Congress should require a data collection statement with
applications for a FAA license to operate a drone. A key element of the required data collection statement should address the retention of
images and other data obtained. n173 Such a restriction would mandate that all images and other sensory data gathered through surveillance
be deleted unless the information serves a valid, legal purpose that requires retention. n174 This restriction is necessary to prevent the
government or any other entity from amassing an essentially limitless database of information on the activities of U.S. citizens without a valid
and specified purpose. Collectively,
enacting these recommendations would prevent widespread, general drone
surveillance while allowing drones to be utilized domestically when reasonably warranted to maintain
security or protect the interests of American citizens. Therefore, these recommendations would adequately
protect the privacy interests of American citizens while allowing law enforcement and other entities to
utilize drones to protect our country and serve other worthwhile endeavors.
Establishing limits on drones is the only method to revitalize the fourth amendment
San Pedro 2014 (Victoria [J.D. Candidate, Stetson University College of Law]; STUDENT WORK: DRONE
LEGISLATION: KEEPING AN EYE ON LAW ENFORCEMENT'S LATEST SURVEILLANCE TECHNOLOGY; 43
Stetson L. Rev. 679; kdf)
V. CONCLUSION AND RECOMMENDATIONS With the ubiquity of drone licenses among American law enforcement agencies, n288 the drag-net
surveillance that was once a laughable concept n289 is now a reality. n290 While
state statutes and proposed federal
legislation attempt to limit law enforcement's ability to use drones in surveillance efforts, those
proposals and statutes do not adequately address the duration of the sur-veillance or the sophistication
of the technology used by law enforcement to enhance drone capabilities. Therefore, by requir-ing a warrant and
restricting law enforcement from conducting drone surveillance for a period lasting longer than twenty-four hours, the proposed legislation will
best address the issues left open by Fourth Amendment jurisprudence. [*720] Further, including
the exigent circumstances
language into the legislation will allow law enforcement agencies to better understand the
circumstances that would permit the use of a drone. Because the courts have addressed exigent circumstances on
numerous occasions, n291 law enforcement agencies may already have protocols and officer training dealing
with exigent cir-cumstances. Rather than drafting legislation that attempts to describe a circumstance meriting the use of a drone,
n292 using the exigent circumstances language will allow law enforcement agen-cies to comply with Fourth Amendment jurisprudence already
defined by the Court. Similarly,
legislation imposing a time restriction on the dura-tion of the surveillance will
provide law enforcement agencies with a bright-line rule that facilitates application across the board.
Since the current Fourth Amendment jurisprudence provides that one does not have a reasonable expectation of pri-vacy from all observations
of one's property, n293 this statutory lan-guage will provide a reasonable expectation of privacy from prolonged observations of one's
property. This
proposal would comply with current Fourth Amendment jurisprudence regarding fly-over
aerial observations and would also be consistent with the mosaic theory. n294 Further, this proposal limits law
enforcement's ability to use any form of drone technology. Given that the technological advancements in this field will likely continue to
progress at a rapid pace, any proposed legislation should incorporate an objective standard defining the permissible level of technology or an
outright prohibition on the use of all drone surveillance. In this way, we can align the use of this form of technology with Fourth Amendment
protections. Rather than providing vague standards, such as technology that is not in general public use, the general restriction provides a
bright-line rule to law enforcement agencies. [*721] Therefore, this
proposal would allow law enforcement to be exempt
from the warrant requirement for exigent circumstances, while also allowing them to obtain a warrant
from a neutral and detached magistrate when law enforcement intends to conduct long-term
surveillance, thereby ensuring that law enforcement agencies comply with the warrant requirement of the
Fourth Amendment and respect citizens' privacy rights.
Federal action is uniquely key
Harman 2015 (Jane [Former Rep, D-CA]; The undercooked debate on domestic drones; may 1;
thehill.com/opinion/op-ed/240728-the-undercooked-debate-on-domestic-drones; kdf)
Today, lawmakers worldwide are sleepwalking through a privacy and security crisis. How many secure sites have to be
compromised before we wake up to the full challenges posed by commercial and law enforcement UAVs – or, in common parlance, by drones?
The Federal Aviation Administration unveiled rules this February that would make it much easier to
operate drones in the United States: for law enforcement agencies conducting surveillance, for
commercial firms, and for private individuals. Make no mistake: eventually, the last two groups could include bad actors, even
terrorists. It’s hard to overstate how undercooked the debate on this future is. The stakes are high; our privacy and our security are at risk. The
implications for privacy and surveillance are huge. In 2012, the Supreme Court ruled that tracking a car using an attached GPS beacon, without
a warrant, is unconstitutional. But what if police use a roving drone instead? That debate is raging in Virginia now, which two years ago imposed
a two-year moratorium on warrantless drone surveillance. That’s where most of the regulatory action is happening on this issue: in concerned
states and municipalities across the country. At
the federal level, we have a leadership vacuum. With a technological
revolution on its way, Washington is AWOL. How do you square this new world with our Constitution? As Brookings Institution
senior fellow John Villasenor said in 2012, “The FAA, I would imagine, has more aviation lawyers than Fourth Amendment constitutional
lawyers.” Then there are the new security challenges. Authorities have a poor track record detecting small aircraft that fly where they
shouldn’t. In 2010, a Mexican government drone went down in an El Paso backyard; though NORAD later said it had been tracking the plane,
local officials seem to have been taken entirely by surprise. This month, a postal employee flew a (manned) gyrocopter to Capitol Hill through
some of the most restricted airspace in the country. Incidents like these severely undermine confidence in our preparedness. One day, one of
the craft slipping under our radar will do us harm. Iran has poured funds into developing a “suicide drone” – essentially a cheap, nimble cruise
missile. It’s not hard to imagine terrorists building do-it-yourself versions of the same device, a pipe bomb or pressure cooker strapped to a
small UAV. This is a concern others have raised for years, but it took a drone landing feet from the White House for the Secret Service to start
trying out jamming technology – an issue they should have been thinking about years ago. Many drone countermeasures are still primitive;
some of the solutions are worse than the problem. Popular Science advised the White House, “Simple netting, used often at drone trade shows
to keep small drones confident to their exhibitions, could also work, if the President wanted to live inside a net all the time.” We
need a
serious policy response that engages Congress; federal, state, and local government – and the private sector. This issue is
too big for the FAA, too urgent to postpone, and too important to leave off the national agenda. Lately,
Congress has devoted impressive attention to new risks in cyberspace. It should put at least as much
effort into understanding drones. One option is to encourage commercial firms—through either voluntary or mandatory
standards—to hardwire restrictions into the drones they build and sell. Some companies already program their drones to stay out of restricted
airspace and away from sensitive sites. Those efforts
need a push and a signal boost from government.
The justifications for data collection are wrought with faulty logic—only increasing the
amount of info available to public can keep the homeland safe
Scheer 2015 (Robert [Prof @ USC’s School of journalism and communication]; They Know Everything
About You; Nation Books; p. 208-212; kdf)
WE MUST CHALLENGE THE ASSUMPTION THAT PROTECTING national security requires sacrificing the
constitutional rights of the individual. As pointed out in this book, the Fourth Amendment does not contain an absolute·
ban on searches and seizures but, rather, requires
a court-authorized warrant based on probable cause of a crime
before invading an individual's private space. All Yahoo was asking of the court was that the searches of its company's
customers meet this requirement. Instead, the government responded that the so-called War on Terrorism could not be won on that basis, and
the secret FISA court endorsed the view. As Stewart Baker, the former NSA general counsel and Homeland Security official in the Bush
administration, told the Washington Post after the Yahoo case documents were released: "I'm always astonished how people are willing to
abstract these decisions from the actual stakes." He went on to say that "[w]e're talking about trying to gather information about people who
are trying to kill us and who will succeed if we don't have robust information about their activities. "26 As demonstrated in previous chapters,
however, there
is simply no serious evidence that the mass surveillance program initiated under President Bush
provided the sort of "robust information" Baker claims was required to identify the people "trying to kill us."
Yet, as this book goes to press, we have been presented with still another case study in the rise of a terrorist
movement-the Islamic State oflraq and Syria (ISIS), whose members are creating considerable mayhem in Iraq and Syria-for which the
mass surveillance techniques of the NSA left us totally unprepared. They appeared suddenly, startlingly so, these black-clad men of ISIS,
beheading journalists and others27 as they formed their proclaimed Sunni Caliphate over a broad swath of Syria and lraq. 28 Once again, as
with the al Qaeda attacks of 9/11, the
fearsome spectacle of a terrorist enemy drove reason from the stage and
the chant of war was in the air. The New York Times carried the text ofObama's speech to the nation on September 10, 2014, in
which he vowed to "destroy the terrorist group."29 Defense Secretary Chuck Hegel said that ISIS poses an "imminent threat to every interest
all the arguments for peace and restraint were cast aside and the defense of privacy
and civil liberty seemed an unaffordable indulgence in the rush to combat an enemy of such awesome
power and mystery. Lost in the moment of fear-induced passion was the fact that these men of ISIS who so alarmed us, like their cousins
we have."30 Suddenly,
in al Qaeda, were hardly unknown or mysterious beings, but instead monsters partially of our own creation. Adam Gopnik reinforced this point
in an August 2014 article in the New Yorker. "ISIS is a horrible group doing horrible things, and there are many factors behind its rise," he wrote.
"But they came to be a threat and a power less because of all we didn't do than because of certain things we did do-foremost among them that
massive, forward intervention, the Iraq War. (The historical question to which ISIS is the answer is: What could possibly be worse than Saddam
Hussein?)"31 Now, once again-and this time as compared to 9 I 11, when
the public was so ill-served with alarmist
information about the extent of the terrorist threat-the president was presumably in possession of that
vast trove of intelligence data collected by the NSA and analyzed with the brilliant software of the best
Silicon Valley datamining companies such as the media-celebrated Palantir. And yet there is no evidence that this costly and
intrusive effort was the least bit useful in predicting the rise of ISIS. Clearly, there is a disturbing disconnect between the zeal
with which big data is collected and the lack of scientific precision in utilizing that data to make sound
policy decisions and to inform the public as to the necessity of action. It is also difficult to see just how that data,
based as it is on the minutiae of the lives of much of the world's population, is useful to an understanding of this threat. This book explains the
continued rise of a military-intelligence complex that, through the assertion of a pressing danger to national security after 9 I 11, made an
unfettered and largely unchallenged claim upon the vast amount of private data collected in a wired world by government and private
enterprises. It is a claim based on the unquestioned assumption that what passes for military intelligence is sufficiently and uniquely productive
of useful insight to warrant the costs to our democracy as well as our federal budget, and that less invasive means of research such as
scholarship, journalism, and traditional shoe-leather spy and detective work are inherently inadequate to the task of protecting us in a
cyberworld. It is a commonly persuasive argument and difficult to challenge given that the high-tech surveillance is cloaked in such tight
secrecy. In the wake of the Snowden revelations, when there was a much-heightened public awareness of the threat to privacy and a
willingness, even on the part of Congress, to address the issue more vigorously, all
it took was the appearance of a renewed
terrorist threat to develop anew a consensus that privacy needed to be surrendered as an unaffordable
risk to the nation's security. Just the opposite is the case. What now passes for military intelligence is a tech -driven oxymoron that
denies the place of historical contemplation, cultural and religious study, political complexity, and ethical restraints in assessing dangers to a
nation.
Never has our nation's foreign policy been so poorly served as in the era of the Internet, with its
enormous potential to enlighten us; but the collusions of war-mongering fanatics and profiteers are
beyond the comprehension of even the most powerful machines. They must not be beyond the purview of public
awareness, however. A fully informed public is the best safeguard against the hazardous foreign
entanglements that our founders warned were the main threat to the health of the republic. That is why
they enshrined the constitutional protections against unbridled government power they believed would subvert the American experiment in
representative governance. We must heed the wisdom of the EFF's senior attorney Lee Tien, who as much as any constitutional lawyer has
battled on behalf of those rights. As he summed up in an interview: "We need to fix the national security classification system that has classified
so much information that we don't know what's going on. It's hard to know what we should do, but we should all agree that knowing what's
happening is the first step. It's dangerous to propose a solution when you don't know what the extent of the problem is. If you asked me before
the Snowden revelations, my answer would be different. There are no personal solutions to this; there is nothing we can do individually." "This
is a systemic problem," he continued. "It's an institutional problem, it's a political problem. There can only be collective action. That's it. That
means we need to call on all of them-individuals, Internet companies, politicians, the government-to fix it, and we need to organize.
can't have a democracy if you don't have sufficient information. We're fighting for the soul of this
democracy."
You
Inherency
Inherency – Current Regs Fail
Current regs have loopholes that allow for warrantless invasions of privacy
New York Times 2015 (Editorial Board; Regulating the Drone Economy; Feb 19;
www.nytimes.com/2015/02/19/opinion/regulating-the-drone-economy.html; kdf)
Mr. Obama’s
action on drone use by government agencies is much more problematic. For example, the
president’s memorandum says the government should not retain personally identifiable information
collected by drones for more than 180 days. But agencies can keep the data for longer if it is
“determined to be necessary to an authorized mission of the retaining agency” — a standard that grants
officials far too much latitude. Moreover, the administration says agencies have to provide only a “general summary” of how they
use drones, and only once a year. Law enforcement agencies like the F.B.I. and local police departments are
already using drones and manned aircraft for surveillance, often without obtaining warrants, but they have
said little publicly about what they are doing with the information collected. The use of drones is likely to grow, and the devices
could become as common as utility and delivery trucks. At the dawn of this technology, it’s appropriate to set sound safety and
privacy rules.
