Neg
1NC
The President should sign an executive order implementing [the plan]
Obama could unilaterally end bulk data collection
Levine, 5-26. Sam Levine is an associate politics editor at The Huffington Post. He graduated from the
University of Chicago. “Rand Paul: Obama started NSA bulk collection and can end it by himself”.
Huffington Post, 5-26-15. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2015/05/26/rand-paul-nsa_n_7442448.html
Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) said on Tuesday that President Barack Obama was being "disingenuous" about his
ability to override the National Security Agency and end its bulk collection of data, arguing that in fact
Obama could act on his own to end the program. Paul said that because the NSA has sweeping authority
under an executive order, Obama could act alone to curb the agency's power. "Here’s the thing about
the president. He’s disingenuous about this. The president started this program through executive
order. He could end it any time," said Paul during an appearance on "CBS This Morning." "The Second
Court of Appeals, the court that is right below the Supreme Court, has said that it’s illegal. Why doesn’t
he stop it? What’s he waiting for? He started it on his own, he should stop it. And I’ve asked the
president repeatedly to stop the program." Paul, who is running for president in 2016, made similar
comments on the floor of the Senate last week during a lengthy speech in which he made the case
against extending the Patriot Act. The order that gives the NSA broad spying authority was actually
implemented in 1981 under President Ronald Reagan. The government has been collecting bulk
metadata since the Bush administration -- a program authorized under section 215 of the Patriot Act,
which will expire on June 1. In 2011, Obama reauthorized certain provisions in the Patriot Act that
allowed for bulk data collection. Last year, however, Obama announced that he would curb some
aspects of the NSA's metadata program.
Solvency
Solvency - Generic
Historical Precedent; Constitution power given to president to be in charge of
intelligence
Yoo 13
John Yoo. University of California at Berkeley School of Law; American Enterprise Institute. December 1,
2013. “The Legality of the National Security Agency's Bulk Data Surveillance Programs”.
http://blog.constitutioncenter.org/2014/10/surveillance-and-executive-power/
As Commander-in-Chief, the President has the constitutional power and the responsibility to wage war
in response to a direct attack against the United States. In the Civil War, President Lincoln undertook
several actions—raised an army, withdrew money from the treasury, launched a blockade—on his own
authority in response to the Confederate attack on Fort Sumter, moves that Congress and the Supreme
Court later approved. During World War II, the Supreme Court similarly recognized that once war began,
the President’s authority as Commander-in-Chief and Chief Executive gave him the tools necessary to
effectively wage war. In the wake of the September 11 attacks, Congress agreed that “the President has
authority under the Constitution to take action to deter and prevent acts of international terrorism
against the United States,” which recognizes the President’s authority to use force to respond to al
Qaeda, and any powers necessary and proper to that end. Even legal scholars who argue against this
historical practice concede that once the United States has been attacked, the President can respond
immediately with force. The ability to collect intelligence is intrinsic to the use of military force. It is
inconceivable that the Constitution would vest in the President the powers of Commander-in-Chief and
Chief Executive, give him the responsibility to protect the nation from attack, but then disable him from
gathering intelligence to use the military most effectively to defeat the enemy. Every evidence of the
Framers’ understanding of the Constitution is that the government would have every ability to meet a
foreign danger. As James Madison wrote in The Federalist, “security against foreign danger is one of the
primitive objects of civil society.” Therefore, the “powers requisite for attaining it must be effectually
confided to the federal councils.” After World War II, the Supreme Court declared, “this grant of war
power includes all that is necessary and proper for carrying these powers into execution.” Covert
operations and electronic surveillance are clearly part of this authority. During the writing of the
Constitution, some Framers believed that the President alone should manage intelligence because only
he could keep secrets. Several Supreme Court cases have recognized that the President’s role as
Commander-in-Chief and the sole organ of the nation in its foreign relations must include the power to
collect intelligence. These authorities agree that intelligence rests with the President because its
structure allows it to act with unity, secrecy, and speed. Presidents have long ordered electronic
surveillance without any judicial or congressional participation. More than a year before the Pearl
Harbor attacks, but with war clearly looming with the Axis powers, President Franklin Roosevelt
authorized the FBI to intercept any communications, whether wholly inside the country or international,
of persons “suspected of subversive activities against the Government of the United States, including
suspected spies.” FDR was concerned that “fifth columns” could wreak havoc with the war effort. “It is
too late to do anything about it after sabotage, assassinations and ‘fifth column’ activities are
completed,” FDR wrote in his order. FDR ordered the surveillance even though a federal law at the time
prohibited electronic surveillance without a warrant. Presidents continued to monitor the
communications of national security threats on their own authority, even in peacetime. If Presidents in
times of peace could order surveillance of spies and terrorists, executive authority is only the greater
now, as hostilities continue against al Qaeda.
The Constitution grants the president the right to surveillance; NSA proves
Lawson 2008
GARY LAWSON. “WHAT LURKS BENEATH: NSA SURVEILLANCE AND EXECUTIVE POWER”. Boston University Law Review Volume
88. December 2008. He was named the Philip S. Beck Professor of Law in 2012. He has authored six editions of a textbook on
administrative law, co-authored two books on aspects of constitutional history, and authored or co-authored more than
seventy scholarly articles. He is a founding member, and serves on the Board of Directors, of the Federalist Society for Law and
Public Policy Studies, and is on the Editorial Advisory Board of the Heritage Guide to The Constitution, a reference tool for legal
scholars. https://www.bu.edu/law/central/jd/organizations/journals/bulr/documents/LAWSON.pdf
So at this point the NSA wiretapping program is 0-4. But one hit will keep it, even if just barely, above the Mendoza Line,38 and there is one
more at-bat to go. The last possibility is that the
President gets power to, among other things, authorize intelligence gathering
during wartime from the first sentence of Article II, which states that “[t]he executive Power shall be vested in a
President of the United States of America.”39 If this sentence grants the President a chunk of power called
“executive Power,” and if that power includes the ability to gather foreign intelligence during wartime even off
the battlefield, then the Constitution itself grants the President the necessary authority to put in motion
something like the NSA wiretapping program.40 Thus, one of the most important questions of any kind, on any subject, under
the Federal Constitution is whether the first sentence of Article II grants power to the President or whether, as opponents of the Vesting Clause
thesis argue,41 it merely designates the office of the presidency and indicates that there will be one President rather than an executive council.
II There is nothing remotely resembling a consensus on the Article II Vesting Clause thesis either in the legal academy42 or in the halls of
government.43 To see just how deeply divisions on this question run, consider two dueling memoranda issued in early 2006 concerning the
NSA wiretapping program. On January 19, 2006, the Department of Justice
released a document entitled “Legal Authorities
Supporting the Activities of the National Security Agency Described by the President,”44 which defended on
multiple grounds the legality of electronic eavesdropping on suspected terrorist communications into or out of the United States.45 The first
substantive sentence in the “Analysis” section of the document reads: “Article
II of the Constitution vests in the President
all executive power of the United States, including the power to act as Commander in Chief of the
Armed Forces.”46 At first glance, this reads like a straightforward assertion of the Article II Vesting Clause thesis, which would locate the
President’s war-making powers in the Vesting Clause rather than the Commander in Chief Clause. After all, the sentence states that Article II
grants to the President “all executive power of the United States,” which is the central proposition of the Vesting Clause thesis.47 On that
understanding, the
powers that are exercisable by the American Commander-in-Chief fall under the category
of “executive Power” and would vest in the President even without the Commander in Chief Clause’s
clarification of the President’s role in the military hierarchy. But on closer examination, the phrasing of the Memo is more
ambiguous. It could also be read to suggest that whatever executive power is vested in the President stems from the enumerations in Sections
2 and 3 of Article II. Indeed, the only constitutional provision cited in support of the previously quoted sentence in the DOJ Memo is Article II,
Section 2, which contains the Commander in Chief Clause; there is no specific reference in that DOJ discussion to the Vesting Clause as a source
of power.48 On the other hand, the DOJ Memo repeatedly, and one might even say ad nauseum, refers to “inherent” presidential power.49 It is
possible that the Memo means to invoke the specter of unenumerated power to claim that the President has certain powers because all
executives have such power simply by virtue of being executives. But it is also possible, and considerably more plausible, to think that the DOJ
Memo used the term “inherent” to mean “constitutionally granted.” And the only constitutional grant that can support the kinds of presidential
powers discussed by the DOJ Memo, including something called “the President’s general foreign affairs powers,” which has no conceivable
grounding in Sections 2 and 3 of Article II, 50 is the Article II Vesting Clause. Indeed, the Memo expressly invokes the Vesting Clause in support
of the President’s preeminent role in foreign affairs.51 Thus, although the DOJ Memo does not articulate the Vesting Clause thesis with clarity,
it seems clear that the Vesting Clause thesis lurks beneath the argument and provides it with substance.
Executive Order 1233 proves XO surveillance power
Jaycox 2014
MARK JAYCOX. JUNE 2, 2014 “BY A Primer on Executive Order 12333: The Mass Surveillance Starlet”.
Electronic Frontier Foundation. Mark is a Legislative Analyst for EFF. His issues include user privacy, civil
liberties, surveillance law, and "cybersecurity." He was educated at Reed College, spent a year abroad at
the University of Oxford (Wadham College), and concentrated in Political History. Previous to joining
EFF, Mark was a Contributor to ArsTechnica, and a Legislative Research Assistant for LexisNexis.
https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2014/06/primer-executive-order-12333-mass-surveillance-starlet
However, it's likely that the
NSA conducts much more of its spying under the President's claimed inherent powers and only governed by
a document originally approved by President Reagan titled Executive Order 12333. The Senate Select Committee
on Intelligence is currently conducting a secret investigation into the order, but Congress as a whole—including the Judiciary committee—must
release more information about the order to the public. EO 12333 was first written in 1981 in the wake of Watergate and the Foreign
Intelligence Surveillance Act, an act passed by Congress that regulates spying conducted on people located within the United States. Since
FISA only covers specific types of spying, the President maintains that the executive branch remains free
to spy abroad on foreigners with little to no regulation by Congress. Executive Order 12333 The Executive
Order does three things: it outlines what it governs, when the agencies can spy, and how they can spy. In
broad strokes, the Executive Order mandates rules for spying on United States persons (a term that includes citizens and lawful permanent
residents wherever they may be) and on
anyone within the United States. It also directs the Attorney General and others to create
further policies and procedures for what information can be collected, retained, and shared. The first section of the order covers
the role of every agency conducting intelligence in the Intelligence Community, which includes seventeen different agencies, including wellknown entities like the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) and the NSA, and lesser-known entities like the Office of
Terrorism and Financial Intelligence in the Department of Treasury. The roles vary by agency. For instance, the NSA is, among other things,
responsible for "collection, processing and dissemination of signals intelligence," while the CIA is responsible for "national foreign intelligence.
The Information Collected The
Executive Order purports to cover all types of spying conducted with the
President's constitutional powers—including mass spying. That’s important to note because some of the spying conducted
under EO 12333 is reportedly similar to the mass spying conducted under Section 702 of the FAA. Under this type of spying, millions of innocent
foreigners’ communications are collected abroad, inevitably containing Americans' communications. In the Section 702 context, this includes
techniques like Prism and Upstream. While we don’t know for sure, the Executive Order probably uses similar techniques or piggybacks off of
programs used for Section 702 spying. The second section of the EO partly covers mass spying by establishing what information intelligence
agencies can collect, retain, and share about US persons. The
current guidelines, the United States Signals Intelligence Directive
SP0018, also known as "USSID 18," are (just like the "minimization procedures" based off of them) littered with loopholes to overcollect, over-retain, and over-share Americans' communications—all without a probable cause warrant
or any judicial oversight.
An XO started the bulk surveillance program therefore an Obama XO could end it
Levine 15 [Sam, associate politics editor at The Huffington Post, “Rand Paul: Obama Started NSA Bulk
Collection And Can End It By Himself,” Huff Post Politics, 5/26/15,
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2015/05/26/rand-paul-nsa_n_7442448.html, Accessed 6/29/15]
Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) said on Tuesday that President Barack Obama was being "disingenuous" about his
ability to override the National Security Agency and end its bulk collection of data, arguing that in fact
Obama could act on his own to end the program. Paul said that because the NSA has sweeping authority
under an executive order, Obama could act alone to curb the agency's power. "Here’s the thing about
the president. He’s disingenuous about this. The president started this program through executive
order. He could end it any time," said Paul during an appearance on "CBS This Morning." "The Second
Court of Appeals, the court that is right below the Supreme Court, has said that it’s illegal. Why doesn’t
he stop it? What’s he waiting for? He started it on his own, he should stop it. And I’ve asked the
president repeatedly to stop the program." Paul, who is running for president in 2016, made similar
comments on the floor of the Senate last week during a lengthy speech in which he made the case
against extending the Patriot Act. The order that gives the NSA broad spying authority was actually
implemented in 1981 under President Ronald Reagan. The government has been collecting bulk
metadata since the Bush administration -- a program authorized under section 215 of the Patriot Act,
which will expire on June 1. In 2011, Obama reauthorized certain provisions in the Patriot Act that
allowed for bulk data collection. Last year, however, Obama announced that he would curb some
aspects of the NSA's metadata program.
Obama wants surveillance reform and can XO section 215
Gerstein, ’14. Josh Gerstein is a White House reporter for POLITICO, specializing in legal and national
security issues. Gerstein joined the pathbreaking political news outlet just before President Barack
Obama’s inauguration and has reported extensively on how Obama’s pledge to close the Guantanamo
Bay prison for war-on-terror captives went awry. “The limits on Obama’s power on NSA reform”,
Politico, 1-13-14. http://www.politico.com/story/2014/01/nsa-surveillance-limits-102081.html
The snooping saga has been a loser for Obama in nearly every respect. Edward Snowden, the former
NSA contractor who leaked a trove of top-secret documents detailing the surveillance, is still camping
out in Russia. The activities angered the international community. And disclosures that widespread and
intrusive surveillance continued into Obama’s presidency undercut his reputation as a reformer who
would end over-the-top anti-terrorism practices and civil liberties violations many liberals — including
Obama and Vice President Joe Biden — denounced under President George W. Bush. As commander in
chief, Obama could abandon certain surveillance practices altogether. For instance, he could simply shut
down the so-called 215 program to collect telephone data in the U.S. so it can be used to trace potential
contacts of terrorism suspects.
The president has the primary authority over surveillance
Office of the Press Secretary ’14. “Presidential Policy Directive – Signals Intelligence Activities”, 117-14. The White House. https://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/2014/01/17/presidential-policydirective-signals-intelligence-activities
Presidents have long directed the acquisition of foreign intelligence and counterintelligence2 pursuant
to their constitutional authority to conduct U.S. foreign relations and to fulfill their constitutional
responsibilities as Commander in Chief and Chief Executive. They have also provided direction on the
conduct of intelligence activities in furtherance of these authorities and responsibilities, as well as in
execution of laws enacted by the Congress. Consistent with this historical practice, this directive
articulates principles to guide why, whether, when, and how the United States conducts signals
intelligence activities for authorized foreign intelligence and counterintelligence purposes.
An executive order is the basis for the majority of surveillance – congressional action
fails
Raymond and Viswanatha ’14. Nate Raymond and Aruna Viswanatha are journalists with Reuters.
