Nsa negative

Terrorism DA Link Extensions

(__) Link –Section 702 is the most valuable NSA surveillance program, it has prevented multiple terror attacks.

Taylor, Brookings Institution Senior Fellow, 2014
(Stuart, “The Big Snoop: Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Terrorists”, April 28, 2014 http://www.brookings.edu/research/essays/2014/big-snoop)

Yet there's no denying that PRISM's mining of emails and other Internet messages has produced a mother lode of useful information. An internal NSA document leaked by Snowden described the program as "the most prolific contributor to the President's Daily Brief" and the NSA's "leading source of raw material, accounting for nearly one in seven [of all the intelligence community's secret] reports."

More to the point, PRISM has often contributed to the collection of actionable intelligence used in the fight against terrorism. Even Wyden, the NSA's strongest congressional critic, acknowledges as much. He and his ally on the surveillance issue, Senator Mark Udall (D-Colo.), said in a joint statement last summer that "multiple terrorist plots have been disrupted at least in part because of information obtained under Section 702."

Link Terrorism- 702 and Prism

(__) Surveillance under section 702 is crucial to detect and act on threats of terrorism.

Hines, defense council member of the Truman National Security Project, 2013
(Pierre “Here’s how metadata on billions of phone calls predicts terrorist attacks” http://qz.com/95719/heres-how-metadata-on-billions-of-phone-calls-predicts-terrorist-attacks, June 19^th, 2013)

Yesterday, when NSA Director General Keith Alexander testified before the House Committee on Intelligence, he declared that the NSA’s surveillance programs have provided “critical leads to help prevent over 50 potential terrorist events.” FBI Deputy Director Sean Boyce elaborated by describing four instances when the NSA’s surveillance programs have had an impact: (1) when an intercepted email from a terrorist in Pakistan led to foiling a plan to bomb of the New York subway system; (2) when NSA’s programs helped prevent a plot to bomb the New York Stock Exchange; (3) when intelligence led to the arrest of a U.S. citizen who planned to bomb the Danish Newspaper office that published cartoon depictions of the Prophet Muhammad; and (4) when the NSA’s programs triggered reopening the 9/11 investigation. So what are the practical applications of internet and phone records gathered from two NSA programs? And how can “metadata” actually prevent terrorist attacks? Metadata does not give the NSA and intelligence community access to the content of internet and phone communications. Instead, metadata is more like the transactional information cell phone customers would normally see on their billing statements—metadata can indicate when a call, email, or online chat began and how long the communication lasted. Section 215 of the Patriot Act provides the legal authority to obtain “business records” from phone companies. Meanwhile, the NSA uses Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act to authorize its PRISM program. According the figures provided by Gen. Alexander, intelligence gathered based on Section 702 authority contributed in over 90% of the 50 cases. One of major benefits of metadata is that it provides hindsight—it gives intelligence analysts a retrospective view of a sequence of events. As Deputy Director Boyce discussed, the ability to analyze previous communications allowed the FBI to reopen the 9/11 investigation and determine who was linked to that attack. It is important to recognize that terrorist attacks are not orchestrated overnight; they take months or years to plan. Therefore, if the intelligence community only catches wind of an attack halfway into the terrorists’ planning cycle, or even after a terrorist attack has taken place, metadata might be the only source of information that captures the sequence of events leading up to an attack. Once a terrorist suspect has been identified or once an attack has taken place, intelligence analysts can use powerful software to sift through metadata to determine which numbers, IP addresses, or individuals are associated with the suspect. Moreover, phone numbers and IP addresses sometimes serve as a proxy for the general location of where the planning has taken place. This ability to narrow down the location of terrorists can help determine whether the intelligence community is dealing with a domestic or international threat.

Link Terrorism – Online Surveillance

(__) Surveillance of internet communication is critical to stop terrorism.

