Nsa affirmative

NSA 1AC (Long Version) (1/18)

Observation 1 – The USA Freedom Act did not reform the NSA’s mass collection of domestic communication. The agency still has authority to gather data under Section 702 of the FISA Amendments Act.

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)

Even under USA Freedom, however, the government is still able to pull in a great deal of information about innocent Americans. Needless to say, not everyone in contact with a suspected terrorist is guilty of a crime; even terrorists call for pizza delivery. Intelligence officials also may need to obtain records – like flight manifests – that include information about multiple people, most of whom have nothing to do with terrorism. Some of this “overcollection” may be inevitable, but its effects could be mitigated. For instance, agencies could be given a short period of time to identify information relevant to actual suspects, after which they would have to destroy any remaining information. USA Freedom fails to impose such limits. 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.

NSA 1AC (Long Version) (2/18)

Observation 2. The NSA has massively expanded its surveillance. Since 2008, American internet communication have been intercepted far more often than legitimate surveillance targets.

Gellman, Washington Post Staff Write, 2014
Barton 7-5-2014, "In NSA-intercepted data, those not targeted far outnumber the foreigners who are," Washington Post, https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/in-nsa-intercepted-data-those-not-targeted-far-outnumber-the-foreigners-who-are/2014/07/05/

Ordinary Internet users, American and non-American alike, far outnumber legally targeted foreigners in the communications intercepted by the National Security Agency from U.S. digital networks, according to a four-month investigation by The Washington Post. Nine of 10 account holders found in a large cache of intercepted conversations, which former NSA contractor Edward Snowden provided in full to The Post, were not the intended surveillance targets but were caught in a net the agency had cast for somebody else. Many of them were Americans. Nearly half of the surveillance files, a strikingly high proportion, contained names, e-mail addresses or other details that the NSA marked as belonging to U.S. citizens or residents. NSA analysts masked, or “minimized,” more than 65,000 such references to protect Americans’ privacy, but The Post found nearly 900 additional e-mail addresses, unmasked in the files, that could be strongly linked to U.S. citizens or U.S.residents. The surveillance files highlight a policy dilemma that has been aired only abstractly in public. There are discoveries of considerable intelligence value in the intercepted messages — and collateral harm to privacy on a scale that the Obama administration has not been willing to address.

NSA 1AC (Long Version) (3/18)

We find the current state of affairs troubling and offer the following Plan: The United States federal government will limit the scope of its domestic surveillance under Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act to communications whose sender or recipient is a valid intelligence target and whose targets pose a tangible threat to national security.

NSA 1AC (Long Version) (4/18)

Observation 3 – Our plan solves.

1. Congressional action should be taken to limit the scope of data collection.

Sinha, Fellow at Human Rights Watch, 2014
(G. Alex July 2014 “With Liberty to Monitor All How Large-Scale US Surveillance is Harming Journalism, Law, and American Democracy” Human Rights Watch, http://www.hrw.org/node/127364)

Narrow the purposes for which all foreign intelligence surveillance may be conducted and limit such surveillance to individuals, groups, or entities who pose a tangible threat to national security or a comparable state interest.

o Among other steps, Congress should pass legislation amending Section 702 of FISA and related surveillance authorities to narrow the scope of what can be acquired as “foreign intelligence information,” which is now defined broadly to encompass, among other things, information related to “the conduct of the foreign affairs of the United States.” It should be restricted to what is necessary and proportionate to protect legitimate aims identified in the ICCPR, such as national security. In practice, this should mean that the government may acquire information only from individuals, groups, or entities who pose a tangible threat to national security narrowly defined, or a comparable compelling state interest.

2. Limiting the scope of the Section 702 authority is critical to solve overcollection of American communications.

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/

Where Do We Go From Here?

There are sensible reforms that can significant limit the collateral damage to privacy caused by Section 702 without impeding national security.  Limiting the purposes for which Section 702 can be conducted will narrow the degree to which communications are monitored between individuals not suspected of wrongdoing or connected to national security threats.  Closing retention loopholes present in the Minimization Guidelines governing that surveillance will ensure that when Americans’ communications are incidentally collected, they are not kept absent national security needs.  And closing the backdoor search loophole would ensure that when Americans’ communications are retained because they communicated with a target of Section 702 surveillance, they couldn’t be searched unless the standards for domestic surveillance of the American are met.