Inherency – Yes Border drones
Unwarranted drones are proliferating on the borders now
Kayyali 2015 (Nadia; Secure Our Borders First Act Would Ensure Proliferation of Drones at the Border;
Feb 3; https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2015/02/secure-our-borders-first-act-would-ensure-proliferationdrones-border; kdf)
Secure Our Borders First Act Would Ensure Proliferation of Drones at the Border Security shouldn’t be a synonym
for giving up civil liberties. But bills like HR 399 show that lawmakers think it is. The Secure Our Borders First Act is an ugly
piece of legislation that’s clearly intended to strongarm the Department of Homeland Security into
dealing with the border in a very particular way—with drones and other surveillance technology. The bill
appears to have stalled in the House—it was on the calendar for last week but wasn’t voted on, and it's not on the schedule for this week. But
it’s not dead yet. And even if it does die, this isn’t the first time Congress has tried to increase the use of drones at the border. In 2013, the
Senate passed S.744, the Border Security, Economic Opportunity, and Immigration Modernization Act. The bill called for the use of drones “24
hours per day and for 7 days per week.” The House of Representatives did not pass the legislation, but the drone mandate in HR 399 is eerily
similar—and it demonstrates that the idea that drones should be used at the border is persistent. The 72-page piece of legislation, authored by
Rep. Michael McCaul from Texas, gives the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) an incredibly specific mandate. It requires DHS to gain
“operational control” of high traffic areas within 2 years, and the entire southern border within 5 years. Operational control means “the
prevention of all unlawful entries into the United States.” It prescribes exactly how that should be done, and even includes penalties for failure
to do so, including pay freezes for government officials. The bill also prescribes how operational control should be obtained. It does this by
prescribing what equipment 11 specific border points should use. At several of the points, that equipment includes drones. Additionally, the bill
includes the following mandate: The Office of Air and Marine of U.S. Customs and Border Protection [CBP] shall operate unmanned aerial
systems not less than 16 hours per day, seven days per week. As the ACLU notes, it’s a little shocking that the bill includes such mandates only
“weeks after a damning DHS Inspector General (DHS IG) report titled ‘CBP Drones are Dubious Achievers.’” And that’s just the most recent
report. In June of 2012, EFF called attention to another DHS IG report that faulted the DHS for wasting time, money, and resources using drones
that were ineffective and lacked oversight. To put it in perspective, Predator drones cost $3,000 per hour to fly. That’s certainly part of the
reason that HR 399 authorizes $1 billion in appropriations. Of course, the waste of money in this bill pales in comparison to its potential
negative impact on civil liberties.
Drones pose a multitude of privacy concerns. Drones can be equipped with,
among other capabilities, facial recognition technology, live-feed video cameras, thermal imaging, fake
cell phone towers to intercept phone calls, texts and GPS locations, as well as backend software tools like license plate
recognition, GPS tracking, and facial recognition. They are capable of highly advanced and near-constant surveillance, and can amass large
amounts of data on private citizens, which can then be linked to data collected by the government and private companies in other contexts.
Lest it seem that this will only affect communities directly adjacent to the border, or individuals being
investigated or pursued by CBP, it’s important to note that the government considers the border to extend 100
miles in, and CBP has certain powers to conduct activities like searches that would be unconstitutional elsewhere. Furthermore, according to
documents obtained by the EFF as part of a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit against the agency, CBP appears to be flying drones
well within the Southern and Northern US borders for a wide variety of non-border patrol reasons. In fact,
the documents showed that between 2010-2012, the number of missions CBP flew for state, local and non-CBP federal agencies increased
eight-fold. The silver lining? The legislation hasn’t passed yet. There’s still time to contact your elected representatives and tell them to vote no.
AT: New FAA Regs Solve
Those regs expand the power of the state
Fulton 2015 (Deirdre; Surveillance, Privacy Concerns Raised as FAA Gives Domestic Drones a Nod; Feb
15; www.commondreams.org/news/2015/02/15/surveillance-privacy-concerns-raised-faa-givesdomestic-drones-nod; kdf)
Domestic non-military drone use took one step closer to widespread implementation on Sunday, as the
Federal Aviation Administration issued proposed regulations for small unmanned aircraft systems in the U.S.
According to an FAA press release, the rule would limit flights to daylight and visual-line-of-sight operations. It also addresses height
restrictions, operator certification, aircraft registration and marking, and operational limits. In a blow to Google and Amazon, it does not permit
drone delivery. Also on Sunday, the White House issued an Executive Order requiring every federal agency to develop "a framework regarding
privacy, accountability, and transparency for commercial and private [Unmanned Aircraft Systems] use" within 90 days and with an eye toward
protecting personal privacy, civil rights, and civil liberties. "Together, the
FAA regulations and the White House order
provide some basic rules of the sky that will govern who can fly drones in the United States and under
what conditions, while attempting to prevent aviation disasters and unrestrained government
surveillance," the Washington Post declared. But civil liberties experts warned that the FAA rules and presidential
memo leave the door open for invasions of privacy by the government and corporations. "The proposed
rules do absolutely nothing to address privacy, except perhaps require some identifying markings displayed in the 'largest
practicable manner' such that you may be able to identify who owns the drone that is spying on you," Ryan Calo wrote at Forbes. "I was on the
conference call announcing the new rules and the Secretary of Transportation mentioned the importance of privacy and civil liberties, but this
commitment is not reflected in the proposed rules." The Center for Democracy and Technology called on Congress to raise the bar on domestic
drone standards. "Drones have the potential for significant societal, scientific, and economic benefits, but also pose new and intrusive privacy
problems," CDT senior counsel Harley Geiger said in a press statement. "The White House’s memo requires government agencies to enhance
transparency and develop clear rules to protect the privacy of Americans. This is an important and welcome step in advancing drone
technology, while protecting civil liberties." Still, he added, "the
White House memo itself does not establish strong
privacy and transparency drone standards for agencies, leaving it up to the agencies to develop these
standards. Because the memo’s requirements are not specific, the drone policies the agencies set for themselves will be key to how
individuals’ privacy is actually protected. Congress still has a role to play in setting strong privacy and transparency standards for drone use."
One of the most promising applications for domestic drone use is also one of the most troubling: as an internet service platform, giving
operators access to vast quantities of data and threatening net neutrality, Drew Mitnick and Jack Bussell note at the blog for Access, a global
human rights organization focused on digital freedom. "Drones
also increase the opportunities for governments to
conduct first-hand surveillance of users’ electronic communications by intercepting signals and
information," they write. "Official documents demonstrate that government agencies are already exploring aerial platforms for
surveillance technologies, like Stingray technology, which conducts bulk surveillance of user location information... The potential for drones to
violate individual rights supports the need for legislation and regulations for government uses of drones as well as commercial vehicles."
Privacy Advantage
AT: Alt Causes
The plan is the catalyst that makes privacy possible
Ahsanuddin et al 2014 (Sadia - principal investigator for the report and MPAC research fellow;
Domestic Drones: Implications for Privacy and Due Process in the United States; Sep 8;
www.mpac.org/publications/policy-papers/domestic-drones.php; kdf)
Simultaneously, the IHSS survey respondents indicated apprehensiveness over any domestic drone operations: two-thirds expressed concern
over potential surveillance in homes or public areas; 65 percent were concerned about safety; and 75 percent were concerned about the
government’s ability to regulate use.82 The
rapid pace at which drone technology is developing, the lack of clear
guidelines protecting privacy and civil liberties, and public concern over these issues indicate an urgent
need for action in Congress and state legislatures. Privacy experts agree. In an article in the Stanford Law Review Online,
Professor Ryan Calo of the University of Washington School of Law states that drones “may be just the visceral jolt society
needs to drag privacy law into the twenty-first century.” American privacy law has developed at a
“slow and uneven” pace, whereas technology has developed at a rapid speed. In spite of the development of
computers, the Internet, Global-Positioning Systems (GPS), biometrics, gigapixel cameras, face recognition technology, and the widespread use
of e-mail and other forms of electronic communication, there has been no attendant development in privacy law. Because
drones
“threaten to perfect the art of surveillance,” they make for a good catalyst to update privacy law. The
need for legislation is clear. With recent revelations that the federal government has been conducting
surveillance of the American public on an unprecedented level, the threat that unregulated and
immensely capable technologies pose to civil liberties is profound. The law must catch up with
technology.
AT: If you have nothing to hide
The idea that only those with something to hide should worry trivializes the
importance of privacy concerns
Scheer 2015 (Robert [Prof @ USC’s School of journalism and communication]; They Know Everything
About You; Nation Books; p. 81-82; kdf)
An even darker defense of the end-of-privacy doctrine had been offered a month earlier by Google's Eric Schmidt, who impugned the
innocence of consumers who worry about snooping by Google and other companies. "If
you have something that you don't
want anyone to know, maybe you shouldn't be doing it in the first place," Schmidt stated in an interview for a
December 2009 CNBC Special, "Inside the Mind of Google."5 The ability of the fast-growing Internet data-mining
companies to trivialize privacy concerns succeeded because the target audience of younger consumers
was either indifferent to invasions of their privacy or ignorant of the extent and depth of that data
collection. It was remarkable that an American social culture that had for so long been moored to a notion of individual sovereignty
predicated on the ability to develop one's identity, ideas, and mores in private, had, in a wink, become willing to surrender any such notion.
Americans had fought and died for the right to have privately developed papers, conversations,
friendships, and diaries, especially in our homes. Yet here we were as a society voluntarily moving so much of that
into digital spaces owned and managed by corporations we have no control over. This relinquishing of
the most private information about one's essence and aspirations became the norm in a shockingly
short period, examined only lightly and in passing. As we shared more and more with ever-widening social networks, it
seemed okay as long as the companies securely stored this precious data, to be used only to enhance the consumer experience. We counted on
the self-interest of the corporation not to harm us, not to bite the hand that feeds. But the Snowden revelations changed all that by exposing
how easily the government could access-and indeed was accessing our personal info. That troubling confluence between the corporate world
and the state caught the public's attention in a way that Internet companies feared might be game changing, threatening the culture of trust
needed to continue gathering that data. Also
straining global confidence in Internet commerce was the shock of
those outside the country who had bought into the myth that US-based multinationals were
international in their obligations, but who now found them to be subservient to the whims of
Washington. 6 That was a message that US companies, up against a saturated domestic market for their products, found particularly
alarming, since they depend on global.growth to please shareholders.
AT: Nazism example=hyperbole
The risk is real
Scheer 2015 (Robert [Prof @ USC’s School of journalism and communication]; They Know Everything
About You; Nation Books; p. 176; kdf)
WE ARE A NATION THAT HAS LONG CELEBRATED DISSIDENTS throughout the world who dare, often at great risk, to
expose the secret actions and challenge the legitimacy of repressive governments. In some cases, we even
provide legal sanctuary or asylum for such people. However, when Americans dissent in such radical ways, the opposite is often the case-they
are vilified as disloyal and as a threat to our collective security or stability. The assumption, embraced so widely, must be that our system never
requires such a fundamental challenge to its authority, as represented by the actions of a Daniel Ellsberg, Thomas Drake, Chelsea Manning, or
Edward Snowden. We
know, however, from so many historical examples-the Roman Empire, Nazi Germany, the Soviet
Union-that unchallenged authority not only will violate human rights but also will ultimately sow the
seeds of its own ruin, increasingly blind to its own limitations and flaws. Despite our historically innovative
constitutional checks on government power, we are nevertheless always flirting with imperial hubris. We see this clearly
in the pattern of lies that defined US foreign policy after 9/11; it is quite apparent that leaving those lies largely
unchallenged in the name of classification seriously weakened the position of the United States in the
world.
AT: Law enforcement turns
Many law enforcement agents refuse drones – the plan provides them with an
effective and constitutional method to do so
Sommadossi 2014 (Tiffany; Domestic Surveillance Drones: To Fear or Not to Fear?; Aug 4;
www.legislationandpolicy.com/1425/domestic-surveillance-drones-fear-fear/; kdf)
While pending federal
legislation is an excellent sign that Congress is taking steps to address privacy
concerns related to drone surveillance, the question of what to do until federal laws pass remains. The absence of drone
privacy restrictions represents a gaping hole in American privacy protections, and also puts law
enforcement offices in a predicament. A growing number of law enforcement offices, like the LAPD, are
voluntarily refusing to integrate drone technology into its investigations because of public disapproval. The public has made clear
that unless strict privacy rules are in place to govern surveillance drones, the benefits they can provide are not worth the significant privacy
implications. Therefore,
the lack of federal drone law focused on privacy is simultaneously threatening
American privacy interests and preventing law enforcement from taking advantage of new technologies.
As the Supreme Court’s interpretation of the Fourth Amendment slowly transforms and Congress remains suspicious of government
surveillance programs, it will be interesting to see where the pendulum settles on what constitutes a reasonable expectation of privacy in the
United States when it comes to government surveillance, particularly from the air.