De, General Counsel, National Security Agency, 2014,
(Rajesh , 10-16-2014, "The NSA and Accountability in an Era of Big Data," Journal Of National Security Law & Policy, http://search.proquest.com/docview/1547942293/D7CD0D4112B54FC9PQ/2?accountid=10422)

NSA performs its mission in an ever more rapidly evolving operational environment, one characterized by persistent change in both the nature of our adversaries and their communications. Foreign threats are no longer limited to traditional nation state actors, or even widely-recognized terrorist groups like al Qaeda and its affiliates. Moreover, adversaries today communicate through means more operationally simple yet technically sophisticated than ever before. As you know better than most, these changes are taking place against a backdrop of increasingly complex, dynamic, and voluminous communications data flows around the globe. Industry and academic estimates regularly chart the growth of such trends, often in metrics of such dizzying scale that they can become mind numbing: as of 2012, about 2.5 exabytes of data are created each day; more data crosses the internet every second today than was stored on the entire internet 20 years ago; global mobile traffic grew 70 percent in 2012, reaching 885 petabytes per month; and it is estimated that the number of mobile-connected devices will exceed the world's population in 2013. Scale, however, is merely one of the challenges for a signals intelligence agency like NSA-trends toward greater mobility and the increasing adoption of internet- based encryption pose additional challenges as well.

Perhaps the most alarming trend is that the digital communications infra- structure is increasingly also becoming the domain for foreign threat activity. In other words, it is no longer just a question of "collecting" or even "connecting" the dots in order to assess foreign threats amidst more and more digital noise, it is also a question of determining which of the so-called "dots" may constitute the threat itself. As President Obama has recognized, "the cyber threat to our nation is one of the most serious economic and national security challenges we face."

Link Terrorism – Online Surveillance

(__) Blocking intelligence from using the internet is a huge risk- terrorists use the internet.

Cordero, Director of National Security Studies Center at Georgetown University Law, 2013
(Carrie, "Continued Oversight of US Government Surveillance Authorities: Hearing Before the S. Committee on the Judiciary, 113th Cong., December 11, 2013 (Statement by Professor Carrie F. Cordero, Geo. UL Center)." (2013).

Some will argue that Congress should outlaw bulk collection under FISA, based on the “power of metadata” argument as well as arguments about our changing expectation of privacy in light of the methods of modern communications. But everyday Americans, or friends in foreign nations, are not the only people using the Internet to communicate. We all - - regular people, government leaders, as well as those who pose national security threats such as terrorists, terrorist financiers and facilitators, proliferators of weapons of mass destruction, spies, sophisticated hackers, and cyber intruders - - use the Internet, computers, and smart phones to communicate. And so just as regular people should not be expected to turn off their modern communications and revert to old fashioned modes of communication, neither should the Intelligence Community or law enforcement resort to pen, paper and index cards to conduct national security collection or investigations. It is just as unrealistic to expect citizens to unplug, as it is to expect or require the NSA or FBI to use 20th century collection, analytic or investigative techniques or methods to protect the nation from 21st century threats.

Link Terrorism – Delay

(__) The plan results in a huge amount of paperwork for the NSA – makes them really slow

Cordero, Director of National Security Studies Center at Georgetown University Law, 2013
(Carrie, "Continued Oversight of US Government Surveillance Authorities: Hearing Before the S. Committee on the Judiciary, 113th Cong., December 11, 2013 (Statement by Professor Carrie F. Cordero, Geo. UL Center)." (2013).

In light of recent unauthorized disclosures, concerns have also been expressed regarding the NSA’s collection targeting or pertaining to foreign persons located outside the United States. Suggestions have been made that U.S. foreign intelligence collection should recognize some sort of privacy right for non-U.S. persons. In fact, the U.S. Intelligence Community has a recent history of affording Constitutional protections to persons who are not entitled to them. Congress made a deliberate decision with the passage of the FISA Amendments Act of 2008 to end that practice. And for good reason: prior to 2007, the U.S. government was, in fact, going through incredible hoops to acquire certain communications of foreign terrorist targets overseas. Two parallel processes caused this to happen. The first was described in a written statement for the record by the Director of National Intelligence before this Committee in September 2007

“…[P]rior to Congress passing the Protect America Act last month, in a significant number of cases, IC agencies were required to make a showing of probable cause in order to target for surveillance the communications of a foreign intelligence target located overseas. Then, they needed to explain that probable cause finding in documentation, and obtain approval of the FISA Court to collect against a foreign terrorist located in a foreign country. Frequently, although not always, that person's communications were with another foreign person located overseas. In such cases, prior to the Protect America Act, FISA’s requirement to obtain a court order, based on a showing of probable cause, slowed, and in some cases prevented altogether, the Government's ability to collect foreign intelligence information, without serving any substantial privacy or civil liberties interests.”