“New documents show legal basis for NSA surveillance programs”, 9-29-14. Reuters.
http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/09/29/us-nsa-surveillance-idUSKCN0HO1YQ20140929
Documents released by the U.S. government show it views an executive order issued in 1981 as the
basis of most of the National Security Agency's surveillance activities, the American Civil Liberties Union said on
Monday. The NSA relied on Executive Order 12333 more than it did on two other laws that have been the
focus of public debate following the leaks exposing U.S. surveillance programs by former agency
contractor Edward Snowden, according to the papers released by the ACLU. The ACLU obtained the documents after filing a lawsuit
last year seeking information in connection with the order, which it said the NSA was using to collect vast amounts of data
worldwide, "inevitably" including communications of U.S. citizens. The order, signed in 1981 by President Ronald Reagan,
was intended to give the government broad authority over surveillance of international targets. One of the documents obtained was a 2007
NSA manual citing the executive order as "the primary source of NSA's foreign intelligence-gathering authority." A legal fact sheet on the memo
produced in June 2013, two weeks after Snowden's disclosures, said the
NSA relied on the executive order for the
"majority" of its activities involving intelligence gathered through signals interception. Alex Abdo, an ACLU staff
attorney, said in a blog post published on Monday that the documents "confirm that the order, although not the focus of the public debate,
actually governs most of the NSA's spying." "Congress's
reform efforts have not addressed the executive order, and
the bulk of the government's disclosures in response to the Snowden revelations have conspicuously
ignored the NSA's extensive mandate under EO 12333," Abdo wrote. Neither the NSA nor U.S. Department of Justice, which
is defending the lawsuit, responded to requests for comment Monday. The ACLU's lawsuit, filed in December 2013 in New York, cited news
reports indicating that, under the order, the NSA is collecting data on cell phone locations and email contact lists, as well as information from
Google Inc and Yahoo! Inc user accounts. In his blog post, Abdo said the documents made clear the government is collecting information that
goes beyond just terrorist threats. The documents, he wrote, could also add
credence to concerns the government
could use its "broad surveillance power to conduct economic espionage or to spy on Americans it hoped
to convert into confidential informants."
Obama can roll back 122333
Bensen, ’14. Thor Benson is a traveling writer who currently lives in Los Angeles. He has written for
Slate, Vice, Fast Company and many others. “President Obama needs to cancel executive order 122333”,
Truthdig, 7-23-14.
http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/president_obama_needs_to_cancel_executive_order_12333_20
140723
If the contents of a U.S. person’s communications are ‘incidentally’ collected (an NSA term of art) in the
course of a lawful overseas foreign intelligence investigation, then Section 2.3(c) of the executive order
explicitly authorizes their retention. It does not require that the affected U.S. persons be suspected of
wrongdoing and places no limits on the volume of communications by U.S. persons that may be
collected and retained. The loopholes in Executive Order 12333 are large enough to sail a ship through.
President Obama has the power to make and overturn executive orders unilaterally. He does not need
to consult Congress, the NSA or any other government body to end this practice. Obama has proposed
several reforms to NSA practices, but he has not mentioned altering or canceling this executive order.
He could end it today, and he should.
Solvency for Targeting
Executive branch hold unilateral power for surveillance targeting
Human Rights Watch 2014 HRW + ACLU publication. “With Liberty to Monitor All How Large-Scale
US Surveillance is Harming Journalism, Law, and American Democracy“ This report was researched and
written by G. Alex Sinha, Aryeh Neier fellow with the US Program at Human Rights Watch and the
Human Rights Program at the American Civil Liberties Union. Maria McFarland Sanchez-Moreno, US
Program deputy director at Human Rights Watch, participated in some of the research interviews.
Andrea Prasow, deputy Washington Director at Human Rights Watch, also participated in one of the
research interviews and provided key contacts. Significant research, proofreading, and formatting
assistance were provided by Samantha Reiser, Paul Smith, and Jeanne Jeong, associates in the US
Program at Human Rights Watch; as well as Alex Simon-Fox, Erin Weber, Cassandra Kildow, and Phoebe
Young, interns in the US Program at Human Rights Watch. Other US Program staff—including Clara Long,
Grace Meng, Alba Morales, and Brian Root graciously offered contacts and insight.
http://www.hrw.org/sites/default/files/reports/usnsa0714_ForUPload_0.pdf
Under Section 702 and Executive Order 12,333, executive branch officials hold the power to make
unilateral targeting decisions. Targeting decisions made under Executive Order 12,333 are not subject to
any independent review. And under Section 702, only the broader procedures for making those
decisions—designed to ensure that the government is targeting nonUS persons outside the US—are
subject to periodic approval of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court. The lack of independent
targeting oversight is even more worrisome because the standards for approving targets under Section
702 and Executive Order 12,333 are much lower than in the law enforcement context. Congress should
pass (and the President should sign) legislation modifying Section 702 and the executive’s authority
under Executive Order 12,333 both to narrow the grounds for permissible surveillance (see above) and
to require that individual targeting decisions be reviewed by an independent decisionmaker to ensure
that any encroachment on any person’s rights is fully justified under constitutional and international law
standards. Until such legislation takes effect, the Executive Branch should adopt targeting procedures
that require individual targeting decisions to be approved by an independent decisionmaker.
Solvency for whistleblowers
Executive branch can enact policy to allow for federal employees to interact with the
press
Human Rights Watch 2014 HRW + ACLU publication. “With Liberty to Monitor All How Large-Scale
US Surveillance is Harming Journalism, Law, and American Democracy“ This report was researched and
written by G. Alex Sinha, Aryeh Neier fellow with the US Program at Human Rights Watch and the
Human Rights Program at the American Civil Liberties Union. Maria McFarland Sanchez-Moreno, US
Program deputy director at Human Rights Watch, participated in some of the research interviews.
Andrea Prasow, deputy Washington Director at Human Rights Watch, also participated in one of the
research interviews and provided key contacts. Significant research, proofreading, and formatting
assistance were provided by Samantha Reiser, Paul Smith, and Jeanne Jeong, associates in the US
Program at Human Rights Watch; as well as Alex Simon-Fox, Erin Weber, Cassandra Kildow, and Phoebe
Young, interns in the US Program at Human Rights Watch. Other US Program staff—including Clara Long,
Grace Meng, Alba Morales, and Brian Root graciously offered contacts and insight.
http://www.hrw.org/sites/default/files/reports/usnsa0714_ForUPload_0.pdf
Among other steps, the President should order a review of the Insider Threat Program to ensure that it
is not leading to harmful outcomes, including by allowing agencies to create policies that interfere with
the ability of federal officials to interact with the press on matters that are unclassified or that do not
pose any significant, tangible risk to national security or to other critical state interests recognized in
international human rights law. The President should also direct the revocation of Intelligence
Community Directive 119 to permit non-designated intelligence community employees contact with the
press (subject to typical restrictions on sharing classified information), and to remove the requirement
to report contact with the press. Congress should conduct oversight hearings on the implementation of
the Insider Threat Program and other government policies and programs that may be improperly
inhibiting government officials’ communication with the media and restricting the public’s access to
information.
Executive branch can expand protections for whistleblowers
Human Rights Watch 2014 HRW + ACLU publication. “With Liberty to Monitor All How Large-Scale
US Surveillance is Harming Journalism, Law, and American Democracy“ This report was researched and
written by G. Alex Sinha, Aryeh Neier fellow with the US Program at Human Rights Watch and the
Human Rights Program at the American Civil Liberties Union. Maria McFarland Sanchez-Moreno, US
Program deputy director at Human Rights Watch, participated in some of the research interviews.
Andrea Prasow, deputy Washington Director at Human Rights Watch, also participated in one of the
research interviews and provided key contacts. Significant research, proofreading, and formatting
assistance were provided by Samantha Reiser, Paul Smith, and Jeanne Jeong, associates in the US
Program at Human Rights Watch; as well as Alex Simon-Fox, Erin Weber, Cassandra Kildow, and Phoebe
Young, interns in the US Program at Human Rights Watch. Other US Program staff—including Clara Long,
Grace Meng, Alba Morales, and Brian Root graciously offered contacts and insight.
http://www.hrw.org/sites/default/files/reports/usnsa0714_ForUPload_0.pdf
Strengthen federal law to provide intelligence and national security sector employees and contractors a)
an enforceable right to report abuse internally and b) legal protection from retaliation if they do so, in
addition to the public interest defense recommended above. Pending the enactment of legislative
guarantees, the President should forbid retaliation and prosecution against such employees and
contractors and provide an independent channel for challenging such actions should they occur.
Solvency for Perception
Obama is credible-public applause after legacy-altering week of victories and approval
Dwyer and Phelps 6/27/15 “Why This Might Be the Most Consequential Week of Obama's
Presidency” http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/consequential-week-obamaspresidency/story?id=32061896 Devin Dwyer and Jordyn Phelps are both White House Digital
Correspondents with ABC News
President Obama began the last full week of June with his legacy in potential peril: A landmark trade
bill stymied by his own party. The heart of the Affordable Care Act hanging in the balance at the
Supreme Court. That nuclear deal with Iran seeming on the verge of crumble. At a White House
celebration on gay rights, a heckler stole the show. In the end, it became a defining week of the Obama
presidency in its more than six-and-a-half years. It was marked by a remarkable string of political and
legal victories, all capped by a powerful speech on race that showcased the signature rhetorical skill
that that first helped put him on the map. Here are five ways that this might be the most
consequential week of Obama's presidency: 1. Soulful Singing From the Podium After a Stirring Speech
on Race Obama Sings 'Amazing Grace' at Slain Pastor's Funeral More than a week after nine churchgoers
were shot and killed in a Charleston church, President Obama turned a moment of national mourning
into one of the most emotional of his presidency. In a eulogy for the Rev. Clementa Pinckney, the
senior pastor of the Emanuel AME Church whom the Obamas met personally back in 2007, the president
delivered a message of racial unity and transcendence to an audience of 5,500 people. At one point, the
president broke into song, leading the entire crowd in an impromptu hymn of “Amazing Grace.” Has any
sitting president sung in such a way from a pulpit before? 2. The Affordable Care Act Survives the
Supremes Obama Says 'Affordable Care Act Is Here to Stay' The president’s landmark health care law
faced its second major test before the Supreme Court and survived. On Thursday, the Court decided to
overlook what some called a drafting error in the law, upholding health insurance subsidies for over 6
million Americans in states using federal exchanges. The court ruled that it was Congress and the
administration’s initial intent that matters most -- granting middle- and low-income individuals living in
states that did not create their own insurance marketplaces to continue to receive federal taxpayer aid.
3. Court Backs Social Shift on Gay Marriage That Obama Helped Evolve In a monumental ruling, the
Supreme Court ruled Friday that civil marriage rights must be extended to same-sex couples in all 50
states. The court’s decision struck down state bans on gay marriage. And though Obama cannot take
any credit for the ruling, it was a major victory for the Democratic Party and his progressive agenda. The
ruling comes after a landslide shift in public opinion on gay marriage over the last decade, with the
majority of Americans now supporting gay marriage. When Obama assumed office in 2009, he was not
an open supporter of gay marriage, but in his words, “evolved” on the issue, and ultimately came out in
public support of gay marriage during an interview with ABC News’ Robin Roberts in 2012. 4.
Republicans Give Obama “Fast-Track” Power on Trade A bill to grant President Obama “fast-track”
authority to negotiate sweeping multi-national trade deals cleared Congress this week, after several
embarrassing setbacks dealt by Democrats, paving the way for the president to secure the Trans Pacific
Partnership -- one of his biggest second-term priorities and the largest U.S. free-trade agreement in
more than 20 years. Though the deal itself has not yet passed, a green-light for Trade Promotion
Authority was a key hurdle for the president just weeks after his own party’s rank-and-file actively
blocked him on the issue. 5. Hostage Policy Shift to Help Families After an exhaustive months-long policy
review, President Obama on Wednesday announced that the United States is “changing how we do
business” in efforts to recover American hostages from terrorists and other criminals abroad. Under the
new policy, the government will no longer enforce a rule which forbid families of hostages from paying
ransom to hostage-holders in attempts to secure the release of their loved ones. While the government
will maintain a strict policy against paying ransom to terrorists, the government will now have a
dedicated “fusion cell” to coordinate between government agencies and communicate directly with
hostage-takers in facilitating their release.
2NC Blocks
Rollback/Intervention
AT: Circumvention. Congressional regulation of Presidential powers (NSA) is
unconstitutional; FISA proves
Lawson 2008
GARY LAWSON. “WHAT LURKS BENEATH: NSA SURVEILLANCE AND EXECUTIVE POWER”. Boston University Law Review Volume
88. December 2008. He was named the Philip S. Beck Professor of Law in 2012. He has authored six editions of a textbook on
administrative law, co-authored two books on aspects of constitutional history, and authored or co-authored more than
seventy scholarly articles. He is a founding member, and serves on the Board of Directors, of the Federalist Society for Law and
Public Policy Studies, and is on the Editorial Advisory Board of the Heritage Guide to The Constitution, a reference tool for legal
scholars. https://www.bu.edu/law/central/jd/organizations/journals/bulr/documents/LAWSON.pdf
The preceding Section concludes by observing that if the Vesting Clause thesis is correct, then the NSA surveillance program
“appears to be lawful.” The conclusion is qualified because there is one more step in the argument. If the Vesting Clause
thesis is right, then the President has constitutionally granted authority to order reasonable, offbattlefield intelligence gathering. Such authority does not require statutory authorization because it
comes directly from a constitutional grant of power.106 But what if Congress interposes a statutory prohibition? That is
precisely what Congress appears to have done in FISA.107 FISA purports to specify an exclusive mechanism for securing
the kind of information sought through the NSA surveillance, unless authorization external to FISA is provided by statute.108 Can Congress
override the President’s constitutionally granted power? This question takes us far afield, and I will leave for another day
the difficult problem of determining how the constitutional powers of the Congress and the President operate when they come into direct
conflict. But a few tentative words on the subject are appropriate (or at least irresistible). The
question whether Congress can
restrict through FISA the President’s constitutionally granted power to gather intelligence during
wartime is easily answered “no” if Congress has no enumerated constitutional power to enact FISA. It is quite possible that it does not. There
is no way that FISA is a direct exercise of any specifically enumerated power of Congress other than the clause
at the end of Article I, Section 8 that authorizes Congress “[t]o make all Laws which shall be necessary and proper for carrying into Execution
the foregoing Powers, and all other Powers vested by this Constitution in the Government of the United States, or in any Department or Officer
thereof.”109 There
is, alas, no power, foregoing or otherwise, that FISA can plausibly be said to carry into
effect.110 FISA is certainly not a statute that is “necessary and proper for carrying into Execution” the
President’s executive power; one does not carry a power into execution by restricting its use, no more than it would be “necessary
and proper for carrying into Execution” the judicial power for Congress to require all judicial opinions to be reviewed and approved by a special
panel of Justice Department officials before they can be issued.111 Nor
is FISA necessary and proper for carrying into
execution any of Congress’s own enumerated powers – as a casual glance at the list of enumerated
congressional powers will demonstrate.
Courts don’t question Executive Orders-Empirics Proven
Newland 15 “Executive Orders in Court”-The Yale Law Review
http://www.yalelawjournal.org/note/executive-orders-in-court Erica Newlands is a Yale Law School, J.D
graduate in 2015
This Note presents a study built around review of 297 judicial opinions and the coding of 152 of them—
each opinion was issued by either the Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit or the Supreme Court of the
United States. In each of the 152 opinions, judges or Justices engaged with doctrinal questions relating
to executive orders. These cases reveal that courts inconsistently invoke those checks and balances
that are available to temper executive action. The resulting judicial elevation of executive orders does
not seem to take the form of a studied esteem for the President’s greater flexibility, expertise, or role
in our constitutional system.42 Rather, it seems to be born of disorder. Courts have not tended to
acknowledge, in a particularly theorized way, the special challenges and demands of the executive
order as a form of lawmaking.43 Nor have they tended to recognize the common jurisprudential
questions that executive orders raise about sources of lawmaking and interpretive authority44 or to
demand clarity or specificity from the orders themselves.