Drones Advantage
AT: Drones Good
The plan doesn’t eliminate all drones, just puts limits on surveillance
Galizio 2014 (Gregory; NOTE: A DIGITAL ALBATROSS: NAVIGATING THE LEGAL FRAMEWORK OF
DOMESTIC POLICE DRONE TECHNOLOGY VERSUS PRIVACY RIGHTS IN MASSACHUSETTS AND BEYOND; 20
Suffolk J. Trial & App. Adv. 117; kdf)
V. CONCLUSION While
law enforcement drones need to be strictly restrained by [*143] statute, the courts, and
government agencies, this emerging technology need not be universally condemned as the advent of George Orwell's
dystopian world. American legislatures and courts should legally discourage all dragnet surveillance conducted
with drones. If sensible legislation, along with strict judicial review, can be established, domestic drones should
be integrated into American skies. The courts must evolve and confront the rapid pace of technology
with more stringent approaches to protecting privacy rights. On the practical side, civil libertarians should not
unconditionally reject law enforcement's operation of drones if used in the same manner as existing
police technology. The arrival of domestic drones offers a new battle within the dichotomy of privacy and security interests. Just as
drones may benefit domestic security interests, they burden the right of privacy. As drone and other technologies further complicate this legal
clash of competing interests, it will be up to lawmakers and judges to offer reasonable and balanced solutions. While
drones possess
benefits to public safety, the failure to adapt our Fourth Amendment jurisprudence to the digital age will
create a digital albatross upon the privacy interests of us all. n156
AT: Drones Save Lives
Current tech make drones more dangerous than helpful
Guma 2014 (Greg; Drones and Law Enforcement in America: The Unmanned Police Surveillance State;
Feb 18; www.globalresearch.ca/drones-and-law-enforcement-in-america-the-unmanned-policesurveillance-state/5330984; kdf)
The Defense Committee’s legislative models are designed to satisfy diverse interests. One creates a drone-free zone, while another establishes
strict requirements limiting their use by law enforcement agencies and other public officials. The model regulating drone use (rather than
outlawing it) allows them to be used with a judicially issued warrant or for limited non-law enforcement purposes like fire detection, hazardous
material response, search & rescue, and natural disasters. Beyond constitutional concerns, proposed
legislation also addresses
some safety issues. According to Buttar, many of the drones currently available to law enforcement have
limited flying time, can’t be flown in bad weather, must be flown in sight of an operator, and can only be
used during daylight hours, “making them ill-suited to search and rescue missions and best suited for
pervasive surveillance.” On the other hand, AP points to some of the attractions driving the rush to drone use. Unmanned aircraft vary
widely in size and capability. They can be as small as a bird or look like a children’s remote-controlled toy, and yet can be equipped with highpowered cameras, microphones, heat sensors, facial recognition technology or license plate readers. Similar technology has been used by the
US military and CIA to track down Al-Qaida operatives abroad. Law enforcement likes drones because they’re relatively cheap; they reportedly
keep down the price by cutting fuel and maintenance costs, as well as reducing manpower. Look at it this way: A police helicopter can cost from
$500,000 to $3 million, and about $400 an hour to fly. It can be “affordable” snooping for those with the means of surveillance.
AT: Drones Kills ISIS
ISIS is structurally incapable of being a threat
Matthews and Preble 2015 (Dylan and Christopher [Cato's vice president for defense and foreign
policy studies]; Ignore the headlines. The world is getting safer all the time.; Jan 15;
www.vox.com/2015/1/14/7546165/world-getting-safer; kdf)
DM: Did ISIS change your thinking on this at all? ISIS fighter An ISIS fighter in Syria. (AFP/Getty Images)
CP: Not really, for a couple reasons. ISIS may be a terrorist organization, and may be an insurgency, and
may be a quasi-nation-state or attempting to become a quasi-nation-state, but it's hard to be all of
those things simultaneously. Austin Long writes about this in his chapter, about the differences between
insurgents and terrorists. Most terrorists operate in the shadows. The hard part is not killing them, it's
finding them. That's why traditional counterterrorism is an intelligence and information-gathering
process. It's a lot like police work. By declaring itself a state and raising a flag over territory it seizes and
holds, ISIS is trading away one of its key advantages, and opening itself up to more traditional military
attacks. It's a virulent, reprehensible state, but it's not clear to me that it's a greater terrorist threat than
other organizations that are continuing to operate in the shadows.
xt – No ISIS Terror
No threat of ISIS terrorism – litany of reasons
Byman and Shapiro 2015 (Daniel L [research director @ Center for Middle East Policy, Brookings]
and Jeremy [Fellow @ Brookings]; Be Afraid. Be A Little Afraid: The Threat of Terrorism from Western
Foreign Fighters in Syria and Iraq; January; www.brookings.edu/research/papers/2015/01/westernforeign-fighters-in-syria-and-iraq-byman-shapiro?rssid=LatestFromBrookings; kdf)
Despite these fears and the real danger that motivates them, the Syrian and Iraqi foreign fighter threat
can easily be exaggerated. Previous cases and information emerging from Syria suggest several mitigating effects that may
reduce—but hardly eliminate—the potential terrorist threat from foreign fighters who have gone to Syria. Those mitigating factors
include: • Many die, blowing themselves up in suicide attacks or perishing quickly in firefights with opposing forces.
• Many never return home, but continue fighting in the conflict zone or at the next battle for jihad. • Many of the foreign fighters
quickly become disillusioned, and a number even return to their home country without engaging in further violence. • Others are
arrested or disrupted by intelligence services. Indeed, becoming a foreign fighter—particularly with today’s heavy use of social media—makes a
terrorist far more likely to come to the attention of security services. The danger posed by returning foreign fighters is real, but American and
European security services have tools that they can successfully deploy to mitigate the threat. These tools will
have to be adapted to the new context in Syria and Iraq, but they will remain useful and effective. Key Policy Recommendations The model below shows how the
various mitigating factors and effective policies can (though not necessarily will) lessen the danger presented by foreign fighters. Complex Model of Foreign Fighter
Radicalization Complex Model of Foreign Fighter Radicalization Decide First is the decision stage. It makes sense to reduce the numbers of those going to the
conflict zone in the first place by interfering in the decision to go. After all, those who do not go cannot be radicalized by foreign fighting. Western countries should
push a counter-narrative that stresses the brutality of the conflict and the internecine violence among jihadists. However, in general, governments are poor at
developing counter-narratives and lack community credibility. It is usually better to elevate existing voices of community leaders who already embrace the counternarrative than to try to handle this directly through government channels. Also vital is developing peaceful alternatives for helping the people affected by the
conflicts in the Middle East. Some fighters—certainly not all but a significant portion—were originally motivated by a genuine desire to defend the Syrian people
against the brutality of the Assad regime. Encouraging charitable activities, identifying legitimate channels for assistance, and otherwise highlighting what
concerned individuals can do to help alleviate the suffering of the Syrian people may siphon off some of the supply of foreign fighters. Local programs for providing
assistance can also improve domestic intelligence gathering capabilities in two ways, according to Western security service officials. First, simply being out and
about in the community gives government officials more access to information about potential radicals. Families become comfortable with intelligence services, as
do community leaders. Second, such programs allow intelligence officials to gain access to individuals who can potentially be recruited to inform on other would-be
jihadists. Desired Results: • Talked out of joining the foreign militias by family or community intervention. • Choose peaceful alternative to fighting. Travel The
second stage in the foreign fighter radicalization process is the travel to Syria. Disrupting the transit route via Turkey is one of the most promising ways of reducing
the threat of foreign fighters to Europe and the United States. Doing so will primarily require better cooperation between Western governments and Turkish
authorities, who have not always seen stopping the flow of fighters as their highest priority. But as Turkish authorities are now becoming more worried about the
jihadist threat to Turkey, Western security services should establish channels with Turkish intelligence and police to warn them of the presence of specific
individuals headed to Syria through Turkey and to encourage Turkey to turn them away from the Turkish border or stop them at the Syrian border and deport them.
Though there are other ways into Syria, all are far harder and more costly for Western fighters. Security cooperation among European services and between
European and American services is also essential. Intelligence collected from the communications of foreign fighters, shared open source monitoring, and other
information from one service can prove vital for discovering transnational networks. Cooperation within Europe is indispensable for stopping travel as jihadists from
one European country often try to travel to Turkey and then on to Syria via another European country in an effort to avoid detection. Desired Results: • Arrested en
route. • Stopped at border and deported. Train and Fight In the third stage of the process, the foreign fighters receive training and fight in Syria or Iraq, mostly out
of the reach of European or American influence. But even here, there are subtle ways of influencing the terrorist indoctrination process. Western security agencies
should do everything they can to sow doubt in the minds of extremist leaders in Iraq and Syria about the true loyalties of Western Muslim volunteers. Highlighting
information gained from recruits and even disinformation about the degree of infiltration by security services can heighten fears. If jihadist organizations come to
view foreigners as potential spies or as corrupting influences, they might assign them to non-combat roles, test their allegiances by offering them the one-way ticket
of suicide bombings, or even avoid recruiting them altogether. Desired Results: • Die in the combat zone. • Stay abroad and fight. • Become disillusioned with the
struggle. Return Upon the foreign fighters’ return, the fourth stage, it is critical to turn them away from violence and jihad. Western services report that they usually
know when individuals return and that many return with doubts. As a first step, security services must triage returnees, identifying which ones deserve the most
attention: our interviews indicate triaging is done inconsistently (and in some cases not at all) among the Western security services. Inevitably, some dangerous
individuals will be missed, and some individuals identified as not particularly dangerous might later become a threat, but a first look is vital for prioritization. Efforts
to promote a counter-narrative are valuable, particularly if they involve parents, preachers and community leaders. Community programs deserve considerable
attention. The goal should be to move potential terrorists towards non-violence; since many are in that category already, hounding them with the threat of arrest or
otherwise creating a sense of alienation can backfire. In the past, family and community members have at times been successful in steering returned fighters
toward a different path, even getting them to inform on their former comrades. Indeed, sending returnees to jail for relatively minor crimes such as going abroad to
fight with a foreign terrorist organization against a distant enemy may simply put them in prison for a few years and expose them to the radicalizing elements
present in many European prisons, where many minor players become exposed to hardened jihadists and integrate into broader networks. Desired Results: •
Arrested and jailed. • De-radicalized and reintegrated. • No desire to attack at home. Plot To disrupt foreign fighters in the fifth and final stage of plotting terrorist
attacks, security services must remain focused on the returnee problem and have sufficient resources to monitor the problem as it emerges in their countries. The
good news is that going to Syria and Iraq and returning home usually does bring one to the attention the security services. But maintaining vigilance as the numbers
increase will be difficult purely for reasons of resources. Marc Hecker, a French expert on terrorism, commented that France could handle the “dozens” who
returned from Iraq but would be over-whelmed by the “hundreds” who may come back from Syria. Keeping track of that many suspects, is exceptionally resource
intensive, particularly if it involves full-time surveillance. For intelligence services, often the problem is not in accessing or gathering the data, but in processing,
analyzing, and following up on it in a timely manner. At the same time, their own effectiveness can work against them: by reducing the problem considerably, they
decrease the danger, thereby creating the impression that they need fewer resources. One way to mitigate this effect is for security services to spread the burden of
responsibility around by training and sharing information with local police and other law-enforcement and community organizations. Security cooperation among
European services and between European and American services is absolutely necessary. Intelligence from the communications of foreign fighters, shared opensource monitoring, and other information obtained by one service can prove crucial for discovering transnational networks. As noted earlier, cooperation within
Europe is critical for stopping travel, as jihadists from one European country often try to travel to Turkey and then on to Syria via another European country in order
to avoid detection. Desired Results: • Attack foiled by law enforcement. • Attack fails due to lack of training or wrong skills. Conclusion The
United States
and Europe already have effective measures in place to greatly reduce the threat of terrorism from
jihadist returnees and to limit the scale of any attacks that might occur. Those measures can and should be improved—and,
more importantly, adequately resourced. But the standard of success cannot be perfection. If it is, then Western
governments are doomed to fail, and, worse, doomed to an overreaction which will waste resources and
cause dangerous policy mistakes.
AT: Plan doesn’t solve foreign drones
The plan helps shed light on other drone programs – aff is a critical first step
Selinger and Kaag 2015 (Evan and John [Associate prof of philosophy @ U of Massachusetts Lowell];
Why domestic drones stir more debate than ones used in warfighting abroad; Mar 9;
http://www.csmonitor.com/World/Passcode/Passcode-Voices/2015/0309/Why-domestic-drones-stirmore-debate-than-ones-used-in-warfighting-abroad kdf)
Selinger: Do you think it’s wrong that we’re more concerned about domestic uses of drones than foreign ones? Kaag: Yes. This
attitude
reflects a disturbing mix of provincialism and exceptionalism that Americans should acknowledge and oppose. We
need to come to grips with the “wars” that are being fought in our name and critically evaluate their
justifications. And we need to put pressure on the media to continue to cover the stories that allow us to make this crucial evaluation. The
asymmetry suggests a strange political and moral myopia. Yes, it’s true that domestic drone surveillance might erode civil
liberties, and degrade the political fabric of the United States. To some extent the American public knows this is the case and is invested in
moving forward carefully. But it’s equally true in the case of an abuse of drones in the targeted killing program
abroad. Drones keep boots off the ground and allow political leaders to execute military strikes without the fear of losing troops. This is
mixed blessing. It also allows leaders to circumvent the traditional safeguards that protect against
illegitimate military actions. The American public tends to become more interested in armed conflict – its execution and justification
– when it faces the traditional sacrifices associated with war. I fear we’ve entered an era of continual warfare where the American public has
little incentive to monitor the actions of its leaders.