In other words, the Intelligence Community, because of the requirements of the FISA statute prior to 2007, found itself in a position where it was seeking individual probable cause-based orders from the FISC to target terrorists overseas. When the government needed to obtain certain communications of a terrorist target, located in, as examples, Pakistan or Yemen, it was preparing a full application to the FISC, with a detailed factual showing providing probable cause that the target was an agent of a foreign power, and obtaining the signatures of a high ranking national security official and the Attorney General, and then submitting that application to the FISC for approval. This extensive process, in addition to being unnecessary from a Constitutional perspective, was a crushing force on the system.

Terrorism DA – Answers to “Too much Data”

(__) The NSA needs all of the data – its like taking out 200 pieces of a 1000 piece puzzle, it becomes a lot harder to understand the picture when you eliminate data.

Lewis, Senior Fellow at the Center for Strategic and International Studeies, 2014

(James Andrew “Underestimating Risk in the Surveillance Debate” - Center For Strategic & International Studies - Strategic Technologies Program – December - http://csis.org/publication/underestimating-risk-surveillance-debate)

This effort takes place over months and involves multiple intelligence, law enforcement, and military agencies, with more than a dozen individuals from these agencies collaborating to build up a picture of the bomb-maker and his planned attack. When the bomb-maker leaves the Middle East to carry out his attack, he is prevented from entering the United States. An analogy for how this works would be to take a 1,000-piece jigsaw puzzle, randomly select 200 pieces, and provide them to a team of analysts who, using incomplete data, must guess what the entire picture looks like. The likelihood of their success is determined by how much information they receive, how much time they have, and by experience and luck. Their guess can be tested by using a range of collection programs, including communications surveillance programs like the 215 metadata program.

What is left out of this picture (and from most fictional portrayals of intelligence analysis) is the number of false leads the analysts must pursue, the number of dead ends they must walk down, and the tools they use to decide that something is a false lead or dead end. Police officers are familiar with how many leads in an investigation must be eliminated through legwork and query before an accurate picture emerges. Most leads are wrong, and much of the work is a process of elimination that eventually focuses in on the most probable threat. If real intelligence work were a film, it would be mostly boring. Where the metadata program contributes is in eliminating possible leads and suspects.

(__) There’s not too much data – computer processing power solves the problem.

Sagar,, associate professor of political science at Yale, 2015
(Rahul, -"Against Moral Absolutism: Surveillance and Disclosure After Snowden," Ethics & International Affairs / Volume 29 / Issue 02 / 2015, pp 145-159.

Greenwald also raises objections from a national security perspective. He warns that mass surveillance undermines national security because “it swamps the intelligence agencies with so much data that they cannot possibly sort through it effectively.”11 He also questions the efficacy of communications surveillance, arguing that it has little to show in terms of success in combating terrorism. But these criticisms are equally unpersuasive. It is certainly possible that a surveillance program could generate so much raw data that an important piece of information is overlooked. But in such a case the appropriate response would not be to shut down the program but rather to bulk up the processing power and manpower devoted to it. Finally, both the President's Review Group and the Privacy and Civil Liberties Oversight Board have examined the efficacy of the NSA's programs. Both report that the NSA's foreign surveillance programs have contributed to more than fifty counterterrorism investigations, leading them to conclude that the NSA “does in fact play an important role in the nation's effort to prevent terrorist attacks across the globe.”12

Terrorism – Answers to “Too much Data”

(__) Bulk data is critical to eliminate false positives.

Lewis, Senior Fellow at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, 2014

(James Andrew “Underestimating Risk in the Surveillance Debate” - Center For Strategic & International Studies - Strategic Technologies Program – December - http://csis.org/publication/underestimating-risk-surveillance-debate)

Assertions that a collection program contributes nothing because it has not singlehandedly prevented an attack reflect an ill-informed understanding of how the United States conducts collection and analysis to prevent harmful acts against itself and its allies. Intelligence does not work as it is portrayed in films—solitary agents do not make startling discoveries that lead to dramatic, last-minute success (nor is technology consistently infallible). Intelligence is a team sport. Perfect knowledge does not exist and success is the product of the efforts of teams of dedicated individuals from many agencies, using many tools and techniques, working together to assemble fragments of data from many sources into a coherent picture. Analysts assemble this mosaic from many different sources and based on experience and intuition. Luck is still more important than anyone would like and the alternative to luck is acquiring more information. This ability to blend different sources of intelligence has improved U.S. intelligence capabilities and gives us an advantage over some opponents.