NSA 1AC (Long Version) (5/18)

3. The plan eliminates the collection of communication “about” targets that prevents upstream collection.

Nojeim, Director, Project on Freedom, Security & Technology, 2014

Greg, Comments To The Privacy And Civil Liberties Oversight Board Regarding Reforms To Surveillance Conducted Pursuant To Section 702 Of Fisa April 11, 2014 https://d1ovv0c9tw0h0c.cloudfront.net/files/2014/04/CDT_PCLOB-702-Comments_4.11.13.pdf

C. Collection of communications “about” targets that are neither to nor from targets should be prohibited.

The Government takes the position that Section 702 permits it to collect not only communications that are to or from a foreign intelligence target, but also communications that are “about” the target because they mention an identifier associated with the target.17 The practice directs the focus of surveillance away from suspected wrongdoers and permits the NSA to target communications between individuals with no link to national security investigations.

Because this is inconsistent with the legislative history of the statute, and raises profound constitutional and operational problems, PCLOB should recommend that “about” collection be ended, and that Section 702 surveillance be limited to communications to and from targets. Section 702 authorizes the government to target the communications of persons reasonably believed to be abroad, but it never defines the term “target.” However, throughout Section 702, the term is used to refer to the targeting of an individual rather content of a communication.18 Further, the entire congressional debate on Section 702 includes no reference to collecting communications “about” a foreign target, and significant debate about collecting communications to or from a target.19

To collect “about” communications, the NSA engages in “upstream” surveillance on the Internet backbone,20 meaning “on fiber cables and infrastructure as data flows past,”21 temporarily copying the content of the entire data stream so it can be searched for the same “selectors” used for the downstream or “PRISM” surveillance. As a result, the NSA has the capability to search any Internet communication going into or out of the U.S.22 without particularized intervention by a provider. Direct access creates direct opportunity for abuse, and should not be permitted to a military intelligence agency.

This dragnet scanning also results in the collection of “multi-communication transactions,” (MCTs) which include tens of thousands wholly domestic communications each year.23 The FISC required creation of new minimization rules for MCTs in 2011, but did not limit their collection.24 The mass searching of communications content inside the United States, knowing that it the communications searched include tens of thousands of wholly domestic communications each year, raises profound constitutional questions.

Abandoning collection of communications “about” targets would remove any justification for upstream collection, eliminate the serious problems posed by direct government access to the Internet infrastructure, eliminate the collection of tens of thousands of wholly domestic communications in contravention of the statute, an make surveillance under Section 702 consistent with the congressional intent.

NSA 1AC (Long Version) (6/18)

4. These limits restore US leadership on privacy and rights issues.

Edgar, visiting scholar at the Brown University’s Watson Institute for International Studies, 2015
Timothy H, 4-13-2015, "The Good News About Spying," Foreign Affairs, https://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/united-states/2015-04-13/good-news-about-spying

The United States should also pivot from its defensive position and take the lead on global privacy. The United States has an impressive array of privacy safeguards, and it has even imposed new ones that protect citizens of every country. Despite their weaknesses, these safeguards are still the strongest in the world. The U.S. government should not be shy about trumpeting them, and should urge other countries to follow its lead. It could begin by engaging with close allies, like the United Kingdom, Germany, and other European countries, urging them to increase transparency and judicial supervision of their own communications surveillance activities.

5. Finally, the plan is a critical step to fight the politics of fear and regain privacy rights.

Snowden, director of the Freedom of the Press Foundation. 2015,
(Edward J, . 6-4-2015, "Edward Snowden: The World Says No to Surveillance," New York Times, http://www.nytimes.com/2015/06/05/opinion/edward-snowden-the-world-says-no-to-surveillance.html)

Though we have come a long way, the right to privacy — the foundation of the freedoms enshrined in the United States Bill of Rights — remains under threat. Some of the world’s most popular online services have been enlisted as partners in the N.S.A.’s mass surveillance programs, and technology companies are being pressured by governments around the world to work against their customers rather than for them. Billions of cellphone location records are still being intercepted without regard for the guilt or innocence of those affected. We have learned that our government intentionally weakens the fundamental security of the Internet with “back doors” that transform private lives into open books. Metadata revealing the personal associations and interests of ordinary Internet users is still being intercepted and monitored on a scale unprecedented in history: As you read this online, the United States government makes a note.

Spymasters in Australia, Canada and France have exploited recent tragedies to seek intrusive new powers despite evidence such programs would not have prevented attacks. Prime Minister David Cameron of Britain recently mused, “Do we want to allow a means of communication between people which we cannot read?” He soon found his answer, proclaiming that “for too long, we have been a passively tolerant society, saying to our citizens: As long as you obey the law, we will leave you alone.”

At the turning of the millennium, few imagined that citizens of developed democracies would soon be required to defend the concept of an open society against their own leaders.