This means we risk losing our democratic hold on an important
political issue, shifting power back to leaders who were, at least originally, supposed to be checked by the will
of the people. The issue of moral myopia is a bit simpler. Just because it may be true, psychologically, that it’s easier to turn a blind eye to
injustice far away, does not mean that it’s morally justified to do so. Many drone strikes are in fact legitimate. But certain
signature strikes, I would argue, are not. And the American public should be aware of this difference.
AT: Exigent circumstances bad
The Supreme Court defines exigent circumstances
San Pedro 2014 (Victoria [J.D. Candidate, Stetson University College of Law]; STUDENT WORK: DRONE
LEGISLATION: KEEPING AN EYE ON LAW ENFORCEMENT'S LATEST SURVEILLANCE TECHNOLOGY; 43
Stetson L. Rev. 679; kdf)
4. Exigent Circumstances The Court also defined exceptions to the warrant requirement, n107 including
the exigent circumstances exception. n108 [*694] Exigent circumstances have been described as
"situations where ""real immediate and serious consequences" will "certainly occur" if a police officer
postpones action to obtain a warrant.'" n109 Among the situations that the Court described as
constituting an exigent circumstance was the instance of "hot pursuit," which occurs when police
officers pursue a fleeing felon. n110 Additionally, the Court held that rendering emergency assistance
constituted an exigent circumstance. n111 Additionally, in Wayne v. United States, n112 the United
States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit held that exigent circumstances existed when
law enforcement entered "a burning home to rescue occupants or extinguish a fire, to prevent a
shooting or to bring emergency aid to an injured person."
Police are already trained, adaptation towards drones will be easy
San Pedro 2014 (Victoria [J.D. Candidate, Stetson University College of Law]; STUDENT WORK: DRONE
LEGISLATION: KEEPING AN EYE ON LAW ENFORCEMENT'S LATEST SURVEILLANCE TECHNOLOGY; 43
Stetson L. Rev. 679; kdf)
[*718] Similar to language in currently proposed legislation, n279 exclusionary provisions should be
incorporated into the enacted legislation. However, this Article suggests that the exclusionary provisions
should be directly tied to Fourth Amendment exceptions that have been addressed by the Supreme
Court. For example, instead of providing an exception for "emergency situations" n280 it would be best
to use the "exigent circumstances" phraseology that has been previously defined by the Court. n281 This
will provide an easy transition for law enforcement agencies that prepare their training and manuals
according to existing jurisprudence. If police officers are already trained on what constitutes an "exigent
circumstance," that knowledge can be applied to drone surveillance, rather than tasking law
enforcement agencies with interpreting anew what constitutes "emergency situations."
Time limits good
Drones are unique in their ability to capture information, time limits are critical
San Pedro 2014 (Victoria [J.D. Candidate, Stetson University College of Law]; STUDENT WORK: DRONE
LEGISLATION: KEEPING AN EYE ON LAW ENFORCEMENT'S LATEST SURVEILLANCE TECHNOLOGY; 43
Stetson L. Rev. 679; kdf)
E. Proposal for Future Legislation To address the legitimate concerns raised by drone surveillance, Congress
should enact legislation
that prescribes a time limit on the duration of surveillance. The appropriateness of the time limitation
could be determined through a comparison to [*716] another form of surveillance that has been highly
regulated by Congress - wiretapping. After the Supreme Court determined the constitutionality of wiretapping in Olmstead, n269
the Court then required law enforcement to obtain a valid warrant before conducting wiretap surveillance. n270 A year after Olmstead,
Congress enacted legis-lation codifying the warrant requirement. n271 Along with the codification of the warrant requirement, Congress
developed a comprehensive framework for regulating wiretap surveillance. n272 For example, wiretap
legislation provides that a
warrant must prescribe the duration of allowable surveillance. n273 However, the legislation also states that
the surveillance may not extend for more than thirty days. n274 Continuing with the presumption that law enforcement
will not seek to obtain a warrant before conducting drone surveillance, imposing a requirement similar to the wiretap requirement will prohibit
law enforcement from conducting its surveillance for extended periods. A statutory, bright-line rule requiring a warrant for long-term drone
sur-veillance - defining an acceptable period for such surveillance - removes law enforcement's discretion from the equation and ensures that
law enforcement receives the proper guidance to determine situations requiring a warrant. Further, such rules limit law enforcement's ability
to use drones to conduct long-term surveillance at the expense of an individual's privacy rights. Congress
is best suited to
determine what distinguishes long-term surveillance from short-term surveillance, as Fourth Amendment
jurisprudence lacks a description of long-term sur-veillance. Moreover, the thirty-day period prescribed by the wiretap legislation n275 permits
law enforcement to gain too much informa-tion about an individual's daily routine and lifestyle. As cautioned [*717] by the mosaic theory,
visual surveillance over an extended period reveals far more about the individual than an isolated observa-tion. n276 While law enforcement
can admittedly learn vast amounts of information by tapping one's telephone, n277 the amount and nature of information available from drone
surveillance is distinguishable. For example, if a police officer were to conduct wiretap surveillance of John Doe's home to intercept information
regarding a drug purchase, the officer would also be privy to Doe's conversations, including a call in which Doe's conversation with his partner
turns extremely intimate. On the other hand, if the police officer were conducting surveillance with a drone, he may actually be able to view
Doe engaging in intercourse with his partner. Drone use would allow the officer to view such intimate moments countless times during the
course of the surveillance. For these reasons, wiretapping's
thirty-day limitation period inadequately protects
citizens from drone surveillance because of the nature and amount of information available through
drone surveillance - a more serious infringement on privacy rights than intercepting telephone communications. Thus, the time
limitation for drone surveillance should certainly be less than thirty days. Moreover, considering that previous
jurisprudence concerning aerial surveillance discussed fly-over observations that were relatively short in duration, n278 using an hourly
component to prescribe the time limitation would be beneficial. An
hourly limit provides law enforcement with a brightline rule regarding the permissible scope of surveillance and also limits the impermissi-ble discovery of
the patterns, habits, and preferences of an individual's life. To provide some flexibility to law enforcement, the time
permitted should not be so limited as to prevent brief aerial observations such as those used in Ciraolo and Riley, but rather the time limitation
should be directed at striking a balance between law enforcement's needs and society's expectations of privacy. Thus, the
legislation
should define long-term sur-veillance as a surveillance lasting longer than twenty-four hours.
AT: Warrants PIC
2AC
Permutation do the plan and counterplanThe exigent circumstances plank of the plan takes out the link
Yang 2014 (Y. Douglas [JD Boston U]; BIG BROTHER'S GROWN WINGS: THE DOMESTIC PROLIFERATION
OF DRONE SURVEILLANCE AND THE LAW'S RESPONSE; 23 B.U. Pub. Int. L.J. 343; kdf)
a. Rule 1: Warrantless Drone Use Rule
1 embodies the desire of both federal and state legislatures to exclude
certain situations from the burden of a warrant requirement. n228 Common examples of non-law enforcement
operations include, but are not limited to, land surveying, n229 weather and climate observation and scientific research, n230 wildlife
management and protection, n231 and search and rescue missions. n232 In addition to Rule 1's exemption of non-law enforcement uses of
drones,
Rule 1 also exempts situations where a high risk of terrorist attack or imminent danger to life or
property exists. This specific provision finds its inspiration in Virginia's [*377] warrant exception that allows drone use for
responses to Amber Alerts, n233 Senior Alerts, n234 and search-and-rescue missions." n235 While the Fourth
Amendment covers all government intrusions of privacy, government activity that does not involve criminal investigation tends to involve "a
less hostile intrusion than the typical policeman's search for the fruits and instrumentalities of crime." n236 Moreover, drones
can be a
potent tool to assist in searching for missing persons and in police emergencies, much in the same way
that police helicopters and aircraft currently provide aerial support, albeit at a much higher cost and
with less flexibility. n237 Rule 1 reflects a desire by federal and state legislative proposals to exempt exigent circumstances from
restrictions on drone use. n238 Thus, where a law enforcement agency believes that a particular area, event, or
situation poses a high risk of attack by terrorists; or that there is an imminent and articulable threat to a specific person's life
or property, substantial legal obstacles should not hamper that agency. Rule 1's first paragraph is a
compromise measure that allows the government to promptly respond to urgent situations, while
ensuring that the government, and particularly law enforcement agencies, adhere to the privacy
protections of the Rule by demonstrating that probable cause of a high risk of terrorist attack existed or
that an imminent danger to life or property existed at the time and general location of the drone's
operation. n239
Drones will be used to perpetuate racism
Cyril 2015 (Malkia Amala [under and executive director of the Center for Media Justice (CMJ) and cofounder of the Media Action Grassroots Network]; Black America's State of Surveillance; Mar 30;
www.progressive.org/news/2015/03/188074/black-americas-state-surveillance; kdf)
Today, media reporting on government surveillance is laser-focused on the revelations by Edward Snowden
that millions of Americans were being spied on by the NSA. Yet my mother’s visit from the FBI reminds me that, from the slave pass system to
laws that deputized white civilians as enforcers of Jim Crow, black
people and other people of color have lived for
centuries with surveillance practices aimed at maintaining a racial hierarchy. It’s time for journalists to tell a new
story that does not start the clock when privileged classes learn they are targets of surveillance. We need to understand that data has
historically been overused to repress dissidence, monitor perceived criminality, and perpetually maintain an impoverished underclass. In an era
of big data, the Internet has increased the speed and secrecy of data collection. Thanks to new surveillance technologies, law enforcement
agencies are now able to collect massive amounts of indiscriminate data. Yet legal protections and policies have not caught up to this
technological advance. Concerned advocates see mass surveillance as the problem and protecting privacy as the goal. Targeted surveillance is
an obvious answer—it may be discriminatory, but it helps protect the privacy perceived as an earned privilege of the inherently innocent. The
trouble is,
targeted surveillance frequently includes the indiscriminate collection of the private data of
people targeted by race but not involved in any crime. For targeted communities, there is little to no
expectation of privacy from government or corporate surveillance. Instead, we are watched, either as
criminals or as consumers. We do not expect policies to protect us. Instead, we’ve birthed a complex and coded culture—from jazz to
spoken dialects—in order to navigate a world in which spying, from AT&T and Walmart to public benefits programs and beat cops on the block,
is as much a part of our built environment as the streets covered in our blood. In a recent address, New York City Police Commissioner Bill
Bratton made it clear: “2015 will be one of the most significant years in the history of this organization. It will be the year of technology, in
which we literally will give to every member of this department technology that would’ve been unheard of even a few years ago.” Predictive
policing, also known as “Total Information Awareness,” is described as using advanced technological tools and data analysis to “preempt”
crime. It utilizes trends, patterns, sequences, and affinities found in data to make determinations about when and where crimes will occur. This
model is deceptive, however, because it presumes data inputs to be neutral. They aren’t. In a racially discriminatory criminal justice system,
surveillance technologies reproduce injustice. Instead of reducing discrimination, predictive policing is a face of what author Michelle Alexander
calls the “New Jim Crow”—a de facto system of separate and unequal application of laws, police practices, conviction rates, sentencing terms,
and conditions of confinement that operate more as a system of social control by racial hierarchy than as crime prevention or punishment. In
New York City, the predictive policing approach in use is “Broken Windows.” This approach to policing places an undue focus on quality of life
crimes—like selling loose cigarettes, the kind of offense for which Eric Garner was choked to death. Without oversight, accountability,
transparency, or rights, predictive policing is just high-tech racial profiling—indiscriminate data collection that drives discriminatory policing
practices. As local law enforcement agencies increasingly adopt surveillance technologies, they use them in three primary ways: to listen in on
specific conversations on and offline; to observe daily movements of individuals and groups; and to observe data trends. Police departments
like Bratton’s aim to use sophisticated technologies to do all three. They will use technologies like license plate readers, which the Electronic
Frontier Foundation found to be disproportionately used in communities of color and communities in the process of being gentrified. They will
use facial recognition, biometric scanning software, which the FBI has now rolled out as a national system, to be adopted by local police
departments for any criminal justice purpose. They intend to use body and dashboard cameras, which have been touted as an effective step
toward accountability based on the results of one study, yet storage and archiving procedures, among many other issues, remain unclear. They
will use Stingray cellphone interceptors. According to the ACLU, Stingray technology is an invasive cellphone surveillance device that mimics
cellphone towers and sends out signals to trick cellphones in the area into transmitting their locations and identifying information. When used
to track a suspect’s cellphone, they also gather information about the phones of countless bystanders who happen to be nearby. The same is
true of domestic
drones, which are in increasing use by U.S. law enforcement to conduct routine aerial
surveillance. While drones are currently unarmed, drone manufacturers are considering arming these
remote-controlled aircraft with weapons like rubber bullets, tasers, and tear gas. They will use fusion centers.
Originally designed to increase interagency collaboration for the purposes of counterterrorism, these have instead become the local arm of the
intelligence community. According to Electronic Frontier Foundation, there are currently seventy-eight on record. They are the clearinghouse
for increasingly used “suspicious activity reports”—described as “official documentation of observed behavior reasonably indicative of preoperational planning related to terrorism or other criminal activity.” These reports and other collected data are often stored in massive
databases like e-Verify and Prism. As anybody who’s ever dealt with gang databases knows, it’s almost impossible to get off a federal or state
database, even when the data collected is incorrect or no longer true. Predictive policing
doesn’t just lead to racial and
religious profiling—it relies on it. Just as stop and frisk legitimized an initial, unwarranted contact between police and people of
color, almost 90 percent of whom turn out to be innocent of any crime, suspicious activities reporting and the dragnet
approach of fusion centers target communities of color. One review of such reports collected in Los Angeles shows
approximately 75 percent were of people of color. This is the future of policing in America, and it should terrify you as much as it terrifies me.
