Nsa affirmative

Answers to Domestic Collection is Small

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(__) Section 702 surveillance is very big and is more invasive.

Goitein, Co-Director Brennan Center for Justice’s Liberty and National Security Program 2015,
(Elizabeth, , 6-5-2015, "Who really wins from NSA reform?," MSNBC, http://www.msnbc.com/msnbc/freedom-act-who-really-wins-nsa-reform)

More fundamentally, bulk collection of business records is only one of the many intelligence activities that abandoned the individualized suspicion approach after 9/11. Until a few years ago, if the NSA, acting within the United States, wished to obtain communications between Americans and foreigners, it had to convince the FISA Court that the individual target was a foreign power or its agent. Today, under Section 702 of the FISA Amendments Act, the NSA may target any foreigner overseas and collect his or her communications with Americans without obtaining any individualized court order. Under Executive Order 12333, which governs the NSA’s activities when it conducts surveillance overseas, the standards are even more lax.

The result is mass surveillance programs that make the phone metadata program seem dainty in comparison. Even though these programs are nominally targeted at foreigners, they “incidentally” sweep in massive amounts of Americans’ data, including the content of calls, e-mails, text messages, and video chats. Limits on keeping and using such information are weak and riddled with exceptions. Moreover, foreign targets are not limited to suspected terrorists or even agents of foreign powers. As the Obama administration recently acknowledged, foreigners have privacy rights too, and the ability to eavesdrop on any foreigner overseas is an indefensible violation of those rights.

Intelligence officials almost certainly supported USA Freedom because they hoped it would relieve the post-Snowden pressure for reform. Their likely long-term goal is to avoid changes to Section 702, Executive Order 12333, and the many other authorities that permit intelligence collection without any individualized showing of wrongdoing. Privacy advocates who supported USA Freedom did so because they saw it as the first skirmish in a long battle to rein in surveillance authorities. Their eye is on the prize: a return to the principle of individualized suspicion as the basis for surveillance.

If intelligence officials are correct in their calculus, USA Freedom may prove to be a Pyrrhic victory. But if the law clears the way for further reforms across the full range of surveillance programs, history will vindicate the privacy advocates who supported it. The answer to what USA Freedom means for our liberties lies, not in the text of the law, but in the unwritten story of what happens next.

Answers to Domestic Collection is Small

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(__) Section 702 affects millions of internet users.

Laperruque, Fellow on Privacy, Surveillance, and Security at Center for Democracy and Technology, 2014,
(Jake, "Why Average Internet Users Should Demand Significant Section 702 Reform," Center For Democracy & Technology., 7-22-2014, https://cdt.org/blog/why-average-internet-users-should-demand-significant-section-702-reform/

The Washington Post recently released what may be the most comprehensive review of the impact of Section 702 of FISA – which authorizes the NSA’s PRISM and upstream programs – on average Internet users.  The scale and sensitive nature of communications being collected should generate widespread concern regarding the law’s use, and create demand for reform.  Fortunately, Congress can enact measures that limit the collateral damage to privacy needlessly caused by this over-broad surveillance law.

Section 702 Programs Affect Millions of Average Internet Users

While the government has framed Section 702 as a “targeted” program that primarily affects suspected terrorists rather than normal individuals – a sentiment echoed by the Privacy and Civil Liberties Oversight Board in a report which CDT and others roundly criticized – the Washington Post report tells a troublingly different story:  Based on a study of the largest sample of Section 702 data analyzed to date, approximately 90% of the text messages, emails, instant messages, and other communications retained by NSA, even after the application of minimization procedures, are to or from accounts who are not surveillance targets.

It is not surprising that a large portion of these accounts belong to non-targets; electronic surveillance of a target inevitably collects the communications of people who talk to the target about matters unrelated to the purpose of the surveillance.  Considering the large number of individuals one regularly emails, texts, and calls, a 9:1 ratio does not seem that extreme.  However, while this inevitable incidental collection might be tolerable in small levels when the surveillance target is suspected of wrongdoing and communications monitoring is approved by a judge, it is difficult to justify when the purpose of the surveillance is as broad as is authorized in Section 702, and the resulting scope is so enormous.

Further, because the 9:1 ratio is based on “accounts,” it might significantly underscore the number of non-targeted individuals affected.  As 89,138 “persons” were targets last year, the Post concluded communications from over 800,000 non-targeted accounts were retained.  The actual number is likely much larger.  As Julian Sanchez notes, while there are 89,138 persons targeted, most targeted persons (a term that can include corporations and organizations) have many electronic communications accounts, meaning the number of accounts targeted is likely much higher.  This would place the number of non-targeted accounts to or from which communications were retained in the millions.