Congressional rollback unlikely
Chu and Garvey, ’14. Vivian S. Chu and Todd Garvey are legislative attorneys. “Executive Orders:
issuance, modification, and revocation”, Congressional Research Service, 4-16-14.
https://www.fas.org/sgp/crs/misc/RS20846.pdf
Congressional repeals of executive orders are relatively rare in modern times, primarily because such
legislation could run counter to the President’s interests and therefore may require a congressional
override of a presidential veto. One study has suggested that less than 4% of executive orders have been
modified by Congress.64 To effectuate a repeal, Congress need only enact legislation directing that
provisions of the executive order “shall not have legal effect.”65 For example, the Energy Policy Act of
2005 explicitly revoked a December 13, 1912, executive order that had created the Naval Petroleum
Reserve Numbered 2.66 In 1992, Congress similarly revoked an executive order issued by President
George H. W. Bush that had directed the Secretary of Health and Human Services to establish a human
fetal tissue bank for research
Only XO solves circumvention and rollback is impossible; precedence over law
Farivar ’14. Cyrus [suh-ROOS] is the Senior Business Editor at Ars Technica, and is also an author and
radio producer. His book, The Internet of Elsewhere – about the history and effects of the Internet on
different countries around the world, including Senegal, Iran, Estonia and South Korea. “The executive
order that led to mass spying, as told by NSA alumni”, 8-27-14. Ars Technica.
http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2014/08/a-twisted-history-how-a-reagan-era-executive-order-ledto-mass-spying/1/
“12333 was designed to allow NSA to have greater latitude when they pick up Americans [as part of]
targets overseas,” Goodman said. For example, Goodman explained how the NSA targeted foreigners abroad, often in Latin America, as
part of the global Soviet threat. In doing so, the NSA would incidentally collect information about, say, an American traveling in El Salvador in
October 1981. One high-profile American who was traveling there at that time happened to be Sen. Christopher Dodd (D-CT), now the head of
the Motion Picture Association of America. “When I testified against Robert Gates [during confirmation hearings] in 1991, I brought that up,
seeing intercepts that referred to American congressmen [and senators],” Goodman continued. “When those details arrived [to the CIA] in a
brown manila envelope, they would scratch out the name, but you knew who was traveling at a particular time.” The NSA can't capture
everything that crosses the Internet—but doesn't need to. Binney is a more recent NSA veteran, retiring in 2001. He said that such practices
continued even during his tenure. “There was a procedure called a ‘series check’ as to what to do with the name, should you redact it, and that
depended on who it was and what they were doing and who you were going to tell,” he told Ars. “Those things were done because of incidental
mentioning of someone’s name; that was pretty much set up and there was a process to go through. We were well aware of it at the time. I
wasn’t in an area where I was too involved in any of that. But the techniques we used to fight the Soviet Union apply today.” Despite using the
same legal justification for this incidental collection today, the massive expansion of technological prowess since means that other intelligence
veterans like Goodman are more concerned than ever about surveillance overreach. “There would be no comparison to the capabilities of NSA
now compared to three decades ago,” he said. “It’s proliferating all the time with their technology as to what they’re able to do.” Ed Loomis, a
cryptologist at the NSA from 1964 to October 2001 who later became a whistleblower, told Ars that every year, everyone working in the signals
intelligence (SIGINT) division had to read EO 12333, FISA, and US SIGINT Directive 18 (July 1993) as a way to keep refreshed on the laws. Prior to
the September 11 attacks, Loomis said the NSA's internal policy was to stay much more in line with FISA and not collect information—incidental
or otherwise—on Americans. In fact, Loomis initially wanted to use that same provision of EO 12333 (Section 2.3 paragraph C) on a temporary
basis to conduct US-to-foreign and foreign-to-US collection. On September 14, 2001, he was brought into a meeting with NSA lawyers and other
lawyers who were never identified—he thinks that one of them may have been David Addington, then-Vice President Dick Cheney's lawyer who
crafted and controlled the legal documents drafted in the days after the attacks. "It was the NSA lawyers that responded to that suggestion,
and they said that that's not in conformance with FISA," Loomis told Ars. "I wasn't going to argue with them at that point, this was three days
after 9/11, the whole world is shocked. Here I'm trying to get them to use something, to use a prevision that Reagan had put in place for
extenuating circumstances, and they ignored it." Loomis, Binney, and others were pushing a surveillance program known as ThinThread, which
was discontinued weeks before the September 11 attacks. ThinThread supporters claim it had the ability to encrypt US persons' data so that
analysts would not know who it was about.
Prior to September 11, according to Loomis, the NSA's policy was that the FISA
law trumped EO 12333, whereas after, it essentially became the other way around. (This is likely what Snowden
was referring to in his internal query regarding the hierarchy of laws.) "If I found a loophole, I wanted to exploit the loophole, which is why I
wanted to use 12333 to do US-to-foreign and foreign-to-US. I wanted to push the lawyers as far as they would go," he continued. "My concern
was the security of US persons as well as the privacy of US persons. I thought I had a means of protecting their identities through the
encryption." Loomis said that in general he does not support domestic surveillance and that he's bothered by how information was shared with
the Drug Enforcement Agency, FBI, and perhaps even state police organizations. But, he said, "I trust NSA analysts because I've worked with
them for 30 some-odd years and I know that with the exception of those that got fired over the LOVEINT thing that they have their hearts in the
right areas. They would not intentionally go in and read US communications for jollies, but they are really dedicated to track foreign parties that
are intent on doing us harm. So I trust them. The problem is that when the raw data gets shared with law enforcement communities, I've seen
too many situations where they abuse it." And this is where all the NSA veterans Ars spoke with agreed. No matter Reagan’s intent when
expanding intelligence abilities, it’s simply a different era these days. New threats combined with better technologies have created an
unfortunate situation. “You have these technical capabilities, and they become more expansive, and you do them because you're capable,”
Goodman said. “And when you have a threat perception, you usually can justify or rationalize anything you want to do.” How the government
sought to justify blanket collection of Internet metadata. Thomas Drake, another well-known NSA veteran turned whistleblower, put it in
simpler terms. “12333 is now being used as the ‘legal justification.’" Drake spoke with Ars while on break from his job at the
Apple Store in Bethesda, Maryland, just outside Washington, DC. He's held this post since leaving the NSA in 2008 while facing 10 felony counts
of illegally taking classified information to his home, making false statements to investigators, and obstructing justice. In June 2011, after
famously refusing to take a plea deal, Drake finally gave in. He pled guilty to a single misdemeanor count of exceeding his authorized access to
government computers. “It’s not technically law,” he continued. “An
executive order is the equivalent of the law, we have a
constitutional process by which laws are created in this country. When the details started coming out about the mass
surveillance program, the government began to modify it under Bush, but they are using it as the final
backstop in their defense: ‘The Program.’ Don’t let 12333 distract you; there’s a much larger authority that they’re desperate to
protect." “The Program” that Drake is referring to is the President’s Surveillance Program (PSP), which Ars has reported
on previously. In the weeks after the first Snowden documents, a leaked classified draft report by the NSA’s Inspector General was published by
The Guardian and The Washington Post. It explored the PSP's beginnings and evolution. “The NSA has carte blanche on foreign intelligence,”
Drake said. “They’re
hiding behind 12333 to continue the vast collection of metadata and content. I’m just
telling you that what’s enabling that is there’s a rule, a thing to understand, the government will never
admit something that is still considered classified if it has not been fully disclosed in a way that they
have to acknowledge it. As long as there is reasonable doubt, they will hide behind what has been
disclosed. What has been disclosed is 12333.” The PSP's legal justification was provided by a still highly
classified document that President George W. Bush signed on October 4, 2001, entitled "Authorization
for specified electronic surveillance activities during a limited period to detect and prevent acts of
terrorism within the United States." The authorization has never been published, but the Office of the Director of National
Intelligence (ODNI) unexpectedly acknowledged it as part of a declassification review in December 2013. According to that NSA Inspector
General draft leaked in 2013, the NSA itself wasn’t even allowed to see the legal authorization for at least two years. On May 6, 2004, the
Office of Legal Counsel within the White House prepared a 74-page memo to the attorney general to
outline the legality of “The Program.” The publicly released version has substantial redactions. It does, however, contain this
noteworthy section: The President has inherent constitutional authority as Commander in Chief and sole
organ for the nation in foreign affairs to conduct warrantless surveillance of enemy forces for
intelligence purposes to detect and disrupt armed attacks on the United States. Congress does not have
the power to restrict the President's exercise of this authority. The memo also specifically mentions a legal analysis of
EO 12333 in a page that is almost entirely redacted. According to the December 2013 document from the ODNI, this program is now governed
under the FISA Amendments Act of 2008, which remains law. “That’s the problem,” Drake said. "That’s why you can’t have secret laws and
secret orders in a constitutional order; it’s anathema. All of this was avoidable. We had the technology and the laws in place. We didn’t have to
upend anything. No one has been charged for violating FISA. Those who have tried to expose it were charged with espionage,
like me. The government has unchained itself from the constitution.” Earlier this month, the Privacy and Civil Liberties Oversight Board said it
would re-examine EO 12333 after all the fanfare. But
based on history, overturning an executive order simply isn't a
common outcome. Unless done by a subsequent executive order, it's extremely difficult and has rarely
happened. So for now, American data remains as accessible as it's ever been.
Legislation concerning National Security is unlikely to be overturned
Newland, 4-15. Yale Law School, J.D. expected 2015. “Executive Orders in Court”, The Yale Law
Journal, Volume 124, number 6. http://www.yalelawjournal.org/note/executive-orders-in-court
The Supreme Court has also implied, in the context of a “zone of twilight” case, that
ex-post congressional approval may
prove easier to achieve “in the areas of foreign policy and national security.”125 With respect to instances of
purported congressional acquiescence in particular, this suggestion demands a closer look. National security is indeed an area in
which courts have long granted the President comparably greater latitude.126 But it is also an area in
which Congress legislates127 and about which legislators have access to comparatively less
information.128 Insofar as congressional access to relevant information is a precondition to a finding of acquiescence,129application of the
doctrine should raise more eyebrows—not fewer—when applied to national security-related executive orders.
Future Presidents
Obama XO is key to curb surveillance – 2016 main presidential candidates are
committed to strengthening mass surveillance
21st Century Wire 4/24 [21st Century Wire 15 is a political news website focusing on surveillance
and technology, “2016: Where the Presidential Candidates Stand on NSA Blanket Surveillance,” 4/24/15,
http://21stcenturywire.com/2015/04/24/2016-where-the-presidential-candidates-stand-on-nsablanket-surveillance/#, Accessed 6/26/15]
As the 2016 US Presidential election approaches, there will be a lot of talk from candidates, especially
those wearing the Republican badge, about how they ‘believe in America’, and ‘American values’ and
‘freedom’, and the rest of it. As old Patriot Act provisions begin to expire, we can see clearly how certain
political leaders are actively lobbying to extend draconian policies and other unconstitutional ‘laws’ –
still under the cult doctrine of “National Security”. In other words, what the government really means
here is that they cannot be secure as long as you are. From a constitutional point of view, one could
easily class these political leaders as the true enemies of freedom and liberty, and the slick, new
corporatized breed of 21st century neofascists who see the Bill of Rights as an obstacle to their end goal
of total social monitoring and control of the population. Big government likes and needs control, and as
both parties seem to favor big government (despite all their hollow cries to the contrary), party
affiliation doesn’t really matter that much on this issue. Jeb Bush (R), Marco Rubio (R), and Hillary
Clinton (D) (and all with the ideological backing of Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell), are just a
few of the candidates who appear committed to strengthening – not dismantling, the mass-surveillance
and police state. While most GOP Senators are remaining as vague as possible on the issue (no one
wants to be called ‘weak’ when it comes to national security), Jeb Bush is perhaps the most openly
despotic so far on the issue, saying that, “this is a hugely important program to use these technologies
to keep us safe”.
Main presidential candidates lack a strong stance on ending mass surveillance –
Obama XO key to ending NSA surveillance
Daileda 5/20 [Colin, interned at Foreign Policy magazine and The American Prospect, is a graduate
from Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism, “Where the 2016 presidential candidates
stand on the NSA,” Mashable, 5/20/15, http://mashable.com/2015/05/20/nsa-2016-candidates/,
Accessed 6/26/15]
New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie is taking the opposite approach. The governor blasted "civil liberties
extremists" for questioning the NSA's efforts. Christie says the agency needs to collect so many records
because any information could theoretically be relevant—at some point—to a terrorism investigation.
"All these fears are exaggerated and ridiculous," Christie said on Monday. Former Secretary of State
Hillary Clinton recently endorsed the USA Freedom Act. That bill seems aimed at rolling back the NSA's
surveillance power — but critics argue it may actually help legalize it. Clinton has rarely been forthright
in her stance on the NSA. As Conor Friedersdorf wrote in The Atlantic, she hasn't actually said much
beyond calling for a "national conversation" about the balance between privacy and security. Former
Florida Gov. Jeb Bush doesn't talk about his common ground President Barack Obama very often. But, as
CNN recently wrote, Bush believes that he and the president are on the same page when it comes to
NSA surveillance. "I would say the best part of the Obama administration would be his continuance of
the protections of the homeland using, you know, the big metadata programs, the NSA being
enhanced," Bush recently said on a radio program. Earlier this month, Florida Sen. Marco Rubio
defended the NSA's collection of bulk metadata in an op-ed for USA Today, saying such data collection
"remains essential to our security." Former Maryland Gov. Martin O'Malley has, like Clinton, said little
beyond his hopes that the country gets together and has a nice chat about privacy and security. As some
observers have pointed out, his lack of comment on NSA surveillance is especially notable — given that
he was governor of the state where the NSA is headquartered. Texas Sen. Ted Cruz is trying to carve out
a space for himself somewhere between Rand Paul and Marco Rubio. Which, for now, means he
supports the USA Freedom Act, just like Hillary does. The bill's detractors say it has so many loopholes
that it's practically meaningless. Governor [Scott] Walker, in his more visible moments, has seemed
reluctant to come out for or against the NSA's surveillance program as it currently stands, though a
representative recently told the Associated Press that Walker does in fact want the NSA to keep stocking
up on American phone records. In further proof that he's an NSA ally, Walker came out in 2013 with
opinions similar to that of Chris Christie, who is clearly in favor of keeping the NSA's mass surveillance
program up and running.
Jeb Bush supports surveillance and won’t win because of it – can’t repeal Obama XO
Horne 15 [Mark, political reporter for the Political Outcast, a news site, “Jeb Bush on NSA: I Don’t
Understand America,” Political Outcast, 2/21/15, http://politicaloutcast.com/2015/02/jeb-bush-on-nsai-dont-understand-america/#, Accessed 6/26/15]
What I don’t understand is why Jeb Bush thinks he is a viable candidate for the presidency. Seriously,
does anyone doubt that Bush would vote for Hillary Clinton rather than for a Tea Party presidential
candidate? The good news is that Jeb Bush was honest about his understanding of the American
populace and the U.S. Constitution. I appreciate his honesty. I don’t expect to hear much like it during
the campaign season. The issue was summed up in a pithy way at The Week: “Jeb Bush: ‘I don’t
understand’ why anyone is upset about the NSA.” I’m sure he doesn’t. Here’s the actual quotation that
originally came from the National Journal: [T]he NSA metadata program… contributes to awareness of
potential terrorist cells and interdiction efforts on a global scale. For the life of me, I don’t understand
[how] the debate has gotten off track, where we’re not understanding and protecting — we do protect
our civil liberties, but this is a hugely important program to use these technologies to keep us safe. First
of all, calling the NSA’s practices “the metadata program” is a whitewash. NSA agents have spied in all
sorts of ways, and have stalked “love interests.” They were never caught but voluntarily confessed
during an amnesty program. If they hadn’t confessed, none of us would know anything about their
activities. So, as far as anyone knows, that was only a small fraction of the illegal surveillance done on
the part of NSA employees. Additionally, the NSA works to deliberately degrade security standards. They
have infiltrated professional society to work secretly to make all of us more vulnerable to hackers. All of
this and more is ignored as we are treated to asinine deceptions about a single program that “keeps us
safe.” No, the NSA doesn’t keep us safe. Jeb Bush is taking sides against the American people.