Unfortunately, it probably doesn’t, because my life is at far greater risk than the lives of white Americans, especially
those reporting on the issue in the media or advocating in the halls of power. One of the most terrifying aspects of high-tech surveillance is the
invisibility of those it disproportionately impacts. The
NSA and FBI have engaged local law enforcement agencies and
electronic surveillance technologies to spy on Muslims living in the United States. According to FBI training
materials uncovered by Wired in 2011, the bureau taught agents to treat “mainstream” Muslims as supporters of terrorism, to view charitable
donations by Muslims as “a funding mechanism for combat,” and to view Islam itself as a “Death Star” that must be destroyed if terrorism is to
be contained. From New York City to Chicago and beyond, local law enforcement agencies have expanded unlawful and covert racial and
religious profiling against Muslims not suspected of any crime. There is no national security reason to profile all Muslims. At the same time,
almost 450,000 migrants are in detention facilities throughout the United States, including survivors of torture, asylum seekers, families with
small children, and the elderly. Undocumented migrant communities enjoy few legal protections, and are therefore subject to brutal policing
practices, including illegal surveillance practices. According to the Sentencing Project, of the more than 2 million people incarcerated in the
United States, more than 60 percent are racial and ethnic minorities. But by far, the widest net is cast over black communities. Black people
alone represent 40 percent of those incarcerated. More black men are incarcerated than were held in slavery in 1850, on the eve of the Civil
War. Lest some misinterpret that statistic as evidence of greater criminality, a 2012 study confirms that black defendants are at least 30 percent
more likely to be imprisoned than whites for the same crime. This is not a broken system, it
is a system working perfectly as
intended, to the detriment of all. The NSA could not have spied on millions of cellphones if it were not already spying on black people,
Muslims, and migrants. As surveillance technologies are increasingly adopted and integrated by law enforcement agencies today, racial
disparities are being made invisible by a media environment that has failed to tell the story of
surveillance in the context of structural racism.
That’s a unique reason to vote aff
Barndt 91 (Joseph R. Barndt co-director of Ministry Working to Dismantle Racism "Dismantling
Racism" p. 155)
To study racism is to study walls. We have looked at barriers and fences, restraints and limitations, ghettos and prisons. The prison
of racism confines us all, people of color and white people alike. It shackles the victimizer as well as the victim. The
walls forcibly keep people of color and white people separate from each other; in our separate prisons we are all prevented from achieving the
by poverty, subservience, and
powerlessness are cruel, inhuman, and unjust; the effects of uncontrolled power, privilege, and greed, which are
human potential God intends for us. The limitations imposed on people of color
the marks of our white prison, will inevitably destroy us as well. But we have also seen that the walls of racism can
be dismantled. We are not condemned to an inexorable fate, but are offered the vision and the possibility of
freedom. Brick by brick, stone by stone, the prison of individual, institutional, and cultural racism can be destroyed.
You and I are urgently called to join the efforts of those who know it is time to teardown, once and for
all, the walls of racism. The danger point of self-destruction seems to be drawing even more near. The results of
centuries of national and worldwide conquest and colonialism, of military buildups and violent aggression, of
overconsumption and environmental destruction may be reaching a point of no return. A small and
predominantly white minority of the global population derives its power and privilege from the
sufferings of vast majority of peoples of all color. For the sake of the world and ourselves, we dare not allow it
to continue.
Warrants revitalizes the Separation of powers
Reynolds 2014 (Glenn Harlan [prof of law @ U of Tennessee]; NSA spying undermines separation of
powers: Column; www.usatoday.com/story/opinion/2014/02/10/nsa-spying-surveillance-congresscolumn/5340281/; kdf)
Most of the worry about the National Security Agency's bulk interception of telephone calls, e-mail and the
like has centered around threats to privacy. And, in fact, the evidence suggests that if you've got a particularly steamy phoneor Skype-sex session going on, it just might wind up being shared by voyeuristic NSA analysts. But most Americans figure, probably rightly, that
the NSA isn't likely to be interested in their stuff. (Anyone who hacks my e-mail is automatically punished, by having to read it.) There is,
however, a class of people who can't take that disinterest for granted:
members of Congress and the judiciary. What they
have to say is likely to be pretty interesting to anyone with a political ax to grind. And the ability of the
executive branch to snoop on the phone calls of people in the other branches isn't just a threat to privacy,
but a threat to the separation of powers and the Constitution. As the Framers conceived it, our system of government is
divided into three branches -- the executive, legislative and judicial -- each of which is designed to serve as a check on the others. If the
president gets out of control, Congress can defund his efforts, or impeach him, and the judiciary can declare his acts unconstitutional. If
Congress passes unconstitutional laws, the president can veto them, or refuse to enforce them, and the judiciary, again, can declare them
invalid. If the judiciary gets carried away, the president can appoint new judges, and Congress can change the laws, or even impeach. But if
the federal government has broad domestic-spying powers, and if those are controlled by the executive
branch without significant oversight, then the president has the power to snoop on political enemies,
getting an advantage in countering their plans, and gathering material that can be used to blackmail or
destroy them. With such power in the executive, the traditional role of the other branches as checks would be seriously undermined, and
our system of government would veer toward what James Madison in The Federalist No. 47 called "the very definition of tyranny," that is, "the
accumulation of all powers, legislative, executive, and judiciary, in the same hands." That such widespread spying power exists, of course,
doesn't prove that it has actually been abused. But the temptation to make use of such a power for self-serving political ends is likely to be very
great. And, given the secrecy surrounding such programs, outsiders might never know. In fact, given the compartmentalization that goes on in
the intelligence world, almost everyone at the NSA might be acting properly, completely unaware that one small section is devoted to gather
political intelligence. We can hope, of course, that such abuses would leak out, but they might not. Rather
than counting on leakers
to protect us, we need strong structural controls that don't depend on people being heroically honest or
unusually immune to political temptation, two characteristics not in oversupply among our political class. That means that
the government shouldn't be able to spy on Americans without a warrant — a warrant that comes from a
different branch of government, and requires probable cause. The government should also have to keep a clear record
of who was spied on, and why, and of exactly who had access to the information once it was gathered. We need the kind of extensive audit
trails for access to information that, as the Edward Snowden experience clearly illustrates, don't currently exist. In addition, we need civil
damages — with, perhaps, a waiver of governmental immunities — for abuse of power here. Perhaps we should have bounties for
whistleblowers, too, to help encourage wrongdoing to be aired. Is this strong medicine? Yes. But widespread spying on Americans is a threat to
constitutional government. That is a serious disease, one that demands the strongest of medicines.
Strong separation of powers are essential for US global leadership
Ikenberry 2001- Professor at Georgetown University (G. John, National Interest, Spring 2001, Lexis)
America's mature political institutions organized around the rule of law have made it a relatively
predictable and cooperative hegemon. The pluralistic and regularized way in which U.S. foreign and security policy is made
reduces surprises and allows other states to build long-term, mutually beneficial relations. The governmental separation of
powers creates a shared decision-making system that opens up the process and reduces the ability of
any one leader to make abrupt or aggressive moves toward other states. An active press and competitive party
First,
system also provide a service to outside states by generating information about U.S. policy and determining its seriousness of purpose. The
messiness of a democracy can, indeed, frustrate American diplomats and confuse foreign observers. But over the long term, democratic
institutions produce more consistent and credible policies--policies that do not reflect the capricious and
idiosyncratic whims of an autocrat. Think of the United States as a giant corporation that seeks foreign investors. It is more likely to
attract investors if it can demonstrate that it operates according to accepted accounting and fiduciary principles. The rule of law and
the institutions of policymaking in a democracy are the political equivalent of corporate transparency
and accountability. Sharp shifts in policy must ultimately be vetted within the policy process and pass muster by an array of investigatory
and decision-making bodies. Because it is a constitutional, rule-based democracy, outside states are more
willing to work with the United States-or, to return to the corporate metaphor, to invest in ongoing
partnerships.
xt—Drones are racist
The plan reverses racist trends
Bernd 2015 (Candice; Proposed Rules Regulating Domestic Drone Use Lack Police Warrant
Requirement; Feb 24; www.truth-out.org/news/item/29250-proposed-rules-regulating-domestic-droneuse-lack-police-warrant-requirement; kdf)
"You're not just
talking about the physical border, you're talking about an area that encompasses many
major cities that have large minority populations, and the idea that these drones can be flown with little or no privacy
protections really mean that, people, just by virtue of living in that region are somehow accepting that they have a right to less privacy," she
said. African-American communities could well
feel the disproportionate impacts of the integrated use of
domestic drones and other surveillance in the coming years, as technologies such as StingRay are already being used
mostly in the ongoing war on drugs to track those suspected of selling and buying drugs. The drug war has long negatively
impacted communities of color, based on racialized drug policies and racial discrimination by law
enforcement; two-thirds of all those convicted of drug crimes are people of color, despite similar rates of drug use among whites and
people of color. These already-existing racial disparities in intrusive policing tactics and deployment of
surveillance technologies are one of the primary reasons civil liberties experts are saying the
government often gets it backward when thinking about privacy issues: deploying intrusive technologies first, and
coming up with privacy policies governing their use afterward (when they may already be violating many people's civil rights). "What we see
with StingRays is the same phenomenon that we're seeing with [UAS], where federal agencies are using them," Guliani said. "State and local
agencies are using them. There's federal dollars that are going to buy them, and we're kind of having the privacy debate after the fact with very
little information."
AT: Utilitarianism
The aff provides the best method for comparing the counterplan and case
Rothfuss 2014 (Ian F [George Mason School of Law]; Student Comment: An Economic Perspective on
the Privacy Implications of Domestic Drone Surveillance; 10 J.L. Econ. & Pol'y 441; kdf)
B. Economic Analysis of Drone Surveillance Song's general economic model of surveillance may be applied to analyze domestic drone
surveillance. Drones provide a very effective means to accomplish widespread, general, persistent surveillance. The
optimal amount of
drone surveillance will occur where the marginal social benefit of surveillance equals or exceeds the
marginal social cost or disutility of the surveillance. n143 Therefore, the costs and benefits resulting from drone surveillance
must be identified and analyzed. As a result of the availability of efficient widespread surveillance, increased domestic drone surveillance will
generate utility in the form of increased security from crime and terrorism. Drones may remain
airborne for long periods of
time without onboard pilots and are very efficient at providing persistent, widespread surveillance. As a
result, the societal utility and disutility caused by the drone surveillance may be compounded. The socially
optimal amount of surveillance may increase because drones have the ability to significantly reduce the cost of widespread surveillance. n144
The benefit of this increased security will come at the cost of individual privacy. Given
the widespread and pervasive nature of
potential domestic drone surveillance, the marginal cost of uncontrolled drone surveillance will likely
exceed the marginal benefit of the surveillance. Therefore, such widespread surveillance will be unproductive and inefficient
for society. [*457] The law must strive to allow the optimal amount of drone surveillance. If drone surveillance is restricted too
much, allowing less than the optimal level, then society will not realize the full benefit that the
surveillance can provide in the form of prevention, deterrence, and security. n145 At the same time, if the limits
are not strong enough, too much drone surveillance will lead to significant disutility resulting from the loss of privacy. Therefore, the law should
be structured to allow drone surveillance up to the point where the social benefit of the surveillance exceeds or equals the marginal social cost
or disutility. Following the insights gained from Song's economic model of surveillance, legal
rules may be developed to
efficiently implement domestic drone surveillance while minimizing disutility and social costs of
avoidance. The government should be required to justify the use of domestic drone surveillance to ensure that it is deployed in a manner
that benefits society. Drones should only be used when the government is able to satisfy the required levels of scrutiny described in Song's
model. n146 Doing so will ensure that the societal benefits to be gained from drone surveillance will outweigh the privacy disutility and social
costs that may result from the loss of privacy. The next section will apply this conclusion to analyze the current legislative and policy
recommendations for drone surveillance to determine the optimal course of action.
AT: Economy DA
2AC
Their link is just industry hype – plan wont hurt the economy
Bernd 2013 (Candice [assistant editor/reporter with Truthout]; The Coming Domestic Drone Wars; Sep
19; www.truth-out.org/news/item/18951-the-coming-domestic-drone-wars#; kdf)
States Push to Regulate Domestic Drones as Industry Pushes Back The Texas law is just one of many pieces of legislation placing restrictions on
the use of domestic drones to be introduced in 43 states this year, passing in eight. Many
of these state-level bills seek to
require search warrants for surveillance drones used by local police departments, and at least six states have
required warrants. In 2013, Virginia put in place a two-year moratorium on the use of drones by law enforcement to develop more stringent
guidelines. Legislation restricting civilian drone use has passed in states such as Florida, Tennessee, Idaho, Montana and Oregon, but other
states such as North Dakota have tried to pass laws that would ban weapons from domestic drones and have failed. But the
industry is
pushing back against privacy restrictions and regulations on civilian drones, saying the restrictions will
hinder job creation. In Maine, Gov. Paul LePage backed up the claim by vetoing a bill that would have required police to obtain a
warrant before deploying a drone, citing concerns it would kill new aerospace jobs. "We don't support rewriting existing search
warrant requirements under the guise of privacy," Mario Mairena told the AP. Mairena is a government relations manager
for the Virginia-based Association for Unmanned Vehicle Systems International (AUVSI), an industry group. The group's website boasts
hundreds of corporate members, many of which are defense contractors. The group also has ties to the Unmanned Systems Caucus in
Congress. Whether or
not requiring a warrant in law enforcement drone operations would kill jobs remains
to be seen, but the integration of civilian drones into the NAS would create a considerable economic
impact, to be sure. An AUVSI report estimates that that the integration of unmanned systems in the U.S. will
generate more than $13.6 billion and create 74,000 jobs within the first three years. But strong
regulations of domestic drones in the states may prove especially important depending on what
guidelines the FAA puts in place to integrate the technology into the national airspace by 2015, as some
experts fear the susceptibility to co-option of unmanned systems by third-party operators could pose serious risks to domestic security.