Portrayals of spying in popular culture focus on a central narrative, essential for storytelling but deeply misleading. In practice, there can be many possible narratives that analysts must explore simultaneously. An analyst might decide, for example, to see if there is additional confirming information that points to which explanation deserves further investigation. Often, the contribution from collection programs comes not from what they tell us, but what they let us reject as false. In the case of the 215 program, its utility was in being able to provide information that allowed analysts to rule out some theories and suspects. This allows analysts to focus on other, more likely, scenarios.

Politics Disad Link Extensions

(__) The plan is unpopular because PRISM works, Congress got rid of metadata in the USA Freedom act because it was ineffecitve.

National Journal, 2015,
(Dustin Volz is a staff correspondent for National Journal covering tech policy. Dustin is a graduate of Arizona State University. Lauren Fox is a staff correspondent for National Journal. She graduated from the University of Oregon. 6-3-2015, "The War Over NSA Spying Is Just Beginning," nationaljournal, http://www.nationaljournal.com/tech/the-war-over-nsa-spying-is-just-beginning-20150603)

The momentum to end the NSA's phone dragnet snowballed over the past year and a half as two review panels deemed it ineffective. President Obama pledged to end it "as it currently exists" and a federal appeals court deemed it illegal. But further reforms—such as to the Internet surveillance program known as PRISM, which Snowden also revealed—are likely to be tougher sells in Congress. For PRISM especially, that's in part because the program is considered more useful and because it deals primarily with surveillance of foreigners. U.S. tech companies that are subject to PRISM, including Facebook, Yahoo, and Google, have called for changes to the program. Yet when asked about whether he would work to take down PRISM, even Wyden bristled at the question. "I am going to keep it to the three that I am going to change," Wyden said. Even reformers outside the confines of the Senate recognize that ending PRISM is a complicated pursuit. "It is not going to be quite as easy to drum up the same support," says Liza Goitein, codirector for the Liberty & National Security Program at the Brennan Center for Justice.

Executive Counterplan Solvency (JV & V Only)

(__) The President should limit NSA programs on their own. Congressional limits are too inflexible and link to the Terrorism disad.

Cordero, Director, National Security Studies Georgetown Law, 2014,
(Carrie, The Brookings Institution A Debate One Year After Snowden: The Future Of U.S. Surveillance Authorities Washington, D.C. Thursday, June 5, 2014 http://www.brookings.edu/events/2014/06/05-debate-snowden-future-us-surveillance-nsa#/full-event/)

MS. CORDERO: One additional point on the President’s initiative. So, there have been policy directives. The President issued a new order in January that does place additional limits on the collection. That is completely within the President’s authority and is appropriate and so forth.

Where I think this debate over the last year is now taking a turn is now the President can make those determinations, and if it determines that those policy decisions are having an adverse impact on national security and he needs to adjust them, he currently has the flexibility to do that.

The problem with some of the legislative proposals that are currently on the table is that they will outlaw certain activity, and it will be in law if bulk collection, for example, is outlawed, can’t be conducted under the FISA statute. And that’s where we risk the potential to create an environment that nobody in the legal community or the national security community wants to revisit, which is the environment that we faced in the pre-9/11 days and right after where the law, the statutes, had become so outdated with respect to the way the technology occurred and the threats that we were facing that the Executive needed to act on Executive authority alone. And unfortunately some of the proposals that are currently on the table risk putting us down that path in the years to come.

(__) The President can unilaterally end the programs.

Brand, member of the US Privacy and Civil Liberties Oversight Board, 2015
(Rachel L. 5-20-2015, "Opinion: What Congress gets wrong about NSA surveillance practices," Christian Science Monitor, http://www.csmonitor.com/World/Passcode/Passcode-Voices/2015/0520/Opinion-What-Congress-gets-wrong-about-NSA-surveillance-practices

The debate about this program is important, and reasonable people differ on whether its benefits outweigh its privacy impacts. But if the goal is to do away with this program, legislation is unnecessary. The president could unilaterally end the program today without any action by Congress. This would be simpler and have fewer unintended consequences than passing legislation that permanently removes this investigative tool from the toolbox and tinkers with a number of other important counterterrorism tools.

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