Hillary Clinton and Marco Rubio support surveillance and won’t win because of it –
can’t repeal Obama XO
Heyes 15 [J.D., reporter for the Natural News (online news reporting site), “Marco Rubio loves the NSA
and domestic surveillance almost as much as Hillary Clinton does,” Natural News, 5/21/15,
http://www.naturalnews.com/049784_Hillary_Clinton_Marco_Rubio_NSA.html#, Accessed 6/28/15]
Various candidates have mostly expressed support for the NSA and the authority given to the agency by
the Bush and Obama administrations to conduct overly broad electronic surveillance and the collection
of Americans' phone metadata. Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Florida, has been viewed favorably by a number of
Republicans, but on the issue of widespread NSA spying, he is wrong. In a recent op-ed for USA Today,
he claimed that there has been "not a single documented case of abuse" resulting from the program
while arguing for it to continue. "The government is not listening to your phone calls or recording them
unless you are a terrorist or talking to a terrorist outside the United States," he writes. "In fact, this
program has been found legal and constitutional by at least 15 federal judges serving on the FISA Court
on 35 occasions," he continued. What he doesn't say is that the FISA court he cites meets in secret, only
hears cases presented by government lawyers representing U.S. spy agencies, is not staffed with federal
judges who have any particular background in intelligence, and almost never refuses a government
request for a warrant. Meanwhile, Hillary Clinton, who as a U.S. senator from New York voted with 97
other senators to approve the Patriot Act, recently dodged a question about whether she supports the
NSA's wide surveillance. During a recent Q & A, Clinton was asked by technology journalist Kara Swisher,
"Would you throttle back the NSA in the ways that President Obama has promised but that haven't
come to pass?" Her answer: Well, I think the NSA needs to be more transparent about what it is doing,
sharing with the American people, which it wasn't. And I think a lot of the reaction about the NSA,
people felt betrayed. They felt, wait, you didn't tell us you were doing this. And all of a sudden now,
we're reading about it on the front page... So when you say, "Would you throttle it back?" Well, the NSA
has to act lawfully. And we as a country have to decide what the rules are. And then we have to make it
absolutely clear that we're going to hold them accountable. Claiming ignorance is bogus. First, the NSA
can't be more transparent or share with the American people. It's a spy agency; it is designed to operate
in secret. If anyone should be "more transparent" about what the NSA is doing, it is the presidents and
politicians who task it. Second, "the country" did "decide what the rules are" long ago with the adoption
of the Constitution and its Fourth Amendment privacy guarantees and Fifth Amendment due process
requirements. The people, through their representatives, wrote and passed the Patriot Act. Provisions of
it might have been misinterpreted (intentionally or otherwise), and this can be blamed either on
Congress for failing to make such provisions clearer or the executive branch for misapplying its statutes.
Her Obama-like excuse that she didn't know about this until she read it in the newspaper doesn't wash
given her intimate knowledge of how government works and her position as an Obama Cabinet
secretary. Third, for those unfamiliar with executive branch policymaking, the NSA does not make up its
own rules as she suggests. The agency's director does what the president tells him to do. The president,
meanwhile, takes his authority to act in the national security interests of the country via his Article 2
powers as commander-in-chief and from statutory law (in this case, the Patriot Act). Then there is
Congress' oversight role, via the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence and the Senate
Select Committee on Intelligence. In short, the people in government who are now trying to convince
you they were in the dark have always known what the NSA was doing. The NSA was doing what it was
tasked to do; Rubio knows that, Clinton knows that, the congressional oversight committees know that,
Bush knew that and Obama knows that.
Hillary Clinton empirically supports surveillance and thus won’t win the 2016
presidential elections
Scheer 14 [Robert, editor in chief of Truthdig, has built a reputation for strong social and political
writing over his 30 years as a journalist, “Hillary Clinton Flaunts Her Surveillance State Baggage,” Truth
Dig, http://www.truthdig.com/staff/robert_scheer, Accessed 6/28/15]
Who is the true patriot, Hillary Clinton or Edward Snowden? The question comes up because Clinton has
gone all out in attacking Snowden as a means of burnishing her hawkish credentials, eliciting Glenn
Greenwald’s comment that she is “like a neocon, practically.” On Friday in England, Clinton boasted that
two years ago she had favored a proposal by a top British general to train 100,000 “moderate” rebels to
overthrow the Assad regime in Syria, but President Obama had turned her down. The American
Thatcher? In that same interview with The Guardian she also managed to get in yet another shot against
Snowden for taking refuge in Russia “apparently under Putin’s protection,” unless, she taunted, “he
wishes to return knowing he would be held accountable.” Accountable for telling the truth that Clinton
concealed during her tenure as secretary of state in the Obama administration? Did she approve of the
systematic spying on the American people as well as on others around the world, including the leaders
of Germany and Brazil, or did she first learn of all this from the Snowden revelations? On Saturday, a
carefully vetted four-month investigation by The Washington Post based on material made available by
Snowden revealed that while Clinton was in the government, the NSA had collected a vast trove of often
intimate Internet correspondence and photos of innocent Americans, including many users of Facebook,
Google, Yahoo, Microsoft and other leading Internet companies. The Post reported many files
“described as useless by the [NSA] analysts but nonetheless retained ... have a voyeuristic quality. They
tell stories of love and heartbreak, illicit sexual liaisons, mental-health crises, political and religious
conversions, financial anxieties and disappointed hopes.” The Post concluded after four months of
reviewing the documents and checking with government agencies that the material supplied by
Snowden was invaluable in evaluating the NSA program: “No government oversight body, including the
Justice Department, the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court, intelligence committees in Congress or
the President’s Privacy and Civil Oversight Board, has delved into a comparably large sample of what the
NSA actually collects—not only from its targets but from people who may cross a target’s path.” Did
Secretary of State Clinton know that such massive spying on the American people was going on and, if
not, why isn’t she grateful that Snowden helped to enlighten her? With her scurrilous attacks on
Snowden, Hillary Clinton is either a fool or a liar. Too harsh? Consider her continued insistence that
Snowden could have addressed his concerns over the massive NSA spying on Americans and the rest of
the world by going through normal channels instead of turning over the documents as he has entrusted
to respected news organizations that won the Pulitzer Prize for their efforts. In an April speech at the
University of Connecticut, Clinton said of Snowden: “When he absconded with all of that material, I was
puzzled, because we have all these protections for whistleblowers.” That is simply not true; Snowden as
a contractor to the government is not entitled to the federal protections that cover federal employees.
But even those federal employees have found scant protection under the Obama administration in their
attempt to blow the whistle on national security practices. As secretary of state in an administration
that has charged three times as many Americans with violations of the draconian Espionage Act as all
preceding presidents combined, Clinton must know that the Obama Justice Department has effectively
moved to silence whistle-blowers from stating their case in court. It even tried to prevent Thomas
Drake, an honored NSA employee charged under the Espionage Act, from using the words “whistle-
blower” or “First Amendment” in his defense. Drake had taken his concerns over the NSA’s violation of
the law to the Defense Department Inspector General and the intelligence committees of both houses
of Congress, but that did not stop the Obama administration, when Clinton was in the Cabinet, from
prosecuting him under the Espionage Act for talking to the press. The government’s case collapsed, with
a federal judge calling it “unconscionable” that Drake had been put through “four years of hell.” Hillary
Clinton knows just how selective the Obama administration has been in punishing whistle-blowers who
expose government violations of the Constitution. Obama made a political decision not to hold
accountable any of those involved in the torture program conducted during the Bush years but zealously
prosecuted CIA veteran John Kiriakou under the Espionage Act for publicly revealing and condemning
one of the most horrendous episodes in the nation’s history. Kiriakou, destroyed professionally and
financially for his efforts to hold the torturers accountable, plea bargained for the 30-month sentence he
is currently serving. Whistle-blower Chelsea (formerly Bradley) Manning was given a far harsher
sentence for revealing crimes in Iraq in a war that Hillary Clinton supported. If she asks for your vote,
you might remind her of Kiriakou’s words before being imprisoned: “The conviction of Bradley Manning
under the 1917 Espionage Act and the U.S. Justice Department’s decision to file espionage charges
against NSA whistle-blower Edward Snowden under the same act are yet further examples of the
Obama administration’s policy of using an iron fist against human rights and civil liberties activists.
President Obama has been unprecedented in his use of the Espionage Act to prosecute those whose
whistle-blowing he wants to curtail. “The purpose of an Espionage Act prosecution, however, is not to
punish a person spying for the enemy, selling secrets for personal gain, or trying to undermine our way
of life. It is to ruin the whistle-blower, personally, professionally and financially. It is meant to send a
message to anybody else considering speaking truth to power: Challenge us and we will destroy you.”
That is the message that Hillary Clinton seeks to send to Edward Snowden. Remind her of that when she
asks for your vote.
Hillary Clinton empirically proven to support mass surveillance
Mulkerin 15 [Joseph, reporter for the online news site TruthOut.org, “Five Reasons No Progressive
Should Support Hillary Clinton,” Truth Out, 2/13/15, http://www.truth-out.org/opinion/item/29052five-reasons-no-progressive-should-support-hillary-clinton, Accessed 6/28/15]
If you have been outraged by the Obama administration's abysmal record on civil liberties - from its
continuation of NSA spying, rampant secrecy and overzealous prosecution of whistleblowers - and
would like to see a change in the post 9/11 status quo, then Hillary Clinton is the last candidate you
should expect change from. In the Senate, she voted for the Patriot Act as well as its subsequent
reauthorization. In an appearance in April 2014 at the University of Connecticut, she defended NSA
surveillance and chastised whistleblower Edward Snowden, accusing him of supporting terrorism.
The December 2013 report by the President’s Review Group on Intelligence and Communications
Technologies stated “surveillance of American phone metadata has had no discernible impact on
preventing acts of terrorism.” The study concluded that the searches under two provisions, Section 215
of the Patriot Act and Section 702 of the 2008 FISA Amendments Act, that purportedly authorize NSA
bulk collection of U.S. citizens’ phone and Internet metadata were far less effective in detecting alleged
terrorists than the NSA and Obama administration had reported.
Executive Order Good
XOs are necessary presidential powers – checked by a laundry list of reasons
 Elections, the party system, the press, popular opinion, courts, a political
culture that is suspicious of tyranny
Posner 14 [Eric, he is a Kirkland and Ellis Distinguished Service Professor of Law at the University of
Chicago , “The Presidency Comes With Executive Power. Deal With It.,” 2/3/14,
http://www.newrepublic.com/article/116450/obama-use-executive-power-unexceptional, Accessed
6/29/15]
Be that as it may, it is worth understanding what is at stake in these debates. We
all learned in school that the founders
feared executive power and so gave policy-making authority to Congress. In fact, the founders feared a
too-powerful Congress as well, and they sought to create a strong executive. But the idea that Congress
makes law and the president executes it—and any deviation from this pattern is tyranny—is burned into
our political culture. This system of separation of powers was cumbersome from the start. The country did well in its first few decades
probably because state governments led the way, and state government structure was far less rigid than federal structure, which finally
collapsed with the Civil War. When the communications and transportation revolutions created national markets and new opportunities and
threats in foreign relations, it was finally clear that the federal separation-of-powers system could not manage policy at a national level. The
problem was that Congress was an enormously clumsy institution. Its numerous members fiercely advanced their deeply parochial interests.
Policies of great importance for one section of the country, or one group of people, could not be embodied in legislation unless logrolling could
be arranged, which was slow, difficult, and vulnerable to corruption. As
a public, deliberative body, Congress could not
react swiftly to changing events, nor act secretly when secrecy was called for. No one held a constitutional
convention to replace the eighteenth-century constitution with a twentieth-century one. Instead, political elites acting through
the party system adjusted the government structure on their own. Congress created gigantic regulatory
agencies and tasked the president to lead them. Congress also acquiesced as presidents asserted
authority over foreign policy. The Supreme Court initially balked at the legislative delegations but eventually was bullied into
submission; it hardly ever objected to the president’s dominance over foreign affairs. This was not a smooth process. The rise of executive
power sometimes hurt important interests and always rubbed against the republican sensibilities that Americans inherited from the founders.
From time to time, Congress reaped political benefits from thwarting the president. But today
Congress reacts rather than leads.
It investigates allegations of corruption in the executive branch. It holds hearings to torment executive officials. It
certainly doesn’t give the executive the budget he always wants, or pass every new law that he believes
that he needs. But existing laws and customs almost always give the president the power he needs to
govern. And when they don’t, Congress will sooner or later give him the power he wants. Witness the DoddFrank Act and the Affordable Care Act—two massive expansions of executive power. In monarchies, the official position was that the king made
policy but everyone understood that his ministers did. In our system, the official story is that Congress makes policy and the president
implements it—such is the inertia of history. But the reality is that the president both makes policy and implements it, subject to vague
parameters set down by Congress and to its carping from the sidelines. Presidents can defy the official story and assert the reality if they want.
That is what the George W. Bush administration did, to its eventual sorrow. In hindsight, the broad assertions of executive power by Bush
administration lawyers in signing statements, executive orders, and secret memos were naïve. They described, with only some exaggeration,
the actual workings of the government, but their account conflicted with the official narrative and thus played into the hands of critics, who
could invoke tyranny, dictatorship, and that old standby, the “imperial presidency.” Democratic presidents have been shrewder. Bill Clinton and
Obama have been just as muscular in their use of executive power as Ronald Reagan and Bush, but they resisted the temptation to brandish the
orb and scepter. Whereas Republican
presidents cite their constitutional powers as often as they can,
Democratic presidents avoid doing so except as a last resort, preferring instead to rely on statutes,
torturing them when necessary to extract the needed interpretation. Thus did Obama’s lawyers claim
that the military intervention in Libya did not violate the War Powers Act because the U.S. bombing
campaign did not amount to “hostilities” (the word in the statute). A more honest legal theory—one that does not
require such a strained interpretation of a word—is that the War Powers Act infringes on the president’s military powers, but a theory like that
would have provoked howls of protest. In most cases, lawyers do not need to resort to such measures because Congress has already granted
authority. The president’s power to raise the minimum wage comes from the Federal Property and Administrative Services Act of 1949, which,
in typically broad language, permits the president to set contract terms with federal contractors so as to promote “efficiency.” Far
from
being a bold assertion of executive power, this is the type of humdrum presidential action that takes
place every day. Congress gave the president the power to determine contract terms because Congress
did not want to—practically speaking could not—negotiate those terms itself every time the U.S.
government entered a contract. This principle explains why Congress gives the executive branch
enormous discretion to determine health, education, environmental, and financial policy. Congress directed the financial
regulators to implement the Volcker Rule, but it would be entirely up to those regulators to make the rule meaningful or toothless. Nor can
Congress block Obama’s decision to effectively implement the Dream Act—which was not passed by Congress—by not enforcing immigration
laws against those who would have benefited from the act. Meanwhile, the
founders’ anxieties about executive tyranny
have proven erroneous. The president is kept in check by elections, the party system, the press, popular
opinion, courts, a political culture that is deeply suspicious of his motives, term limits, and the sheer
vastness of the bureaucracy which he can only barely control. He does not always do the right thing, of course, but
presidents generally govern from the middle of the political spectrum. Obama’s assertion of unilateral executive authority is
just routine stuff. He follows in the footsteps of his predecessors on a path set out by Congress. And well
should he. If you want a functioning government—one that protects citizens from criminals, terrorists,
the climatic effects of greenhouse gas emissions, poor health, financial manias, and the like—then you
want a government led by the president.