Surveillance guts competitiveness
Stiennon 2013 (Richard; NSA Surveillance Threatens US Competitiveness; Jun 7;
www.forbes.com/sites/richardstiennon/2013/06/07/nsa-surveillance-threatens-us-competitiveness/;
kdf)
The vast foreign and domestic spying by the NSA revealed this week threatens the
global competitiveness of US tech
companies. We are told we live in a digital world and the future is bright for tech startups as costs of launching new products and services
plummet and global markets open up to the smallest vendor. Yet, there is a world wide perception that any data that is
stored or even routed through the United States is sucked into cavernous NSA data centers for analysis
and cataloging. That perception was solidified in 2006 when former AT&T technician Mark Klein blew the whistle on the fiber tap that ATT
had provided to the NSA in some of its data centers. Those perceptions have had real consequences for US tech firms seeking to offer global
services. Email
archiving services such as ProofPoint could not sell to even Canadian customers without
building local infrastructure. Even establishing separate data centers in Canada and Europe is not enough to assure customers that
their data would forever stay out of the grasp of US intelligence services. One of the fastest growing segments of the tech
industry is cloud services, with Salesforce.com one of the leading examples. Box.net, and other cloud storage solutions, are
burgeoning. Cloud infrastructure providers like Amazon, Microsoft, and Rackspace are investing billions to serve markets that should be global
but will be barred from most countries thanks to the complete abandonment of trust caused by NSA/FBI spying. Since 2006, every time I
present outside the US the same question has been asked: “Is the US reading our email?” Answers that allude to ‘protections from abuse’ and
‘oversight’ now seem specious. From this week forward a universal suspicion has transformed into acknowledged fact. Yes, US government
agencies are reading email, tracking phone calls, and monitoring all communications. Brian Honan Board Member of the UK & Ireland Chapter
of the Cloud Security Alliance provided this opinion: The
revelations about the PRISM program could have major
implications for US companies doing business within the European Union. Under the EU Data Protection directive it
is illegal for European companies to export the personal data of EU citizens to countries outside of the EU and the European Economic Area.
Exceptions to this are for certain countries that have similar privacy legislation in place to that of the EU or where the strong contracts
protecting the privacy of that data are in place. The US in not one of the approved countries but has put in place the EU Safe Harbor program
which US companies can sign up to and agree to apply EU privacy protections to private data. Many of the companies allegedly involved in
PRISM are part of the Safe Harbor program. The fact the US government is potentially accessing that data could place the European
organisations in breach of EU Data Protection regulations. The news will also heighten concerns many European organisations, especially EU
government ones, will have in selecting a US Cloud Provider for their services. Gabriel Yoran, Managing Director and Founder of German
security company Steganos added: “The European Union traditionally favors strong privacy regulations. However, this policy has been under
attack recently, being seen as a competitive disadvantage in the cloud services space. This could dramatically change now in the light of the
recent Verizon findings. Privacy software maker Steganos traditionally stresses it being headquartered in Berlin and therefore subject to the
even stricter German data protection law (one of the strictest in the world). According to a February survey, 64% of Steganos customers said it
was important or very important to them that Steganos is a Germany-based company.” Trust
is the very foundation of all
commerce. Once lost it is almost impossible to regain. This week’s revelations that the NSA has blanket data harvesting
arrangements with Verizon, ATT, Sprint-Nextel, Google, Microsoft, Apple, Skype, Yahoo, FaceBook and even credit card processors, will have
immediate repercussions. Non-US customers of any US business will immediately evaluate their exposure to these new risks and look for
alternatives. European, Canadian, and Australian tech companies will profit from this. Competitors in those regions will offer alternatives that
will also draw US customers away from the compromised US services. While
the FBI and NSA leverage the dramatic
intelligence opportunities of a digital world, their Orwellian actions are crushing opportunity for tech
giants and startups in the United States.
US risks stalling now, especially in high tech services—prevents sustainable growth
Muro, et al, February 15 [Mark Muro, a senior fellow and director of policy for the Metropolitan
Policy Program, manages the program's economic work and key policy projects. Jonathan Rothwell,
February 2015, “Advanced Industries Drive Broad-Based Growth and Prosperity New Brookings report
analyzes U.S. advanced industries sector”, http://www.brookings.edu/research/reports2/2015/02/03advanced-industries#/M10420]
The need for economic renewal in the U S remains urgent
new technologies ranging from
robotics and “3-D printing” to digitization
provoking genuine excitement
nited
frustrated. At the same time, astonishing
—
tates
. Years of disappointing job growth and stagnant incomes for the majority of workers have left the nation shaken and
advanced
the “
of everything”—
are
even as they make it hard to see where things are going. Hence this paper: At a critical moment, this report asserts the special importance to America’s future of what the paper calls America’s “advanced
industries” sector. Characterized by its deep involvement with technology research and development (R&D) and STEM (science, technology, engineering, and math) workers, the sect or encompasses 50 industries ranging from manufacturing industries such as automaking and aerospace
high-tech services
Their dynamism is going to be a central component of any future revitalized U.S. economy.
these industries encompass the country’s best shot at supporting innovative
and sustainable
growth.
Advanced industries represent a sizable economic anchor for the U.S. economy and have
led the post-recession employment recovery.
the sector packs a massive economic punch.
to energy industries such as oil and gas extraction to
such as computer software and computer system design, including for health applications. These industries encompass the nation’s “tech” sector at its broadest and most
consequential.
As such,
, inclusive,
For that reason, this report provides a wide-angle overview of the advanced industry sector that reviews its role in American prosperity, assesses key trends, and maps its metropolitan and global competitive standing before outlining high-level strategies to
enhance that.The overview finds that: 1.
Modest in size,
As an employer and
source of economic activity the advanced industry sector plays a major role in the U.S. economy. As of 2013, the nation’s 50 advanced industries (see nearby box for selection criteria) employed 12.3 million U.S. workers. That amounts to about 9 percent of total U.S. employment. And yet,
U.S. advanced industries produce $2.7 trillion in value added annually 17 percent of all
GDP That is more than any other sector
the sector employs 80 percent
of the nation’s engineers; performs 90 percent of private-sector R&D; generates approximately 85
percent of all U.S. patents; and accounts for 60 percent of U.S. exports. Advanced industries also
support unusually extensive supply chains and other forms of ancillary economic activity.
even with this modest employment base,
gross domestic product (
).
—
U.S.
, including healthcare, finance, or real estate. At the same time,
On a per worker basis, advanced
industries purchase $236,000 in goods and services from other businesses annually, compared with $67,000 in purchasing by other industries. This spending sustains and creates more jobs. In fact, 2.2 jobs are created domestically for every new advanced industry job—0.8 locally and 1.4
outside of the region. This means that in addition to the 12.3 million workers employed by advanced industries, another 27.1 million U.S. workers owe their jobs to economic activity supported by advanced industries. Directly and indirectly, then, the sector supports almost 39 million
jobs—nearly one-fourth of all U.S. employment. In terms of the sector’s growth and change, the total number of jobs in the sector has remained mostly flat since 1980 but its output has soared. From 1980 to 2013 advanced industries expanded at a rate of 5.4 percent annually—30
percent faster than the economy as a whole. Since the Great Recession, moreover, both employment and output have risen dramatically. The sector has added nearly one million jobs since 2010, with employment and output growth rates 1.9 and 2.3 times higher, respectively, than in the
rest of the economy. Advanced services led this post-recession surge, and created 65 percent of the new jobs. Computer systems design alone generated 250,000 new jobs. Certain advanced manufacturing industries—especially those involved in transportation equipment—have also
added thousands of jobs after decades of losses. Advanced industries also provide extremely high-quality economic opportunities for workers. Workers in advanced industries are extraordinarily productive and generate some $210,000 in annual value added per worker compared with
$101,000, on average, outside advanced industries. Because of this, advanced industries compensate their workers handsomely and, in contrast to the rest of the economy, wages are rising sharply. In 2013, the average advanced industries worker earned $90,000 in total compensation,
nearly twice as much as the average worker outside of the sector. Over time, absolute earnings in advanced industries grew by 63 percent from 1975 to 2013, after adjusting for inflation. This compares with 17 percent gains outside the sector. Even workers with lower levels of education
can earn salaries in advanced industries that far exceed their peers in other industries. In this regard, the sector is in fact accessible: More than half of the sector’s workers possess less than a bachelor’s degree. 2. The advanced industries sector is highly metropolitan and varies
considerably in its composition and depth across regions. Advanced industries are present in nearly every U.S. region, but the sector’s geography is uneven. Advanced industries tend to cluster in large metropolitan areas. Looking across the country, the 100 largest metro areas contain 70
percent of all U.S. advanced industries jobs. In terms of the sector’s local clustering, San Jose is the nation’s leading advanced industry hub with 30.0 percent of its workforce employed in the sector. Seattle follows with 16.0 percent of its local jobs in advanced industries. Wichita (15.5
percent); Detroit (14.8 percent), and San Francisco (14.0 percent) follow. Overall, advanced industries account for more than one in 10 jobs in nearly one-quarter of the country’s major metro areas. This clustering occurs in a variety of configurations. Some metropolitan areas—such as
Grand Rapids, MI; Portland, OR; and Wichita—focus heavily on advanced manufacturing pursuits such as automotive, semiconductor, or aerospace manufacturing, respectively, while metros like Bakersfield and Oklahoma City exhibit strong energy specializations. By contrast, services
such as computer systems design, software, and research and development predominate in metropolitan areas like Boston, San Francisco, and Washington. For their part, San Jose, Detroit, and Seattle exhibit depth and balance across multiple advanced industry categories. Overall, the
number of extremely dense concentrations of advanced industry actually has declined. In 1980, 59 of the country’s 100 largest metropolitan areas had at least 10 percent of their workforce in advanced industries. By 2013, only 23 major metro areas contained such sizable concentrations.
3.
The U S is losing ground to other countries on advanced industry competitiveness
nited
tates
. The United States has the most productive
advanced industries in the world, behind only energy-intensive Norway. However, this
declining concentration
competitiveness appears to be eroding. The nation’s
in advanced industries and its negative trade balance in the sector
employment and output as a share of the
measures now lags world leaders.
do not bode well Since 2000, the sector’s
total U.S.
.
economy has shrunk The nation’s standing on these
.
Equally worrisome is the balance of trade in the sector. Although advanced industries export $1.1 trillion worth of goods and services each year and account for roughly 60 percent of total U.S.
exports, the United States ran a $632 billion trade deficit in the sector in 2012, in line with similar yearly balances since 1999. To be sure, a handful of individual advanced industries such as royalties and other intellectual property and aerospace manufacturing enjoy trade surpluses that
exceeded $60 billion and $80 billion in 2012. However, numerous areas of historical strength such as communications equipment, computer equipment, motor vehicles, and pharmaceuticals now run sizeable deficits, as do high-value R&D services and computer and information services.
Notwithstanding the nation’s strong innovation enterprise the U S advantage on this front is slipping
For certain the advanced industry sector remains the key site of U.S. technology gains.
For example, the U.S. share of global R&D and patenting is falling
America’s research dominance looks less
impressive after adjusting for the size of its working age population
nited
tates’
.
However, the United States is losing ground
relative to other countries on measures of innovation performance and capacity.
much faster than its
share of global GDP and population, meaning that U.S. slippage cannot simply be attributed to demography or macroeconomic convergence. Likewise,
. Turning to the nation’s critical regional innovation ecosystems, surprisingly few U.S. metropolitan
areas rank among the world’s most innovative—as measured by patent cooperation treaty applications per capita. Among the nation’s most patent-intensive regions, just two—San Diego and the San Jose-San Francisco combined area—rank in the global top 20 and just two more (Boston
and Rochester) score in the top 50.
The US isn’t key to the global economy
Kenny 2015 (Charles; Why the Developing World Won't Catch the U.S. Economy's Cold; May 4;
www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2015-05-04/why-the-developing-world-won-t-catch-the-u-seconomy-s-cold; kdf)
Last week the U.S. Commerce Department announced that first-quarter
GDP growth for 2015 was an anemic 0.2 percent. This
immediately sparked fears that a U.S. slowdown could lead to a global recession. But the cliché about
America sneezing and the rest of the world catching the cold doesn’t hold like it used to . The U.S. isn’t as
contagious as it was, and developing countries in particular are far more robust to economic shocks. That’s good
news for everyone. It means less volatility in Asia, Africa, and Latin America, which contributes to happier people, greater political
stability, and stronger long-term growth—all of which should help lift the U.S. out of its own doldrums. A team of IMF researchers
has looked at the long-term record of the world’s economies when it comes to growth and recession.