Executive Orders key for cyber security and encourages collaboration with the private
sector-congress can’t keep up with evolving technology.
Zezima 2/12/15, “Obama signs executive order on sharing cybersecurity threat information”,
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/post-politics/wp/2015/02/12/obama-to-sign-executive-orderon-cybersecurity-threats/, Katie Zezima is a journalist for the Washington Post
PALO ALTO, Calif. – President Obama signed an executive order Friday that urges companies to share
cybersecurity-threat information with one another and the federal government. Obama signed the
order, which is advisory in nature, at the first White House summit on Cybersecurity and Consumer
Protection at Stanford University here. The summit, which focused on public-private partnerships and
consumer protection, is part of a recent White House push to focus on cybersecurity. Obama said the
prospect of cyberattacks are one of the nation's most pressing national security, economic and safety
issues. The specter of a cyberattack crippling the nation's air traffic control system or a city with a
blackout is real, and hacks such as the one on Sony Pictures last year are "hurting America's companies
and costing American jobs." He also said they are a threat to the security and well-being of children who
are online. "It’s one of the great paradoxes of our time that the very technologies that empower us to
do great good can also be used to undermine us and inflict great harm," Obama said before a cheering,
friendly audience here at Stanford's Memorial Auditorium. The order the president signed here
encourages the development of central clearinghouses for companies and the government to share
data and creation of centers where data can be shared across specific geographic regions. Obama
pushed for collaboration between the public and private sectors. "There’s only one way to defend
America from these cyber threats, and that is through government and industry working together,
sharing appropriate information as true partners," he said. MasterCard chief executive Ajay Banga
praised Obama’s executive action but said that eventually “we need a real legislative solution. An
executive action can only take you this far.” “Rather than fight this in individualized groups, there’s
some merit in joining hands and doing it together,” Banga said. Obama's order is part of a broader
White House effort to beef up the nation's cybersecurity infrastructure, something the administration
wants to push on Capitol Hill. Last month Obama proposed legislation that would shield companies from
lawsuits for sharing threat data with the government. Last month he proposed legislation that would
shield companies from lawsuits for sharing threat data with the government. Obama said shortly after
he took office he realized that cybersecurity is "one of the most serious economic national security
challenges that we face as a nation" and made confronting them a priority. Obama has signed other
executive orders, including one that calls for the creation of voluntary standards to bolster the security
of computer networks in critical industries and a framework for cybersecurity and another last year to
protect consumers from identity theft. So far nothing has been able to stem the tide of attacks such as
the one against Sony or others against retailers including Home Depot. Both privacy groups and Silicon
Valley companies have said they would oppose the legislation Obama proposed last month unless
reforms are first made to the NSA's surveillance program. In an interview with Re/Code, Obama
acknowledged tensions with Silicon Valley after the NSA disclosures. "The Snowden disclosures ... were
really harmful in terms of the trust between the government and many of these companies, in part
because it had an impact on their bottom lines," Obama said. The president also said that there should
be a "public conversation" about encryption and said he likely leans more toward strong data encryption
than law enforcement, but is sympathetic to them because of the pressure they are under to keep
people safe. U.S. government surveillance activities have been seen as a potential liability for tech
companies that operate globally. “Seventy to 80 percent of the user bases for a lot of these companies
are the foreigners who get very little protection under our system,” explained Julian Sanchez, a senior
fellow focused on technology and civil liberties at the Cato Institute. “If they don’t display some push
back, they know they won’t do very well with those markets.” In December of 2013, major tech
companies including Apple, Google, Twitter, Facebook, Microsoft and Yahoo joined together in the
Reform Government Surveillance coalition, urging the President and Congress to impose restrictions and
oversight measures on U.S. spying programs. The President agreed in principle to some limits on spying
programs, including the bulk collection of domestic phone records, during a speech last year. But
progress on reforms has been too slow for some privacy advocates, as the administration urged for
legislative action that has yet to succeed. Tech companies, meanwhile, have taken some measures into
their own hands by strengthening and expanding their deployment of encryption to secure users' online
activities – setting up a conflict between the companies and law enforcement who warn that such
actions may make it harder for them to pursue crime and terrorism which increasingly includes a digital
component. “I think it’s fair to say that changes on the technology front have outpaced governmental
and legislative efforts,” said Andrew Crocker, a legal fellow at civil liberties group the Electronic Frontier
Foundation. Obama addressed privacy concerns in his speech, calling himself someone who "deeply
values his privacy and his family's privacy - although I chose the wrong job for that." He described a
difficult balancing act the government must go through to both protect its citizens and ensure their
privacy. "I have to tell you that grappling with how government protects the American people from
adverse events while, at the same time, making sure that government itself is not abusing its capabilities
is hard," he said. "The cyber world is sort of the wild, wild West. And to some degree, we're asked to be
the sheriff." At the same time, people "rightly ask" what safeguards they have for their privacy, which is
difficult because technology often outpaces rules that have been put in place. The government has to be
"constantly self-critical and we have to be able to have an open debate about it," he said. The CEOs of
companies including Google and Facebook did not attend the summit, though Apple CEO Tim Cook did.
Obama had lunch with a number of business leaders, including Cook, American Express CEO Kenneth
Chenault and Renee James, president of Intel. Speaker Boehner's office was critical of Obama's order.
"Unilateral, top-down solutions will not solve America’s cyber problems," said Boehner spokesperson
Cory Fritz. "The President should work with Republicans to enact the types of common-sense measures
that passed the House twice in recent years with strong, bipartisan majorities but stalled in the
Democratic-controlled Senate." The order would put the Department of Homeland Security in charge of
approving and making sure companies can access the information sharing programs and analyses of
cybersecurity threats. It will also allow the National Cybersecurity and Communications Information
Center to enter into agreements with the organizations, which have yet to be developed. Companies
including the Cyber Threat Alliance and Entertainment Software Association will announce they will
build programs using the parameters of the executive order. A number of companies announced Friday
that they are incorporating the administration's cybersecurity framework, which was created after a
2013 executive order, into their companies. The framework helps businesses decide how to use
cybersecurity investments, ways to implement cybersecurity for new companies and measure their
programs against others. Intel, Apple and Bank of America use framework and will announce that they
will require all vendors to use it. Both QVC and Walgreens will say they will employ the framework in
their risk management practices, while Kaiser Permanente will commit to using it as well. Businesses will
also announce secure payment programs at the conference. MasterCard will put more than $20 million
into new cybersecurity initiatives, Visa will commit to tokenizing credit cards and Square, along with the
Small Business Administration, will work with small businesses to encourage them to use secure
payment technologies. Companies will also announce that they are moving toward multi-factor
authentication, which uses a number of steps to ensure that the person paying with a credit card is the
authorized user. The event will also include a push for greater transparency when it comes to credit
scores. Nationstar, working with FICO, will announce it will make credit scores available to their
customers for free by the end of the year
Criticism of XO is overblown—presidential powers are a fundamental aspect of
government function
Hudak 14 “Obama's Executive Orders; A Reality Check”,
http://www.brookings.edu/blogs/fixgov/posts/2014/01/30-state-of-the-union-obama-executive-ordershudak, John Hudak is a fellow in Governance Studies and Managing Editor of the FixGov blog. His
research examines questions of presidential power in the contexts of administration, personnel, and
public policy. Additionally, he focuses on campaigns and elections, bureaucratic process and legislativeexecutive interaction. He is the author of the new book, Presidential Pork.
President Obama’s State of the Union Address has drawn greater attention to executive orders.
Executive orders are a common presidential tool that gives guidance to the executive branch on how to
“faithfully execute the laws” or rely on discretion within existing law to affect policy. Republican
opposition has surrounded the president’s declaration that he will begin relying on executive orders to
move in areas where Congress has stalled. Claims of tyranny, overstepping authority, and unlawfulness
have been batted around by frustrated Republicans. However over the years, executive orders have
often been criticized by Congress, particularly members of the party opposite the president. Executive
orders ruffle feathers over policy, increase partisanship, and provoke separation of powers issues, but in
reality presidents have substantial authority to issue such orders. When the controversy over an issue
gets intense it can end up in the Courts but this is rare. Courts have largely upheld the power, and in
fact, Congress sometimes adopts the policy through legislation (see the creation of the Peace Corps, for
example). So, what about the criticisms of Obama abusing the powers of his office or using executive
orders in an unprecedented way? It’s largely grandstanding from the right. The graphic below shows
the frequency with which presidents have issued executive orders. Republicans are right: President
Obama is absolutely unique…in how infrequently he issues them! The last president to issue executive
orders at such a slow rate was Grover Cleveland who served from 1885-1889 & 1893-1897. What’s
more, Republican complaints about President Obama’s use of such powers is a bit ironic, given
historically Republican presidents use executive orders more frequently. Executive orders are fairly
common. Their use has dropped over the 20th century. So far Obama has used executive orders less
than other contemporary presidents. If a president’s executive orders overstep their authority or
improperly interpret or seek to enforce the law, there are means of relief. Congress can re-legislate the
issue or as my colleague Elaine Kamarck noted in a post a few days ago, courts can throw them out.
Criticism of president-as-dictator are always overblown, as the other branches of government serve as
checks on presidential power, and those checks extend to executive orders. However, while the above
chart is useful and informative, it is important to note a few items that it does not tell us—items that
can inform the discussion. First, not all executive orders are created equal. Some are quite forceful,
making dramatic changes to policy. Others are more routine, housekeeping issues. To say that one
president issued more executive orders than another, tells us little about the scope of those orders or
the impact they have on policy. Second, executive orders are just one type of executive power and do
not necessarily reflect the true might of the president. Presidents can issue signing statements,
presidential memoranda, presidential proclamations, engage in rulemaking (regulatory) authority,
reassign appointees, influence budgeting decisions, and use a host of other means of influencing
outcomes. There is much misinformation about President Obama’s use of executive orders. The above
chart offers hard data that provide key insight into the realities of President Obama’s behaviors. Like
many criticisms of many presidents, policy disagreements stemming from presidential actions do not
automatically make those actions illegal. Executive orders are no different. They are not an abuse of
power, but a necessary presidential power critical to the function of government.
Presidential Powers key to solve social issues-current restrictions on powers from
outdated political climate
Howell 14 “A Question of Power: The Robust Presidency,”
<http://www.legion.org/magazine/222396/question-power-robust-presidency> , William Howell is the
Sydney Stein Professor in American Politics at the University of Chicago. He is the author, most recently,
of “Thinking About the Presidency: The Primacy of Power” (Princeton University Press) and co-author
with Saul Jackman and Jon Rogowski of “The Wartime President: Executive Influence and the
Nationalizing Politics of Threat” (University of Chicago Press).
The second reason I am not especially keen on reducing the president’s power concerns the alternatives
on offer. If not the president, then which branch of government can we reliably turn to address the
kinds of deep, trenchant, complex national problems we face? With Congress mired in gridlock and the
courts institutionally incapable of engaging the minutiae of policy debates, presidents alone offer the
kind of leadership needed to address the challenges of climate change, the debt, entitlement reform,
and on and on. As the Progressives recognized a century ago, the institutional capacity of the
government to solve social problems critically depends on a robust American presidency. In debates
about presidential power, originalist understandings of the Constitution have their place. But so do
pragmatic concerns about the capacity of our government to meet contemporary challenges. For the
national perspective he offers, the longer time horizon he maintains, and the unique capacity to act with
“energy and dispatch,” as Alexander Hamilton recognized so long ago, we ought not to shout “tyranny”
every time a president uses his powers toward ends we may not share. Presidents who behave this
way are not tyrants. Far from it. Rather, in line with their predecessors, they are doing their best in an
impossible situation – expected at once to solve massive and complex problems while brandishing
constitutional powers fashioned in a bygone era of agrarian farmers, limited government and
international isolationism.
Prez Power Good
Unilater action solves
Unilateral executive action expands presidential power
Kenneth Mayer 2001, professor of political science at the University of Wisconsin, “With the Stroke of
a Pen.” 2001, pg. 56
Much of the time, analyses of the president’s constitutional power rely on historical evidence of how
individual presidents viewed that power and how they put it into practice. Practice matters because of
the importance of precedent to the expansion of presidential power, because the parameters of
presidential authority have often been shaped by case-by-case judicial review, and because presidents
have used their authority (often through executive orders_) in order to shape institutional patterns and
processes that in turn enhance their ability to exercise administrative control. Each time a president
relies on executive prerogative to take some type of action, it makes it easier for a future president to
take the same (or similar) action. “The boundaries between the three branches of government
are…strongly affected of custom or acquiescence. When one branch engages in a certain practice and
the other branches acquiesce, the practice gains legitimacy and can fix the meaning of the Constitution.
Executive Powers Good- Key to solving laundry list of problems in the face of stubborn
congress- We have a moral obligation to act
Editors of The Nation Jan. 23 2013, “ Yes, He Can: Twenty Ways Obama Can Use Executive Power to
Push a Progressive Agenda From Cuba to climate change to criminal justice, progressives must push the
president to act—and forge a better future” http://www.thenation.com/article/172402/yes-he-cantwenty-ways-obama-can-use-executive-power-push-progressive-agenda?page=0,1> The Nation is a
liberal investigative political magazine
it is also obvious that our nation is facing multiple crises, many of which will not wait until an
obstinate GOP House has evolved enough to act. Wherever possible, the president should act on his
own to implement good public policies that can break the gridlock and ease at least some of our most
serious crises, such as the heating of the earth’s atmosphere and the dangerous storms like Hurricane
Sandy that result; our overextended and bloated military empire; and the corporate corruption of our
political system, among many others. We believe that aggressive and progressive executive action will
bring political benefits as well, because the public is tired of waiting for results from Washington. And
even if it doesn’t, taking action is still the right thing to do—for the planet, for the jobless and the
homeless, for the loyal voters who stood in long lines to make history with Barack Obama twice.
Besides, what’s a second term for if you can’t use your presidential power for the good of the many?
What follows is a list of ways that Obama can act to achieve progressive goals in his second term. Some,
like taking nuclear weapons off “hair-trigger alert” status, are long overdue—a relic of another age that
nonetheless bears correcting.
Solves Pakistan/China/India
Executive power key to prevent nuclear war– weak president creates conflict in indoPakistan
Ben Coes, 9/30/11 former speechwriter in the George H.W. Bush administration, managed Mitt
Romney’s successful campaign for Massachusetts Governor in 2002 & author “The disease of a weak
president”, The Daily Caller, http://dailycaller.com/2011/09/30/the-disease-of-a-weak-president/
The disease of a weak president usually begins with the Achilles’ heel all politicians are born with — the
desire to be popular. It leads to pandering to different audiences, people and countries and creates a
sloppy, incoherent set of policies. Ironically, it ultimately results in that very politician losing the trust
and respect of friends and foes alike. In the case of Israel, those of us who are strong supporters can at
least take comfort in the knowledge that Tel Aviv will do whatever is necessary to protect itself from
potential threats from its unfriendly neighbors. While it would be preferable for the Israelis to be able to
count on the United States, in both word and deed, the fact is right now they stand alone. Obama and
his foreign policy team have undercut the Israelis in a multitude of ways. Despite this, I wouldn’t bet
against the soldiers of Shin Bet, Shayetet 13 and the Israeli Defense Forces. But Obama’s weakness could
— in other places — have implications far, far worse than anything that might ultimately occur in Israel.