They measured how long economies expanded without interruption, as well as the depth and length of downturns. Over the past two decades,
low and middle-income economies have spent more time in expansions, while downturns and recoveries have become shallower and shorter.
This suggests countries have become more resilient to shocks. In the 1970s and '80s, the median developing economy took more than 10 years
after a downturn to recover to the GDP per capita it had prior to that slump. By the early 2000s, that recovery time had dropped to two years.
In the 1970s and '80s, countries of the developing world spent more than a third of their time in downturns, but by the 2000s they spent 80
percent of their time in expansions. The first decade of the 21st century was the first time that developing economies saw more expansion and
shorter downturns than did advanced economies: Median growth in the developing world was at its highest since 1950 and volatility at its
lowest. Developing countries still face a larger risk of deeper recession when terms of trade turn against them, capital flows dry up, or advanced
economies enter recessions themselves. But the scale of that risk has diminished. That’s because low and middle-income economies have
introduced policy reforms that increase resilience: flexible exchange rates, inflation targeting, and lower debt. Economies with inflationtargeting regimes see recovery periods less than a third as long as economies without targeting, for example. Larger reserves are associated
with longer expansions. And median reserves in developing countries more than doubled as a percentage of GDP between the 1990s and 2010.
Median external debt has dropped from 60 percent to 35 percent of GDP over that same period. Such policy changes account for two-thirds of
the increased recession-resilience of developing countries since the turn of the century, suggest the IMF researchers—leaving external factors,
such as positive terms of trade, accounting for just one-third. That’s good news for the developing world—not least because volatile growth is
particularly bad for poorer people, who are most at risk of falling into malnutrition or being forced to take children out of school, which has
long-term consequences for future earnings. That might help explain the relationship between growth volatility, slower reductions in poverty,
and rising inequality. Sudden negative income shocks can also be a factor in sparking violence: When rains fail, the risk of civil war in Africa
spikes, and when coffee prices in Colombia fall, municipalities cultivating more coffee see increased drug-related conflict. The African analysis
suggests that a five percentage-point drop in income growth is associated with a 10 percent increase in the risk of civil conflict in the following
year. Finally,
because volatility increases the uncertainty attached to investments, it can also be a drag on
overall long-term economic performance. Viktoria Hnatkovska and Norman Loayza of the World Bank estimated that moving
from a comparatively stable to a relatively volatile growth trajectory is associated with a drop in average annual growth of as much as 2 percent
of GDP. Lower volatility
in the developing world and its associated long-term growth performance is also
good news for the U.S. A strong global economy is still a positive force for growth in every country, including developed nations. And
with the developing world accounting for about one-third of trade and GDP at market rates, as well as three-fifths of U.S. exports, its role in
supporting American economic performance has never been greater. Those
hoping for a recovery in U.S. output should be
grateful for stronger economic immune systems in the rest of the world.
1AR – Link Turn Extension
Domestic surveillance causes massive offshoring—undermines the economy
Miller 2014 (Hugo; NSA Spying Sends Data Clients North of the Border; Jan 9;
www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2014-01-09/nsa-spying-sends-data-clients-north-of-the-border;
kdf)
In the British Columbia town of Kamloops, arid as a desert with cool summer nights, Telus Corp. only has to turn on the air conditioning about
40 hours a year to keep its computer servers from overheating. The chilly
temperatures are part of Canadian companies’
sales pitch to businesses looking for places to store their growing troves of digital information as cheaply as
possible. They also boast of inexpensive hydroelectric power and low seismic activity. And now they’re touting what they say is
a new advantage: less snooping. Revelations that the U.S. National Security Agency has spied on data
networks run by American companies have given Canadian data-center operators an opportunity.
They’re telling customers from Europe and Asia that laws north of the border are more protective of privacy.
Sales of storage services in Canada are growing 20 percent a year at Telus and Rogers Communications Inc. U.S.-based technology
companies, meanwhile, complain that the NSA scandal has hurt their business. “There is a structural advantage in
Canada in that the data is here and the privacy protection is more stringent,” said Lloyd Switzer, who runs Telus’s network of data centers. The
company has 10 data centers in Quebec, Ontario, Alberta and British Columbia, where it opened a C$75 million, 215,000-square-foot (20,000square-meter) facility in Kamloops last year. That site has room for six more modules of expansion, which would increase the investment into
the hundreds of millions of dollars.
-- AT: Canada Good
Canada doesn’t solve the aff
Miller 2014 (Hugo; NSA Spying Sends Data Clients North of the Border; Jan 9;
www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2014-01-09/nsa-spying-sends-data-clients-north-of-the-border;
kdf)
Snowden’s Revelation Data privacy came under scrutiny in the U.S. in June after former NSA contractor Edward Snowden revealed that his
employer was monitoring phone and e-mail traffic emanating from the U.S. International outrage over NSA surveillance may cost U.S.
companies as much as $35 billion in lost revenue through 2016, according to the Information Technology & Innovation Foundation, a policy
research group in Washington whose board includes representatives of companies such as International Business Machines Corp. and Intel
Corp. Rogers, which competes with Telus for phone and Internet customers, gets about C$70 million ($66 million) in annual revenue from data
storage -- still tiny at less than 1 percent of total sales. The unit has had more inquiries in the past 12 months from companies outside North
America than in the entire previous decade, A.J. Byers, who heads up the business, said in an interview. Overseas Demand “A
lot of
international companies trying to gain access to the U.S. used to go directly to the U.S.,” Byers said. “Now
we see a lot of European and Asian companies talking to us.” Rogers and Telus are looking to capitalize on the surge in
demand for data storage to make up for the slowing growth of smartphones, which more than half of Canadians already have. Stock gains for
the companies also have slowed. Shares of Rogers climbed 6 percent last year after gaining 15 percent in 2012. Telus rose 12 percent last year,
its smallest annual increase in four years. Last month, a U.S. federal judge ruled that the NSA probably acted illegally in collecting telephone-call
data, allowing a lawsuit to go forward claiming the practice violates the U.S. Constitution. U.S. District Judge William H. Pauley III in Manhattan
late last month ruled the NSA’s bulk collection of phone records is legal, challenging the earlier ruling. The NSA has said it’s pleased with
Pauley’s decision. Facing Charges Snowden has been charged with theft and espionage by the U.S. government and has avoided arrest by
remaining in Russia. While editorials in newspapers such as the New York Times have recommended that he get clemency, Janet Napolitano,
the former head of the Department of Homeland Security, has said he doesn’t deserve a reprieve. Canada’s Privacy Act, enacted in 1983,
imposes obligations on 250 federal-government departments and agencies to limit collection and use of personal information, and gives
citizens the right to access that data and correct mistakes. Still, the
data-center sales pitch glosses over the long history of
intelligence-sharing between Canada and the U.S. The governments have collaborated as far back as the 1940s, said Ron
Deibert, an Internet-security expert who runs the University of Toronto’s Citizen Lab. “Anyone who would look to Canada as a
safe haven would be fooling themselves,” Deibert said in a phone interview. “Canada would be one of the poorest
choices as we have a long-standing relationship with the NSA.” Surveillance Allowed Communications Security
Establishment, the country’s intelligence agency for communications and electronics, is forbidden from monitoring purely domestic traffic.
Surveillance of foreign communications that involve someone in Canada may be authorized, as long as one of
the parties is outside the country -- a rule established after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks. CSE works with its Five Eyes information-gathering
partners -- the U.S., U.K., Australia and New Zealand -- and must comply with Canadian law in its interactions with them, Andrew McLaughlin, a
spokesman for the agency, said by e-mail. A CSE commissioner, typically a retired judge, submits an annual report to Canada’s Parliament
through the defense ministry. Justice Robert Decary, who did the last such report in June, wrote that he was “deeply disappointed” that
legislative amendments to Canada’s National Defense Act proposed by his predecessors that “would improve the provisions that were hastily
enacted in the aftermath of September 2001” haven’t yet been adopted.
1AR—No Impact
The global economy determines the US economy, not vice versa
Rasmus 2015 (Jack; US Economy Collapses Again; May 14; www.counterpunch.org/2015/05/14/useconomy-collapses-again/; kdf)
The problem of weak, stop-go, recovery in the U.S. today is further exacerbated by a global economy that
continues to slow even more rapidly and, in case after case, slip increasingly into recessions or stagnate at best.
Signs of weakness and stress in the global economy are everywhere and growing. Despite massive money injections by its central bank in 2013,
and again in 2014, Japan’s economy has fallen in 2015, a fourth time, into recession. After having experienced two recessions since 2009,
Europe’s economy is also trending toward stagnation once more after it too, like Japan, just introduced a
US$60 billion a month central bank money injection this past winter. Despite daily hype in the business press, unemployment in the
Eurozone is still officially at 11.4 percent, and in countries like Spain and Greece, still at 24 percent. Yet we hear Spain is now the
‘poster-boy’ of the Eurozone, having returned to robust growth. Growth for whom? Certainly not the 24 percent still jobless, a rate that hasn’t
changed in years. Euro businesses in Spain are doing better, having imposed severe ‘labor market reforms’ on workers there, in order to drive
down wages to help reduce costs and boost Spanish exports. Meanwhile, Italy
remains the economic black sheep of the
Eurozone, still in recession for years now, while France officially records no growth, but is likely in recession as
well. Elites in both Italy and France hope to copy Spain’s ‘labor market reforms’ (read: cut wages, pensions, and
make it easier to layoff full time workers). In order to boost its growth, Italy is considering, or may have already decided, to redefine its way to
growth by including the services of prostitutes and drug dealers as part of its GDP. Were the USA to do the same redefinition, it would no doubt
mean a record boost to GDP. Across
the Eurozone, the greater economy of its 18 countries still hasn’t reached
levels it had in 2007, before the onset of the last recession. Unlike the U.S.’s ‘stop-go’, Europe has been ‘stop-gostop’.
AT: Terrorism DA
-Look in the aff portion of the terror DA for more work
2AC – No Link
Drones are inefficient mechanism to solve terrorism
Rothfuss 2014 (Ian F [George Mason School of Law]; Student Comment: An Economic Perspective on
the Privacy Implications of Domestic Drone Surveillance; 10 J.L. Econ. & Pol'y 441; kdf)
Conclusion
U.S. citizens want to be safe from terrorist attacks and other threats, but not at the expense of their
privacy rights. Therefore, a delicate balance must be achieved between privacy and security interests.
Drones represent a surveillance technology advancement that threatens to dramatically alter the
balance between these interests. As discussed in this comment, the current legal framework does not
adequately protect privacy from the widespread surveillance that will likely result from the unrestricted
domestic use of drones. Therefore, prompt legislative action is necessary to address the fundamental
privacy challenges presented by the use of drones. Such legislation should allow for constructive use of
drones within a framework that contains restrictions to protect individual privacy rights. While
widespread general surveillance could make the nation safer from crime and terrorism, such extensive
surveillance will ultimately be inefficient. The surveillance that could result from the domestic use of
drones would detract from individual privacy and cause individuals to reduce productive activities and
invest in countermeasures. Such "privacy disutility" will outweigh the societal benefits unless domestic
drone surveillance is restricted. Therefore, [*462] without legislative action we may soon live in a world
where "every time we walk out of our front door we have to look up and wonder whether some invisible
eye in the sky is monitoring us." n175
2AC – Cyber War turn
Federal regulation of drones is necessary to build safeguards against cyber war
Bernd 2013 (Candice [assistant editor/reporter with Truthout]; The Coming Domestic Drone Wars; Sep
19; www.truth-out.org/news/item/18951-the-coming-domestic-drone-wars#; kdf)
Domestic Drone Weaknesses Cyber
warfare may prove to be the most enduring challenge for the FAA when it
comes to ensuring guidelines that will protect Americans adequately as drone technology makes its
transition into civilian life. Peter Singer is the director of the Center for 21st Century Security and Intelligence and a senior fellow in
the Foreign Policy program at Brookings Institute. He is the author of Wired for War: The Robotics Revolution and Conflict in the 21st Century.
According to him, the
primary weakness of drone technology is many systems' dependence on GPS signals
and remote operation. Even military-grade drone technology can be co-opted, he said. In December 2011, the
Iranian Army's electronic warfare unit brought down an American drone, the RQ-170 Sentinel, after it crossed into Iranian airspace. In Iraq in
2009, Iraqi insurgents were able to use $26 software to intercept the video feeds of US Predator drones in a manner "akin to a criminal listening
in on the police radio scanner," Singer told Truthout. Most recently,
a research team at the University of Texas was able to
demonstrate successfully the spoofing of a UAV by creating false civil GPS signals that trick the drone's
GPS receiver. "There aren't easy answers to these other than good encryption requirements," Singer told Truthout in an email. The Texas
research team hoped to demonstrate the dangers of spoofing early on in the FAA's task to write the mandated rules for UAS integration in the
national airspace, and the Department of Homeland Security invited the team to demonstrate the spoofing in New Mexico. "Vulnerability
to jamming and spoofing depends highly on the design of the aircraft and control systems and vary
across differing architectures. Minimum system performance and design standards developed for civil
UAS designs will address these vulnerabilities," an FAA spokesman told Truthout. Whether minimum standards for
system performance will be enough to address the changing dynamic of cyber warfare, and for that matter,
technology, remains a question, but it's something the FAA and Homeland Security are examining as drone
technology becomes more widespread in the US.
It’s the most probable existential threat
Paikowsky and Baram 2015 (Deganit [post-doctoral fellow at the Davis Institute for International Relations at
Hebrew University in Jerusalem and a senior researcher at the Yuval Nee’man Workshop for Science, Technology, and Security
at Tel-Aviv University, also a research associate at the Space Policy Institute at George Washington University and a consultant
to the space committee of Israel’s National Council for Research and Development] and Gil [Ph.D. candidate in the department
of political science at Tel-Aviv University, and a researcher at the Yuval Nee’man workshop for Science, Technology, and
Security at Tel-Aviv University]; Space Wars; Jan 7; www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/142690/deganit-paikowsky-and-gilbaram/space-wars?cid=rss-rss_xml-space_wars-000000; kdf)
In September 2014, hackers from China broke into the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) network in an attempt to
disrupt data related to disaster planning, aviation, and much more coming from U.S. satellites. This breach was the
latest in a series of cyberattacks on space systems, exposing the Achilles’ heel of such technology: the vulnerability of its computers and
the information it creates and transmits. Cyberattacks, which are on the rise in every industry, pose particularly significant threats to
space systems as they are used so ubiquitously in corporate and military operations, making them increasingly attractive targets for hackers. Although only
about a dozen countries have the capability to launch a satellite into space , billions of people around the world rely on space
systems for nearly every aspect of modern life. Satellites are used to support phones, the Internet, and banking
systems. They are also used to monitor land, air, and maritime traffic; facilitate global communications; transmit mass media in real time;
monitor the earth for climate change or severe weather threats and natural disasters; gather intelligence; and send early
warnings of incoming ballistic missiles. It is no wonder, then, that the global economy depends on communication
satellites, navigation systems, and earth-observation satellites. The backbone of all these services consists of 1,200 operational satellites currently orbiting the
earth, which have the potential to cause significant tangible damage by attacking national or global space systems across countries and continents. Even a small
glitch can wreak havoc. For example, in April 2014, the Glonass System, the Russian equivalent of the American-designed GPS, malfunctioned due to two small
mathematical mistakes in the software. Significantly, fixing the system took more than 13 hours, and the half-day breakdown led to severe disruption of Glonass
receivers, which affected iPhone5 users. While the disruption was not caused by ambitious hackers, it is easy to see why space
systems are the brass
ring of cybercrimes: They are low effort and high return. Therefore, a relatively simple hack can inflict
considerable damage. It is easy to see why space systems are the brass ring of cybercrimes: They are low effort and high return. Therefore, a relatively
simple hack can inflict considerable damage. EASY PREY Although a space system is composed of three connected segments—satellites and spacecraft that orbit the
earth, ground stations, and the communication systems that link the two—cybercriminals only need to find the vulnerabilities in one of these segments. For
example, for a few hundred dollars, a hacker can buy a small jamming device on the Internet to interfere with satellite signals. “We have to make it (satellite
navigation systems) more robust,” warned Colonel Bradford Parkinson, who led the creation of the GPS. “Our cellphone towers are timed with GPS. If they lose that
time, they lose sync and pretty soon they don’t operate. Our power grid is synchronized with GPS [and] so is our banking system.” Space
systems have
become the target of hacking. In July of last year, the United States identified a 28-year-old British citizen who hacked a number of government
networks, including NASA. He attempted to grab highly sensitive data and claimed he would “do some hilarious stuff with it.” Four months later, in November 2013,
viruses infected the computers used by the International Space Station. Japan’s space agency also discovered a computer virus inside a few of its computers in
January 2012 and Germany’s space center recently suffered an espionage attack, with several of its computers getting hit with spyware. Since 2009, the BBC has
complained of disruptions to its Persian-language radio and television programs and has accused Tehran of interfering with international satellite broadcasts
beamed into Iran. Only after the EU made a diplomatic complaint to pressure Iran to cease and desist did the attacks stop. When North Korea jammed South
Korea’s GPS signals in May 2012, it affected the navigation of over 250 flights. The list goes on. One of the reasons space systems, especially commercial ones, are
such easy prey is that they often operate with outdated software. Developing a space system is generally a long process that, depending on the complexity of the
system, takes several years to complete. And once the system is operational, it is expected to last for at least several years—sometimes even more than a decade.
This process makes it difficult to update the system’s security software. Moreover, in many cases, the information systems that are being used to manage space
systems are mostly based on commercial “off-the-shelf” products, with known vulnerabilities and low levels of protection, especially compared to supposedly
better-protected military systems. In 2014, a number of think-tanks, from the Council on Foreign Relations to London-based Chatham House, as well as the
information-security firm IOActive, sounded the alarm on how vulnerable space systems are to cyberattacks. These reports warned of the ease with which
backdoors in software—an undetected remote access to a computer—can be exploited, and of the prevalence of unsecured software, non-protected protocols, and
unencrypted channels. One of the studies’ recommendations was to immediately remove software updates from the public websites of various companies that
provide satellite services and equipment, in order to prevent hackers from reverse-engineering the source code. However, despite these warnings, the
space
industry is barely aware of these risks and its responses are slow. Herein lies a challenge: to produce and put into practice
standards and regulations regarding multinational and commercial activities in space technology and exploration. MOVING FORWARD In the past year, several
space-faring nations have begun to tackle the issue. Three months ago, the U.S. Air Force announced that it hopes to develop technologies that would prevent
hackers from jamming its satellites. Russia intends to significantly update the robustness and security of its military and government satellite communication system
by 2025. Despite these positive steps, national governments and international bodies have more ground to cover. First, governments need to increase their efforts
to raise awareness regarding the growing threat of cyberattacks against both government and commercial space systems. Second, in order to provide better
protection, governments and corporations should take a holistic rather than piecemeal approach regarding the protection of all segments of their systems, and
work toward solutions that will ensure the performance of the systems and their services, rather than protecting a specific asset. For example, satellites are and will
continue to be damaged by cyberattacks; but the ability of an entire system to operate smoothly and recover rapidly is more crucial than the security and safety of a
single satellite. Third, military, civil, and commercial actors should engage in more dialogue in order to strengthen overall protection. They can do so by sharing
information and working jointly toward better standards and regulations. Fourth, governments and international bodies should try to standardize protocols for
protecting space systems. For example, when NOAA was breached in September, the Inspector General for the Commerce Department, which oversees the
network, had just criticized it for an array of “high-risk vulnerabilities” in the security of its satellite information and weather service systems. It took nearly a month
for NOAA to admit it had been hacked. Hiding such information hampers meaningful and timely discussion about the issue and delays the development of
preventive measures. Enforcing a standard protocol could help alleviate this problem. And finally, protecting space systems must be an international effort. Spacefaring nations should work together to achieve international cooperation on all of the areas mentioned above: raising awareness, sharing information, and
developing much-needed standards. The
potential for colossal damage and the relative ease of launching a
cyberattack on space systems make them tantalizing targets for cybercriminals. The threat is already at
our doorstep, and it will only get bigger. It is time for the international space community to muster the political will to rise to this growing
challenge.
AT: Other args
AT: States CP – Perm do both
The perm solves
Kaminski 2013 (Margot E [Executive Director of the Information Society Project, Research Scholar,
and Lecturer in Law at Yale Law School]; Drone Federalism: Civilian Drones and the Things They Carry; 4
Calif. L. Rev. Circuit 57; kdf)
DRONE PRIVACY REGULATIONS There are, broadly speaking, two subjects of drone privacy regulation: law enforcement drone use and civilian
drone use. n8 Most advocates and academics have focused on establishing privacy regulations to govern law enforcement drone use. n9 This
task is worthy of immediate attention. The FAA already permits law enforcement drone use, where it does not yet permit commercial private
drone use. n10 A number of state and federal bills thus propose warrant requirements for drone surveillance by law enforcement. n11 The
federal government could regulate law enforcement drone use as it has historically regulated other law
enforcement behavior, by providing a floor for state laws. n12 Federal legislation already governs law
enforcement use of wiretaps and pen registers. n13 Drone surveillance is likely to additionally involve
video surveillance, location tracking, and/or facial recognition, among other possible technologies. Thus
federal legislation governing law enforcement surveillance could be expanded to govern location tracking, video
surveillance, and the use of facial recognition software by law enforcement. n14 [*60] Regulating law enforcement drone use poses few
countervailing dangers from legislating thoughtlessly or in haste; such legislation would implicate Fourth Amendment rights rather than First
Amendment rights, so the worst case scenario is that such legislation might eventually be found by courts not to protect enough privacy. n15
AT: FISA Court Model
Those courts fail in the context of drones
Selinger and Kaag 2015 (Evan and John [Associate prof of philosophy @ U of Massachusetts Lowell];
Why domestic drones stir more debate than ones used in warfighting abroad; Mar 9;
http://www.csmonitor.com/World/Passcode/Passcode-Voices/2015/0309/Why-domestic-drones-stirmore-debate-than-ones-used-in-warfighting-abroad kdf)
Selinger: Why are you skeptical about replicating the FISA court model in this context? Kaag: The FISA
courts are very weird. Our
legal system is based on an adversarial model. In other words, courts are places to dispute charges and impartial parties –
a judge and jury – make a decision about the case. The FISA courts aren’t like this. At all. FISA requests are
not disputed. Only a very, very small percentage of FISA requests have been denied over the courts’ 30 year history. Most are approved as
a matter of course. Sarah Kreps and I have argued that one of the more disturbing aspects of the FISA courts are their recent expansion of the
“special needs” doctrine, which allows the government to carry out surveillance without detailed
warrants in order to address an “overriding public danger.” We are concerned that this sort of governance, when
applied to the issue of drones, might provide strategists and policy makers with a type of carte blanche
over the targeted killing program. The alternative proposed by the Obama administration – what the President called “an
independent oversight board in the executive branch” – doesn’t make us feel much better. It does not address the question of
checks and balances that has prompted calls for judicial oversight.
2AC Generic DA Answer
A lack of transparency in data collection makes their impact inevitable
Scheer 2015 (Robert [Prof @ USC’s School of journalism and communication]; They Know Everything
About You; Nation Books; p. 157-8; kdf)
OUR GOVERNMENT, LIKE OTHERS THROUGHOUT history, tells us that repressive, invasive, and paranoid national
security policies are for our own good, especially in terms of our safety. Yet where do the prerogatives of a
surveillance state driven by fear and governed by secrecy really take us? The reality is that these
procedures not only are unconstitutional but all too often lead to bad government policies, both at home and
abroad. One need only review the invasion of Iraq to see the folly of toppling a regime that was an
implacable enemy of al Qaeda-an invasion driven by a fear of weapons of mass destruction that free access to the available data
would have discounted. The direct result, billions of dollars and hundreds of thousands of deaths later, is a
fractured Iraq that, at the time of this writing a decade later, seems to be in a constant state of bloody division. Or as
veteran correspondent Patrick Cockburn summarized in the London Review of Books in 2014, after the extremist Islamic State of Iraq and Syria
(ISIS) seized huge swaths of both countries: For America, Britain and the Western powers, the rise of lsis and the Caliphate is the ultimate
disaster. Whatever they intended by their invasion oflraq in 2003 and their efforts to get rid of Assad in Syria since 2011, it was not to see the
creation of a jihadi state spanning northern Iraq and Syria run by a movement a hundred times bigger and much better organised than the alQaida of Osama bin Laden. The war on terror for which civil liberties have been curtailed and hundreds of billions of dollars spent has failed
miserably.1 The
obvious lesson of that debacle, and others like it, is that an informed public with access to
accurate information-even when the facts are embarrassing to the government- is the best safeguard
against such errors. Aren't we better off knowing when our freedoms are threatened or we are being
lied to, even by our own leaders, so that we can rectify such policies? In other words, didn't Edward
Snowden, regardless of the legality of his actions, actually make us safer?
AT: Federalism DA
The plan sets a floor – states can go beyond it
Kaminski 2013 (Margot E [Executive Director of the Information Society Project, Research Scholar,
and Lecturer in Law at Yale Law School]; Drone Federalism: Civilian Drones and the Things They Carry; 4
Calif. L. Rev. Circuit 57; kdf)
DRONE PRIVACY REGULATIONS There are, broadly speaking, two subjects of drone privacy regulation: law enforcement drone use and civilian
drone use. n8 Most advocates and academics have focused on establishing privacy regulations to govern law enforcement drone use. n9 This
task is worthy of immediate attention. The FAA already permits law enforcement drone use, where it does not yet permit commercial private
drone use. n10 A number of state and federal bills thus propose warrant requirements for drone surveillance by law enforcement. n11 The
federal government could regulate law enforcement drone use as it has historically regulated other law
enforcement behavior, by providing a floor for state laws. n12 Federal legislation already governs law
enforcement use of wiretaps and pen registers. n13 Drone surveillance is likely to additionally involve
video surveillance, location tracking, and/or facial recognition, among other possible technologies. Thus
federal legislation governing law enforcement surveillance could be expanded to govern location tracking, video
surveillance, and the use of facial recognition software by law enforcement. n14 [*60] Regulating law enforcement drone use poses few
countervailing dangers from legislating thoughtlessly or in haste; such legislation would implicate Fourth Amendment rights rather than First
Amendment rights, so the worst case scenario is that such legislation might eventually be found by courts not to protect enough privacy. n15