The triangular plot of land that connects Pakistan, India and China is held together with much more
fragility and is built upon a truly foreboding foundation of religious hatreds, radicalism, resource envy
and nuclear weapons. If you can only worry about preventing one foreign policy disaster, worry about
this one. Here are a few unsettling facts to think about: First, Pakistan and India have fought three wars
since the British de-colonized and left the region in 1947. All three wars occurred before the two
countries had nuclear weapons. Both countries now possess hundreds of nuclear weapons, enough to
wipe each other off the map many times over. Second, Pakistan is 97% Muslim. It is a question of when
— not if — Pakistan elects a radical Islamist in the mold of Ayatollah Khomeini as its president. Make no
mistake, it will happen, and when it does the world will have a far greater concern than Ali Khamenei or
Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and a single nuclear device. Third, China sits at the northern border of both
India and Pakistan. China is strategically aligned with Pakistan. Most concerning, China covets India’s
natural resources. Over the years, it has slowly inched its way into the northern tier of India-controlled
Kashmir Territory, appropriating land and resources and drawing little notice from the outside world. In
my book, Coup D’Etat, I consider this tinderbox of colliding forces in Pakistan, India and China as a
thriller writer. But thriller writers have the luxury of solving problems by imagining solutions on the
page. In my book, when Pakistan elects a radical Islamist who then starts a war with India and
introduces nuclear weapons to the theater, America steps in and removes the Pakistani leader through a
coup d’état. I wish it was that simple. The more complicated and difficult truth is that we, as Americans,
must take sides. We must be willing to be unpopular in certain places. Most important, we must be
ready and willing to threaten our military might on behalf of our allies. And our allies are Israel and
India. There are many threats out there — Islamic radicalism, Chinese technology espionage, global debt
and half a dozen other things that smarter people than me are no doubt worrying about. But the single
greatest threat to America is none of these. The single greatest threat facing America and our allies is a
weak U.S. president. It doesn’t have to be this way. President Obama could — if he chose — develop a
backbone and lead. Alternatively, America could elect a new president. It has to be one or the other. The
status quo is simply not an option.
Free Trade
President key to promotion of global free trade due to setting the agenda
James Jay Carafano, 3-14-2015 a leading expert in national security and foreign policy challenges, is
The Heritage Foundation’s Vice President, Foreign and Defense Policy Studies, E. W. Richardson Fellow,
and Director of the Kathryn and Shelby Cullom Davis Institute for International Studies. "What the Next
President Can Do in the Middle East," Daily Signal, http://dailysignal.com/2015/03/14/what-the-nextpresident-can-do-to-clean-up-obamas-middle-east-mess/
It is wrong to think of the countries of the region as mere pawns on global chessboard. Yes, the Great
Game goes on. But individual states matter. The problem for the region is that many states are not very
good. They are characterized by high levels of corruption, poor governance, weak rule of law, and poor
human rights records. Obama’s problem is he never seriously tried to do much about any of that. The
President’s conference on violent extremism and pronouncements from administration officials that
battling terrorism was all about “jobs” epitomized Washington’s fecklessness. This White House has
done next to nothing to help address the underlying structural weaknesses of many of the strategically
important states in this part of the world. Tunisia is a case in point. It is the birthplace of the Arab Spring.
The people there have quelled the threat of an Islamist takeover, and both civil society and the
government have committed to reforms that advance economic freedom. Tunisia presented the United
States with a long list of how America could help advance those reforms. What it got from the White
House was little more than a photo-op. No nation needs a dose of economic freedom more than Egypt.
Of the 15 countries in the region, this important regional power ranks a lowly 12th according to the
latest Index of Economic Freedom published by The Heritage Foundation and The Wall Street Journal.
Cairo needs partners to advance free market initiatives, yet Obama continues to treat the nation’s
leaders as little better than “untouchables.” Delivering an agenda for building economic freedom and
good governance in the region ought to be a high priority for the next president. This will be a real
challenge as most of the traditional “tools of development” have a much better record at transferring
U.S. tax dollars to others rather than delivering real results. In the end, U.S. government dollars are
probably the least effective means of improving lives throughout the region. Promoting free trade and
governance reforms that fight corruption, protect property rights, and uphold the rule of law will deliver
much better results.
Aff
No Solvency
General
AT: Rand Paul; White House themselves acknowledge Obama doesn’t have power to
XO the Freedom Act
Chambers 2015
FRANCESCA CHAMBERS FOR DAILYMAIL.COM. “'What's he waiting for?': Rand Paul says Obama should
end the NSA's mass surveillance program through an executive order - but the White House says that's
not possible”. PUBLISHED: 13:23 EST, 26 May 2015 | UPDATED: 14:06 EST, 27 May 2015. She has been
featured as a speaker at Leadership Institute, Cato Institute, Heritage Foundation, Americans for
Prosperity's annual "Defending the American Dream Summit" and "Right Online" conference, the State
Policy Network's annual meeting, the Western Conservative Summit and Bridging the Gap Summits, and
CPAC. Francesca is a regular guest on PBS' "To the Contrary," the "Big Picture" with Thom Hartmann on
Russia Today and conservative radio program "The Michael Koolidge Show." She has also appeared on
ABC's "Nightline", PBS' 'NewsHour,' MSNBC, CNN, TheBlazeTV, Huffpost Live and had radio segments on
Take Action News with David Shuster and NPR. http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article3097634/What-s-waiting-Rand-Paul-says-Obama-end-NSA-s-mass-surveillance-program-executiveorder-s-against-it.html
If lawmakers don't pass the president's preferred reforms to the Patriot Act, 'critical' national security
functions will expire at the end of the week, the White House says. 'There is no Plan B,' President Barack
Obama's spokesman, Josh Earnest, said Friday and reaffirmed today. But Republican Senator Rand Paul
says there's another option: an executive order. 'Here’s the thing about the president: He’s
disingenuous about this.The president started this program through executive order — he could end it
anytime,' Paul said during an appearance today on CBS This Morning. If the president does not believe
the NSA's bulk data collection program should continue in its current form, Paul said, according to the
Washington Times, 'Why doesn’t he stop it? What’s he waiting for?' Paul, paraphrasing the president,
said that Obama has approached reforms to the program by saying, 'Oh, Congress can stop it.’ 'He
started it on his own. He should stop it,' the Republican presidential candidate charged, 'and I’ve asked
the president repeatedly, "Stop the program." ' Earnest said this afternoon, however, that Obama does
not have the ability to alter the program with a swish of his pen. 'The authorities that are used by our
national security professionals to keep us safe are authorities that were given to those national security
professionals by the Congress and those authorities can only be renewed by the United States Congress
through an act of Congress,' he said. Earnest said he'd not yet listened to Paul's interview, but disputed
his claim that the president could address the surveillance program through an executive order. 'If the
Senate doesn't act, then there is no way to prevent those authorities from expiring,' he said. Asked by
the Daily Mail to point to the executive order that Senator Paul was referring to during is TV appearance
earlier today, which he also mentioned on a separate occasion last week in an overnight Senate speech,
his office said that it was secret, just like the program was until Edward Snowden blew the whistle on it
two years ago. The program was begun without the knowledge of Congress, his office pointed out, and a
court ruled recently that the Patriot Act did not authorize its creation. That is why Paul is under the
impression that the president could unilaterally put a stop to it as the highest ranking member of the
executive branch. The White House doesn't want to completely shackle the NSA, however. It wants
continue the data collection program - but it wants those records to be stored by phone companies, not
the NSA. The NSA would have to obtain a warrant in order to access those records from a secret court
under the rules stipulated by reform legislation. Earnest warned today that U.S. citizens would certainly
be at risk if the Senate does not pass the bipartisan legislation addressing the section of the Patriot Act
that the NSA derives the relevant spying powers from if they expire on May 31. 'The fact is,' he said, 'I'm
not aware of any sort of plan B that exists or that is currently being contemplated. 'It would certainly put
at grave risk these programs and could risk a lapse in some of these important national security
capabilities,' he said. The Obama administration official directed reporters to the NSA and the Justice
Department with additional questions about possible contingency plans that federal law enforcement
officials may be crafting in case Section 215 of the Patriot Act does expire and the direct role that their
spying abilities play in keeping the nation safe. The NSA did not respond to Daily Mail Online's request
for comment. Both government agencies have already begun disassembling their relevant operations,
the White House says. 'The kinds of programs that we’re talking about here are not the kinds of
programs that can be started and stopped with the flip of a switch. It requires time,' Earnest explained
Friday. The surveillance agency began unwinding the program over the weekend to make sure it is in
compliance with the sunset by June 1. 'The programs will lapse,' Earnest said today, if Congress does not
act. He last week accused members of the Senate of playing 'chicken' with national security. 'And to play
chicken' with national security, he said, 'is grossly irresponsible.' The Senate recessed on Saturday
morning without passing legislation in any form pertaining to provisions of the Patriot Act that will soon
sunset.
Legislation is required to change surveillance laws – Even Obama agrees
Ken Dilanian and Christi Parsons, Reporters for the LATimes. 1-15-2014, "Obama to seek only modest
reforms in government surveillance," latimes, http://articles.latimes.com/2014/jan/15/nation/la-na-nsaobama-20140116
In a widely anticipated speech on Friday, Obama will seek to boost public confidence in the
government's ability to safeguard privacy even as he leaves most current surveillance programs intact
with only modest modifications. He thus is expected to say that although the NSA's bulk collection of
domestic telephone toll records can't continue in its present form, he will not propose requiring
telephone companies or another entity to maintain long-term storage of the so-called metadata —
numbers called but not the conversations — to replace the NSA database, as a presidential task force
has recommended. He doesn't want to be "hasty" about radically revising a program that top
intelligence officials consider valuable, said one advisor. Moreover, legislation almost certainly would be
required to revamp the current system, which Congress previously approved. "He will say, 'The program
has to change…. Over to you, Congress,'" said a senior intelligence official who has been briefed on the
decisions and who insisted on anonymity because he was not authorized to discuss the president's
deliberations. Lawmakers are divided on whether or how to change the NSA program, making any major
adjustments unlikely in the short term. But the provision in the law that authorizes the program, Section
215 of the Patriot Act, is up for renewal in 2015, and that could provide a platform for review. Obama's
posture is likely to deeply disappoint privacy activists and their allies in Congress who argue that the
bulk collection program violates civil liberties and contains too much private data on Americans. But
Obama has never felt that way, and supported the program both as a senator and as president.
PPD-28 empirically shows Obama issues executive policies to increase privacy
protection and limit surveillance
Edgar 15 [Timothy, visiting fellow at the Watson Institute at Brown University, first Director for Privacy
and Civil Liberties in the White House National Security Staff from 2009–10, and a civil liberties official
for the Office of the Director of National Intelligence from 2006–09, “The Good News About Spying,”
Foreign Affairs, 4/13/15, https://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/united-states/2015-04-13/good-newsabout-spying, Accessed 6/29/15]
The transparency reforms may seem trivial to some. From the perspective of an intelligence community
steeped in the need to protect sources and methods, however, they are deeply unsettling. At a Brown
University forum, ODNI Civil Liberties Protection Officer Alexander Joel said, “The intelligence
community is not designed and built for transparency. Our culture is around finding our adversaries’
secrets and keeping our own secrets secret.” Accordingly, until only a few years ago, the intelligence
community resisted making even the most basic information public. The number of FISA court opinions
released to the public between 1978 and 2013 can be counted on one hand. Beyond more transparency,
Obama has also changed the rules for surveillance of foreigners. Until last year, privacy rules applied
only to “U.S. persons.” But in January 2014, Obama issued Presidential Policy Directive 28 (PPD-28),
ordering intelligence agencies to write detailed rules assuring that privacy protections would apply
regardless of nationality. These rules, which came out in January 2015, mark the first set of guidelines
for intelligence agencies ordered by a U.S. president—or any world leader—that explicitly protect
foreign citizens’ personal information in the course of intelligence operations. Under the directive, the
NSA can keep personal information in its databases for no more than five years. It must delete personal
information from the intelligence reports it provides its customers unless that person’s identity is
necessary to understand foreign intelligence—a basic rule once reserved only for Americans. The new
rules also include restrictions on bulk collection of signals intelligence worldwide—the practice critics
call “mass surveillance.” The NSA’s bulk collection programs may no longer be used for uncovering all
types of diplomatic secrets, but will now be limited to six specific categories of serious national security
threats. Finally, agencies are no longer allowed simply to “collect it all.” Under PPD-28, the NSA and
other agencies may collect signals intelligence only after weighing the benefits against the risks to
privacy or civil liberties, and they must now consider the privacy of everyone, not just U.S. citizens. This
is the first time any U.S. government official will be able to cite a written presidential directive to object
to an intelligence program on the basis that the intelligence it produces is not worth the costs to privacy
of innocent foreign citizens.
Obama XO can’t stop the NSA’s bulk surveillance – continuation of the program has
congressional support
Bhalla 13 [Asheesh, policy adviser at the World Bank, U.S. Department of the Treasury, U.S.
Department of Health and Human Services, and National Archives and Records Administration, “NSA
Surveillance Program: Obama Can't Stop What Bush and Congress Started,” Policy.Mic, 5/20/15,
http://mic.com/articles/49125/nsa-surveillance-program-obama-can-t-stop-what-bush-and-congressstarted, Accessed 6/29/15]
Last week the debate about whether President
Obama is worse at protecting civil liberties than President Bush grew
Obama administration has prosecuted more sources of unauthorized disclosures of
classified information than any prior administration, continued the National Security Agency surveillance
more heated. The
program, and has ordered the execution of an American citizen by a drone strike without legal due process. But before you judge
whether President Obama and his administration is better or worse at protecting civil liberties than prior
administrations we need to understand the scope of the president's power to control elements of the federal
government and change the policies of federal agencies. The management of the federal government is a
task managed by numerous individuals, not just the president. The White House's ability to bring about meaningful
reform is directly related to the president's ability to manage such a bureaucracy. The U.S. federal government is a bureaucracy of epic
proportions. The Office of Personnel Management (OPM) does not keep records of the number of contractors (which in itself shows a true lack
of accountability and government oversight). Nevertheless, Professor Paul Light of New York University compiled useful estimates using the
federal government’s procurement database. When he added up all the numbers, he found that the true size of the federal government in
2005 was about 14.6 million people: 1.9 million civil servants, 770,000 postal workers, 1.44 million military personnel, 7.6 million contractors,
and 2.9 million grantees. Then you have about 6,000 political appointees, or “the administration.” Political
appointees take the top
management and policy jobs throughout the government, and they hold significant influence over the policies and
operations of departments and agencies. Yet the policies and procedures of these agencies are restricted by federal
statutes that constrain political appointees' power to institute meaningful reform unless new rules are
legislated from Congress. A new president takes over an establishment of over 14 million people. Many civil servants have had careers
in government spanning decades and administrations from both parties. Executive orders provide the president the ability
to reform policies and procedures of federal agencies where these orders do not conflict with federal
statutes or the Constitution. Contrary to the assertion of former presidential hopeful Governor Mitt Romney, he would not have
been able to overturn the Affordable Care Act with a simple executive order. President Obama is not simply able to stop the
operation of congressionally legislated and funded programs that conduct warrantless wiretapping
under the PATRIOT Act. And in a move out of step with his liberal constitutional-scholar background, he has actually overseen
the expansion of government acts that violate civil liberties by authorizing a drone strike on an American
citizen without a modicum of due process. The attorney general claims that executive due process was applied in the decision,
but due process by any legitimate legal definition includes the right to notice and the opportunity to be heard underscored by the principle of
“innocent until proven guilty.” Anwar Al-Awlaki, no matter how deplorable his actions, was an American citizen with the right to notice and the
opportunity to be heard in court before his government ordered his execution. Reports indicate that in 2006 he was arrested in Yemen and
detained until December 2007, giving doubt to the claim that he could not have been captured and detained. President Obama
has
publicly asked Congress to reduce the ability of a future president to conduct such strikes by repealing
the Authorization for Use of Military Force (AUMF), but that still does not negate the previous violation of
due process by drone execution. According to recent reports, the NSA surveillance program has stopped terrorist plots
in 20 nations. The program arguably has significant security benefits that may outweigh concerns about personal privacy for some people. The
program has been authorized and re-authorized by the Congress and the president numerous times, but
it is the continuation of a program established under the Bush administration with congressional
approval. President Obama would require significantly more political leverage to ask the intelligence
community to not operate it. A president can only make meaningful reform to the protections of civil
liberties where he has the buy-in of Congress. President Bush initiated the NSA surveillance program with the consent of
Congress, but tried to pass a guest-worker immigration legislation and was stonewalled. President Obama has supported
constitutional challenges to the Defense of Marriage Act thereby supporting fundamental rights for
couples in same-sex marriages, and he may sign into law legislation that increases protections of civil liberties for undocumented
immigrants. Both presidents tried to protect civil liberties and national security in a way they thought was
balanced. But these agency programs are largely governed by policies established by congressional
legislation. In addition, President Obama's administration has prosecuted six federal employees for leaking classified information. The
argument that these prosecutions undermine civil liberties is at odds with the current judicial interpretation of federal law. Federal employees
are criminally liable for the unauthorized disclosure of classified information. Whistleblowers are those who report waste, fraud, and abuse; not
programs that they believe violate Americans' civil liberties. Some transparency advocates believe that the leak of the PRISM program is
reporting abuse. Despite this argument the program has congressional authorization so it will be hard for Edward Snowden to argue that he
thought the NSA program constituted abuse by the intelligence community. Edward Snowden, like the other leakers, should be prosecuted for
his unauthorized disclosure of classified information. Journalists, however, are protected under the First Amendment, and claims that Glenn
Greenwald should be prosecuted are out of line with our protections for free speech and the press. The American public shouldn't ignore the
information about violations of civil liberties just because it was from an unauthorized leak. The fact that so many leaks occur is indicative of a
bloated bureaucracy with an over-classification problem. President Obama's record on the protection of civil liberties is therefore not simply
better or worse than that of previous administrations.The president and Congress are making substantial progress in protecting civil liberties of
minority groups. But terrorist
threats have emboldened Congress and both President Bush and Obama to take
significant steps towards implementing policies that violate due process rights and infringe on personal
privacy in the name of national security, without providing any significant transparency.
Obama surveillance reform only lasts his term of office since incoming president can
repeal – only congressional approval of legislature guarantees permanent reforms
Sager 14 (Josh, graduated from Boston University with a degree in political science and publisher of
The Progressive Cynic, “Breaking Down Obama’s Suggested NSA “Reforms”,” The Progressive Cynic,
1/19/14, http://theprogressivecynic.com/2014/01/19/breaking-down-obamas-suggested-nsa-reforms/,
Accessed 6/29/15]
It is important to note that ANY reform that Obama can unilaterally implement through executive power
is only certain for as long as he is in office. In 2016, when Obama leaves office, the next executive will
pass his own executive orders to the NSA and it is possible that every “reform” suggested by Obama will
simply disappear overnight. Because of the mutability of executive orders, advocates of reform must not
stop with accepting Obama’s proposals, even if they think that such proposals would make the NSA’s
programs completely acceptable. In order to make those reforms permanent—rather than contingent
upon the whims of an executive who spends a maximum of 8-years in office—reform advocates must
pass legislation through the legislative branch or challenge the programs in court. The first “reform”
announced by the president was a presidential directive that would increase the level of control that the
executive branch would have over intelligence gathering. Under this reform, Obama’s security team
would perform an annual review of surveillance targets in order to focus efforts at those who concern
the administration the most. According to Obama, this would “ensure that we take into account our
security requirements, but also our alliances, our trade and investment relationships, including the
concerns of American companies, and our commitment to privacy and basic liberties.” Put simply, this
“reform” is just a consolidation of power over intelligence programs that does absolutely nothing to
prevent abuse or constitutional violations—it merely shifts the power to abuse intelligence tools more
into the hands of the executive branch and slightly farther away from NSA bureaucrats.
Obama lacks the authority for broader surveillance reform
Gerstein, ’14. Josh Gerstein is a White House reporter for POLITICO, specializing in legal and national
security issues. Gerstein joined the pathbreaking political news outlet just before President Barack
Obama’s inauguration and has reported extensively on how Obama’s pledge to close the Guantanamo
Bay prison for war-on-terror captives went awry. “The limits on Obama’s power on NSA reform”,
Politico, 1-13-14. http://www.politico.com/story/2014/01/nsa-surveillance-limits-102081.html
“There are a few big things you really need Congress to do. If you want to change the appointment
mechanism for the [Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court] or do any kind of structural reform of the
FISC, you need it. If you want to continue the metadata program in some form, but reform it in any way,
you need an act of Congress,” said Ben Wittes of the Brookings Institution. Some technical aspects of the
call-tracking program could be achieved through updating mundane regulations the Federal
Communications Commission imposes on telephone companies’ retention of billing records. But Obama
lacks the power to simply order that body to make such changes.
No Perception Solvency
Obama has no cred on the surveillance issue
Foster 13 “NSA surveillance scandal: Barack Obama's credibility under scrutiny like never before”
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/barackobama/10107125/NSA-surveillance-scandalBarack-Obamas-credibility-under-scrutiny-like-never-before.html Peter Foster is a 10 year writer and
reporter for the British newspaper the Telegraph, and is their US Editor based in Washington D.C.
If Mr Obama really wanted a debate on drones, or the ethics of dragnet-surveillance of the phone
records of all Americans, they ask, why has it taken a series of damaging leaks for his administration to
even admit the existence of these programmes, let alone openly debate them? In the centre, Mr
Obama has support from both Republicans and Democrats: the leading members of both parties on the
Senate Intelligence Committee, Dianne Feinstein and Saxby Chambliss, both backed the NSA's use of
phone records. "It's called protecting America," was Sen Feinstein's blunt response. But for those on the
liberal Left and libertarian Right these broad assurances – repeated by Mr Obama again on Friday – that
Constitutional rights to privacy are being observed by the administration are ringing increasingly hollow.
The New York Times, usually a staunch defender of Mr Obama, says his administration has "now lost all
credibility on this issue" having attacked the Patriot Act while campaigning for the Oval Office and
then embracing and even extending its powers once he got there. In this debate, Mr Obama relies
almost entirely on his 'credibility' – whether or not we believe him when he says, as he did, that these
programmes have been "scrubbed" and come with "increased safeguards" since the post September 11
Bush-era that spawned them. Ultimately the US public, not the New York Times, will be the judge of Mr
Obama's credibility and he seemed – perhaps rightly – pretty confident of their support yesterday, citing
the layers of judicial and congressional oversight that are applied to these programmes. But after
Watergate and Iran Contra, after the dodgy Iraq War dossiers and the extraordinary rendition and CIA
torture programs, and even the recent targeting of Conservative groups by the IRS, the US public could
be forgiven for not wanting to take Big Brother's platitudes at face value. Just three months ago, Senator
Ron Wyden, a Senate Intelligence Committee member who has campaigned against US government
data-mining for years, asked James Clapper, the Director of National of National Intelligence a simple
question: "Does the NSA collect any type of data at all on millions or hundreds of millions of
Americans?" "No, sir", came Mr Clapper's reply – which, as we now know, was a flat-out lie. With
'oversight' like that, Mr Obama's credibility is now under scrutiny like never before.
Obama has no cred on surveillance- promises curtailment, then does the opposite 4
hours later
Ackerman 6/9/15 “Obama lawyers asked secret court to ignore public court's decision on spying”
http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/jun/09/obama-fisa-court-surveillance-phone-records
Spencer Ackerman is national security editor for Guardian US. A former senior writer for Wired, he won
the 2012 National Magazine Award for Digital Reporting
The Obama administration has asked a secret surveillance court to ignore a federal court that found
bulk surveillance illegal and to once again grant the National Security Agency the power to collect the
phone records of millions of Americans for six months. The legal request, filed nearly four hours after
Barack Obama vowed to sign a new law banning precisely the bulk collection he asks the secret court
to approve, also suggests that the administration may not necessarily comply with any potential court
order demanding that the collection stop. US officials confirmed last week that they would ask the
Foreign Intelligence Surveillance court – better known as the Fisa court, a panel that meets in secret as a
step in the surveillance process and thus far has only ever had the government argue before it – to turn
the domestic bulk collection spigot back on. Justice Department national security chief John A Carlin
cited a six-month transition period provided in the USA Freedom Act – passed by the Senate last week
to ban the bulk collection – as a reason to permit an “orderly transition” of the NSA’s domestic
dragnet.
The international community perceives Obama as a phony
Margulies, ’14. As an expert in National Security Law, Professor Peter Margulies focuses on the
delicate balance between liberty, equality, and security in issues involving law and terrorism. Professor
Margulies has written almost a dozen articles discussing the War on Terror. “NSA in Global Perspective:
Surveillance, Human Rights, and International Counterterrorism”, Fordham Law Review 82. 2013-2014.
http://heinonline.org/HOL/Page?handle=hein.journals/flr82&div=67&g_sent=1&collection=journals
In acknowledging
the "legitimate privacy interests" of both U.S. and non-U.S. persons, President Obama
affirmed the U.S. commitment to core principles in January 2014.27 First, he narrowed the operating definition of foreign
intelligence information, limiting it to "information relating to the capabilities, intentions, or activities of foreign governments or elements
thereof, foreign organizations, foreign persons, or international terrorists."28 In addition, he asserted that the NSA would engage in bulk
collection of communications for purposes of "detecting and countering" terrorism, espionage, nuclear proliferation, threats to U.S. forces, and
financial crimes, including evasion of duly enacted sanctions.29 Addressing
anticipated concerns that these limits still left
the NSA with too much discretion, President Obama declared what the United States would not do. First, it
would not collect communications content "for the purpose of suppressing or burdening criticism or dissent, or for disadvantaging persons
based on their ethnicity, race, gender, sexual orientation, or religion."30 Second, it would disseminate and store information regarding any
person based on criteria in section 2.3 of Executive Order 12,33331: cases involving "foreign intelligence or counterintelligence," public safety,
or ascertainment of a potential intelligence source's credibility.32 Of course, President Obama's
speech did not quell the
complaints of NSA critics. One could argue that even the description the president provided has legal
flaws under domestic and/or international law. One can also argue that the president's policy directive,
statutory provisions, and case law cannot wholly eliminate the possibility of systemic or individual abuse
of NSA authority. That said, there are compelling reasons for treating the president's speech and
directive as an authoritative and binding statement of U.S. policy. The most compelling reason may be
the simplest: no American president has ever been so forthright on the subject of intelligence collection,
and few heads of state around the globe have ventured down the path that President Obama chose.33
That alone counsels treating President Obama's guidance as more than "cheap talk."
Rollback
“Can’t wait for congress” is just an excuse for the president to fiat criticism
Heritage 15 “How is President Obama Abusing Presidential Power?”
https://www.askheritage.org/how-is-president-obama-abusing-presidential-power/ The Heritage
Foundation is a self-proclaimed public policy “think tank” who “generate solutions consistent with our
beliefs and market them to the Congress, the Executive Branch, the news media and others. These
solutions build on our country’s economic, political and social heritage to produce a safer, stronger,
freer, more prosperous America. And a safer, more prosperous, freer world”
Why take such action? The President says it’s because he can’t wait for Congress to act on behalf of the
American people. The truth is that the President is hell bent on ramming through his agenda, and he is
entirely unwilling to compromise with the duly elected representatives who sit in the House and Senate.
By circumventing the Senate and appointing Cordray, the President can ensure that his big-government
regulatory agenda is enacted without the reforms that Congress is demanding. Unfortunately, the
Cordray appointment is not the only example of the President’s wanton, unilateral actions. Apart from
Cordray, the President also plans to make three appointments to the National Labor Relations Board
without Senate approval, which will fundamentally alter the makeup of the board and enable the
President to realize his Big Labor agenda. That means an unrestrained push to unionize businesses at all
costs and punish companies that seek to grow in non-union states (as was attempted in the Boeing case)
— even if it means harming both workers and the economy. And in the case of environmental
regulations, immigration law, No Child Left Behind, the auto bailout, the selective enforcement of voting
rights laws, and the regulation of the Internet (among others), the Obama Administration has in fact
enacted its agenda via legislative fiat time and time again. In an interview last month with 60 Minutes,
the President gave warning of his intentions to preside over an imperial presidency for the next year.
“What I’m not gonna do is wait for Congress,” he said. “So wherever we have an opportunity and I
have the executive authority to go ahead and get some things done, we’re just gonna go ahead and do
‘em.” The President now, though, seems to have made a significant course correction. With these latest
illegal, unconstitutional appointments, the President has jumped at an opportunity to act regardless of
the fact that he has no executive authority to do it. And under his feet is a trampled Constitution and
100 years of precedent for which he has no use. It’s time for Congress and the American people to take
a stand against President Obama’s abuse of power. - See more at: https://www.askheritage.org/how-ispresident-obama-abusing-presidential-power/#sthash.VOhMwThE.dpuf
Rollback can take out years of work in a single vote
Meckler et. al. 15 “House GOP Prepares Expansive Rollback of Obama’s Immigration Policy”
http://www.wsj.com/articles/house-gop-prepare-expansive-rollback-of-obamas-immigration-policy1420837853 Laura Meckler is a reporter for the Wall Street Journal who focusses on shifting
demographics in America and how they effect political climate
House Republicans said Friday they would vote in the coming week on an expansive rollback of
President Barack Obama’s immigration policy, subjecting more illegal immigrants to deportation and
unraveling policies that prioritize removing criminals and recent border crossers. The package would
attempt to undo not only Mr. Obama’s November move to shield millions of illegal immigrants from
deportation, but also a 2012 action protecting young people brought to the U.S. illegally as children.
Those changes will be offered as amendments to legislation funding the Homeland Security Department
through September under a GOP leadership plan that took shape Friday. The proposals were a bow to
conservatives angry over Mr. Obama’s executive action on immigration, which they see as an
unconstitutional overreach of presidential power, though some proposals that would choke off
executive power even further were shelved for the moment. “Our primary goal is to defund what the
president did. What he did wasn’t lawful,” said Rep. Austin Scott (R., Ga.). “I know I’m going to vote for
it.”
Future Presidents repeal
Cooper 97 [Phillip, Professor of Poli Sci @ University of Vermont, Administration and Society, Lexis]
Even if they serve temporary goals, executive orders can produce a significant amount of complexity and
conflict and not yield a long-term benefit because the next president may dispose of predecessors’
orders at a whim. It may be easier than moving a statute through Congress and faster than waiting for
agencies to use their rule-making processes to accomplish policy ends, but executive orders may
ultimately be a much weaker foundation on which to build a policy than the alternatives.
XO gets changed after Obama leaves office
Gerstein, ’14. Josh Gerstein is a White House reporter for POLITICO, specializing in legal and national
security issues. Gerstein joined the pathbreaking political news outlet just before President Barack
Obama’s inauguration and has reported extensively on how Obama’s pledge to close the Guantanamo
Bay prison for war-on-terror captives went awry. “The limits on Obama’s power on NSA reform”,
Politico, 1-13-14. http://www.politico.com/story/2014/01/nsa-surveillance-limits-102081.html
Only a devastating attack that slipped through would seem to carry significant peril for Obama — and he
would most likely face substantial blame then even if the current surveillance regime remained in place.
Reform advocates say one argument they’re making for Congress to act — regardless of what Obama
proposes — is that legislation is the only way to make changes guaranteed to last after Obama leaves
office. “I’ve insisted on legislation because this administration or succeeding administrations can undo
any changes,” Sensenbrenner said after meeting with Obama last week, “and the chances are good that
no one will know about it until the next scandal happens.”
XO Bad
Separation of Powers
XO usurps SOP-leads to the downfall of American democracy
Ferrara 14 “America’s Constitutional Crisis”
http://www.forbes.com/sites/peterferrara/2014/02/21/americas-constitutional-crisis/ Peter Ferrara is a
contributor to Forbes Magazine who is a Senior Fellow at the National Center for Policy Analysis and
who served in the White House Office of Policy Development under President Reagan
The Constitution provides that Congress has the legislative power to write the laws. The President has
the power to either veto them or sign them. But once he signs them, those laws become the “law of the
land,” as Obama himself has also famously said regarding Obamacare. Those laws then apply to the
President just as much as to everyone else. In America, unlike in Third World banana republics, the
President is not above the law. The Constitution further provides that once a law is duly enacted, by
both Houses of Congress passing it and the President signing it, the President’s duty is to take care that
the law is “faithfully executed.” That is why the Constitution calls the President’s Administration the
“Executive Branch.” For the President to rewrite the law as passed by Congress, rather than faithfully
executing it, is consequently a violation of the Constitution, and the law. The American Constitution is
carefully designed based on the Separation of Powers. The Congress is granted the “Legislative Power”
to write the laws, and the President is granted the “Executive Power” to carry them out as Congress
provides. That was done to create a system of “checks and balances” so that each branch can check and
balance the power of the others. That was done to prevent the tyranny of governmental powers
concentrated in one branch of government. That is one reason why the American government has
never lapsed into autocratic tyranny, unlike Third World banana republics sometimes do. For the
President to usurp the legislative power of Congress by rewriting the law, rather than following it and
executing it as passed, is a fundamental violation of the Constitution’s Separation of Powers, and
“checks and balances.” Such Presidential action not only violates the law, like a thief holding you up at
gunpoint and taking your wallet, it involves a tendency towards tyranny. It nullifies the basic concept
of the rule of law that is supposed to be governing America. It is fundamentally transforming America
into a Third World banana republic.
SOP key to any and all foreign policy initiatives
Cribb et. al. January 90 “Address: The Impact of Separation of Powers on National Security”
presented by Washington University Law Review
http://openscholarship.wustl.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1953&context=law_lawreview Troy
Kenneth Crib Jr. is a former advisor to President Reagan and is a graduate of Washington and Lee
University followed by a Law Graduate from the University of Virginia. Cribb then served as the
President of the Intercollegiate Studies Institute
I realize as soon as I make this point, of course, that many members of Congress will disagree
vehemently. We can spend the next ten years fighting over the point, but if we do that, I guarantee you
that the country will lose. The United States cannot conduct a successful foreign policy if every
constitutional disagreement is pressed to a final confrontation. The legislative and executive have to
agree to disagree, and then work together to govern. We made some real gains in 1989, but we shall
have to work hard to hold on to those gains and keep moving forward. The United States is a global
power, with global responsibilities. Our post-World War II role has raised the foreign policy stakes for
most Americans, and we are now entering a time of unusual uncertainty, opportunity, and risk. We
know from our history that no policy can be sustained for the long term, unless it has the active
cooperation and participation of both branches. Now, of all times, it is crucial to contain disagreement.
When the stakes have to do with the leadership of the free world, we cannot afford to be paralyzed in
an intramural stalemate.
XOs unconstitutional
Obamas Executive orders are bad and unconstitutional
Slattery and Kloster 14(Elizabeth Slattery and Andrew Kloster, Elizabeth Slattery is a senior legal policy analyst in the Heritage Foundation’s Edwin Meese III Center
for Legal and Judicial Studies, Andrew R. Kloster is a legal fellow in the Heritage Foundation's Edwin Meese III Center for Legal and Judicial Studies, http://www.usnews.com/debate-club/ispresident-obama-abusing-executive-power/obamas-presidency-is-increasingly-lawless//ghs-an)
Stretching executive power beyond the bounds of reasonableness has been a hallmark of President
Obama’s administration. When his policies fail to make it through Congress, he imposes “laws” by
executive fiat. When he disagrees with the law or finds it politically expedient not to enforce the law, he
ignores it, skirts it or makes dubious claims of prosecutorial discretion.
This expansive view of executive power is not what our Constitution envisions. In fact, the president has
a constitutional duty to “take care that the Laws be faithfully executed.” He does not have the power to
make or suspend the law, but time and again, that is precisely what President Obama has done. From
making sham “recess” appointments to waiving the 1996 welfare reform work requirement to
implementing the Dream Act with the stroke of a pen, he has routinely bypassed Congress and violated
the separation of powers enshrined in the Constitution. Pointing to inaction and dysfunction in
Congress, President Obama says, “Where they won’t act, I will.” No discussion of abusive executive
power would be complete without mentioning Obamacare. With nearly 30 delays and unilateral
changes to the law, the law in operation looks vastly different from what Congress passed in 2010.
There’s the new “hardship” exemption from the individual mandate to purchase insurance;
congressional staff insurance subsidies that flagrantly violate the law; allowing insurance companies to
continue offering plans that fail to meet the required coverage until 2016; and delaying until 2016 the
requirement that employers with more than 50 employees provide certain coverage.
All these changes have been made without Congress passing a single amendment to the law. Some of
these actions can be (and have been) challenged in court, but many cannot. In those instances, the only
recourse is the ballot box. This is the same president who once claimed President George W. Bush was
“trying to bring more and more power into the executive branch and not go through Congress at all,”
and who promised to bring change to Washington. Now we are realizing that this “change” means less
accountability and increasingly lawless action. Obama’s unfaithful execution of the law seems to include
an ostensible power to ignore or revise laws he doesn’t like. Indeed, as liberal law professor Jonathan
Turley has noted, President Obama is “becoming the very danger the Constitution was designed to
avoid.”
Press power Bad
Increasing Presidential Credibility has costs as well: less policy power
Posner and Mermeule 7
Eric A. Posner and Adrian Vermeule. “The Credible Executive” Last Printed: 8/29/2007 7:31:00 PM. The
University of Chicago Law Review. Adrian Vermeule is the John H. Watson Professor of Law. Before
coming to the Law School, he was the Bernard D. Meltzer Professor of Law at the University of Chicago.
Eric Andrew Posner is an American law professor and son of the United States Court of Appeals for the
Seventh Circuit judge Richard Posner. He is an expert in law and economics, international law, contract
law, and bankruptcy, among other areas.
https://lawreview.uchicago.edu/sites/lawreview.uchicago.edu/files/uploads/74.3/74_3_Posner_Verme
ule.pdf
The mechanisms we have discussed generate credibility, which is a benefit for voters and legislators who would like to increase the discretion
of the well-motivated executive. What of the cost side? In each case, there
are costs to generating credibility, although the
character and magnitude of the costs differ across mechanisms. Signaling is by definition costly. The presence of a cost is what
distinguishes ill-motivated mimics, who are unwilling to incur the cost, from genuine good types. In this
context, the inherent costliness of signaling means that the president must use time or resources to establish credibility with the public when, if
voters were perfectly informed, that time and those resources could be expended directly on determining and implementing policy. But costs
can be reflected in more subtle ways as well. Many of these mechanisms rely on the participation of agents who themselves may be ill
motivated. Whistleblowers can leak information in order to damage the administration or cry wolf when there is no partisanship, merely
substantive disagreement. Journalists might produce images distorted by their own biases and strategic agendas. Miscellaneous costs arise in
other ways as well. Multilateralism raises decision costs, transparency can harm deliberation, and so on. Often the basic tradeoff facing
presidents is that credibility
is gained at the expense of control. Mechanisms such as creating independent commissions and
gain credibility, presidents must surrender part of their control over
policy choices, partially constraining executive discretion in the present in return for more trust, which
will then translate into more discretion in the future. The loss of control is a cost, even to the well
motivated executive. To be sure, the well-motivated executive may be more willing than the ill-motivated one to trade some loss of
pursuing multilateralism illustrate that to
present control for increased future discretion, if the ill-motivated executive tends to be myopic or to discount the future more heavily.
However, it is not clear that is so—many terrifying dictators have been quite farsighted—and in any event everything depends upon the
particulars of the case. Presidents are
sometimes willing to pay the costs of credibility; often they are not.119
However, there is no general reason to assume that they will always do so when it is optimal to do so, and not otherwise. Presidents, like
others, sometimes make mistakes, or overlook useful political tactics, or fail to choose the best means to
serve their ends; that is what makes advice about policy mechanisms potentially useful. We do not urge that presidents should use
credibility generating mechanisms in every case, nor do we claim that the mechanisms we have offered are good for all times and places.
Rather we have tried to indicate, at least in a general way, the conditions under which the benefits will outweigh the costs, from the standpoint
of the well-motivated executive and of the voters and legislators who wish to confer authority upon him.
Links to ptx
Executive uses PC
Unpopular forecloses relations with congress
Matthew Dickinson, 11-21-2014, Dr. Matt Dickinson is a professor at Middlebury College. He is the
author of "Bitter Harvest: FDR, Presidential Power, and the Growth of the Presidential Branch" and coeditor of "Guardian of the Presidency: The Legacy of Richard E. Neustadt." His current book project,
titled "The President and the White House Staff: People, Positions and Processes, 1945-2008," examines
the growth of presidential staff in the post-World War II era. He also writes the Presidential Power blog.
"Obama's Immigration Executive Order Could be Second Term Overreach," US News & World Report,
http://www.usnews.com/opinion/blogs/opinion-blog/2014/11/21/obamas-immigration-executiveorder-could-be-second-term-overreach
Of perhaps greater consequence, however, is the long-term impact of Obama’s immigration action on
his relations with Congress and on political support for his presidency more generally. Richard Neustadt
taught generations of presidency scholars and practitioners that to judge a president’s effectiveness,
one must look not just at the immediate consequences of a president’s action, but also at its impact on a
president’s sources of influence down the road. From Neustadt’s perspective, and from Obama’s too,
the crux of the issue is this: If the president’s actions on immigration, as announced yesterday,
essentially poisons his relations with Congress for the remaining two years of his presidency, thus
foreclosing efforts to pass climate change legislation, or to address tax reform or entitlement programs
– was it worth it? Neustadt does not tell presidents how to trade off long-term costs for short-term gain.
But he does warn presidents to carefully weigh those tradeoffs before moving ahead. If history is any
guide, however, presidents in Obama’s situation – in their understandable desire to cement their legacy
and with the diminished political sensitivity that comes with lame-duck status – too often seem to
underestimate the long-term costs in pursuit of immediate policy objectives. It remains to be seen
whether Obama is the latest president to make this mistake. There are reasons to argue otherwise. For
one, in the long-run, Obama’s actions may help cement the growing Latino vote within the Democratic
column. But it may also be, as several critics have suggested, that Obama’s action are setting a
dangerous precedent that future presidents, including Republicans, can cite to justify ignoring or
changing law. In deciding to pursue immigration reform on his own, Obama does not have the luxury of
knowing how his decision will play out in the political arena – that is a verdict history, with the benefit of
hindsight, will render. Did Obama overreach? Will his actions on immigration precipitate a political
backlash and a loss of public support that will indelibly stain his final years in office? If so, he is in very
fine company – the most effective presidents, as judged by their first term accomplishments and their
re-election support, often seem most prone to stumbling in their second term. Alas, such illustrious
company will undoubtedly provide very little solace to Obama.
XOs kill Obamas PC
Obamas executive orders destroy his political capital- spur public and congressional
backlash
Risen 4(Clay Risen is an editor at The New York Times, and is the author of A Nation on Fire: America in the Wake of the King Assassination. He has written
for The New Republic, Smithsonian, and The New York Times Sunday Magazine, http://prospect.org/article/power-pen//ghs-an)
The most effective check on executive orders has proven to be political. When it comes to executive
orders, “The president is much more clearly responsible,” says Dellinger, who was heavily involved in
crafting orders under Clinton. “Not only is there no involvement from Congress, but the president has to
personally sign the order.” Clinton's Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument executive order may
have helped him win votes, but it also set off a massive congressional and public backlash. Right-wing
Internet sites bristled with comments about “dictatorial powers,” and Republicans warned of an end to
civil liberties as we know them. “President Clinton is running roughshod over our Constitution,” said
then–House Majority Leader Dick Armey. Indeed, an unpopular executive order can have immediate-and lasting--political consequences. In 2001, for example, Bush proposed raising the acceptable number
of parts per billion of arsenic in drinking water. It was a bone he was trying to toss to the mining
industry, and it would have overturned Clinton's order lowering the levels. But the overwhelmingly
negative public reaction forced Bush to quickly withdraw his proposal--and it painted him indelibly as an
anti-environmental president.
Executive order unpopular
Executive orders are unpopular with the public
YouGov 12-02-14. This is an explanation of a poll done by YouGov/Economist about American
perception on executive orders. “Opinion split on executive orders”.
https://today.yougov.com/news/2014/12/02/opinion-split-executive-orders/
President Obama’s use of an executive order to keep illegal immigrant parents of American citizens
temporarily in the United States met with disapproval, even though more were in favor of the policy
than not. Many felt he should not take the action on his own, but should have waited for Congress to
act – even though most don’t expect Congressional action any time soon. This distaste for solo executive
orders in principle extends far beyond the issue of immigration: many in the latest Economist/YouGov
Poll oppose them in principle. That’s particularly true for Republicans, many of whom are adamant
about not permitting executive actions – even for mundane changes in administrative issues – without
Congressional approval. The partisan divide seen in so many poll questions extends to principles that are
now seen as partisan. Nearly all of the examples of solo executive actions offered in the
Economist/YouGov Poll were of executive orders issued by Republican President George W. Bush,
though this was not specified. Republicans were consistently less likely than Democrats to support
these actions, with the exception of ordering reserves to active duty. In that case a plurality of both
Republicans and Democrats say a President should be able to do that.
Republicans hate executive orders
Hudak, ’14. “Obama’s Executive Orders; A Reality Check”, Brookings Institute, 1-30-14.
http://www.brookings.edu/blogs/fixgov/posts/2014/01/30-state-of-the-union-obama-executive-ordershudak
President Obama’s State of the Union Address has drawn greater attention to executive orders. Executive orders are a
common presidential tool that gives guidance to the executive branch on how to “faithfully execute the laws” or rely on discretion within
existing law to affect policy. Republican
opposition has surrounded the president’s declaration that he will begin
relying on executive orders to move in areas where Congress has stalled. Claims of tyranny,
overstepping authority, and unlawfulness have been batted around by frustrated Republicans. However
over the years, executive orders have often been criticized by Congress, particularly members of the party
opposite the president. Executive orders ruffle feathers over policy, increase partisanship, and provoke
separation of powers issues, but in reality presidents have substantial authority to issue such orders. When the controversy over an
issue gets intense it can end up in the Courts but this is rare. Courts have largely upheld the power, and in fact, Congress sometimes adopts the
policy through legislation (see the creation of the Peace Corps, for example). So, what about the criticisms of Obama abusing the powers of his
office or using executive orders in an unprecedented way? It’s
largely grandstanding from the right.
Congress key to heg
Balance of congressional and presidential powers key to hegemony – reduces
unpredictability
G. John Ikenberry Wilson Web Spr 2001. G. John Ikenberry is the Albert G. Milbank Professor of
Politics and International Affairs at Princeton University in the Department of Politics and the Woodrow
Wilson School of Public and International Affairs. He is also Co-Director of Princeton’s Center for
International Security Studies. Ikenberry is also a Global Eminence Scholar at Kyung Hee University in
Seoul, Korea. In 2013-2014 Ikenberry will be the 72nd Eastman Visiting Professor at Balliol College,
Oxford. “Getting Hegemony Right”. http://www.columbia.edu/itc/sipa/U6800/readingssm/Ikenberry_Hegemony.pdf
First, 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 longterm, 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 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 policiespolicies that do not reflect
the capricious and idiosyncratic whims of an autocrat.