Yet the balance of power is beginning to shift. We are witnessing the emergence of a post-terror generation, one that rejects a worldview defined by a singular tragedy. For the first time since the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, we see the outline of a politics that turns away from reaction and fear in favor of resilience and reason. With each court victory, with every change in the law, we demonstrate facts are more convincing than fear. As a society, we rediscover that the value of a right is not in what it hides, but in what it protects.

NSA 1AC (Long Version) (7/18)

Advantage One is Privacy

1. Surveillance under Section 702 is a substantial invasion of privacy because of the broad targeting guidelines in the FISA Amendments Act.

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/

Section 702 Surveillance Is Fundamentally More Invasive

While incidental collection of the communications of a person who communicates with a target is an inevitable feature of communications surveillance, it is tolerated when the reason for the surveillance is compelling and adequate procedural checks are in place.  In other instances of communications surveillance conducted in the US, surveillance requires court approval of a target, and that target must be a suspected wrongdoer or spy, a terrorist, or another agent of a foreign power.  Section 702 requires neither of these elements.

Under Section 702, targeting can occur for the purpose of collecting foreign intelligence information even though there is no court review of any particular target.  Instead, the super secret FISA court merely determines whether the guidelines under which the surveillance is conducted are reasonably designed to result in the targeting of non-Americans abroad and that “minimization guidelines” are reasonable.    This means incidental surveillance may occur purely because someone communicated with an individual engaged in activities that may have broadly defined “foreign intelligence” value.  For example, the communications of someone who communicates with a person abroad whose activities might relate to the conduct of U.S. foreign affairs can be collected, absent any independent assessment of necessity or accuracy.

As another example, under traditional FISA – for intelligence surveillance in the U.S. of people in the U.S.  – your communications could be incidentally collected only if you were in direct contact with a suspected agent of a foreign power, and additionally if the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court had affirmed this suspicion based on probable cause.  Under Section 702, your personal information could be scooped up by the NSA simply because your attorney, doctor, lover, or accountant was a person abroad who engaged in peaceful political activity such as protesting a G8 summit.

2. Indiscriminate wide-scale NSA Surveillance erodes privacy rights and violates the constitution

Sinha, Fellow at Human Rights Watch, 2014
(G. Alex July 2014 “With Liberty to Monitor All How Large-Scale US Surveillance is Harming Journalism, Law, and American Democracy” Human Rights Watch, http://www.hrw.org/node/127364)

The questions raised by surveillance are complex. The government has an obligation to protect national security, and in some cases, it is legitimate for government to restrict certain rights to that end. At the same time, international human rights and constitutional law set limits on the state’s authority to engage in activities like surveillance, which have the potential to undermine so many other rights. The current, large-scale, often indiscriminate US approach to surveillance carries enormous costs. It erodes global digital privacy and sets a terrible example for other countries like India, Pakistan, Ethiopia, and others that are in the process of expanding their surveillance capabilities. It also damages US credibility in advocating internationally for internet freedom, which the US has listed as an important foreign policy objective since at least 2010.As this report documents, US surveillance programs are also doing damage to some of the values the United States claims to hold most dear. These include freedoms of expression and association, press freedom, and the right to counsel, which are all protected by both international human rights law and the US Constitution.

NSA 1AC (Long Version) (8/18)

3. These privacy violations are more dangerous than any risk of terrorism

Schneier, fellow at the Berkman Center for Internet and Society at Harvard Law School, 2014
Bruce 1-6-2014, "Essays: How the NSA Threatens National Security," Schneier On Security, https://www.schneier.com/essays/archives/2014/01/how_the_nsa_threaten.html

We have no evidence that any of this surveillance makes us safer. NSA Director General Keith Alexander responded to these stories in June by claiming that he disrupted 54 terrorist plots. In October, he revised that number downward to 13, and then to "one or two." At this point, the only "plot" prevented was that of a San Diego man sending $8,500 to support a Somali militant group. We have been repeatedly told that these surveillance programs would have been able to stop 9/11, yet the NSA didn't detect the Boston bombings—even though one of the two terrorists was on the watch list and the other had a sloppy social media trail. Bulk collection of data and metadata is an ineffective counterterrorism tool.

Not only is ubiquitous surveillance ineffective, it is extraordinarily costly. I don't mean just the budgets, which will continue to skyrocket. Or the diplomatic costs, as country after country learns of our surveillance programs against their citizens. I'm also talking about the cost to our society. It breaks so much of what our society has built. It breaks our political systems, as Congress is unable to provide any meaningful oversight and citizens are kept in the dark about what government does. It breaks our legal systems, as laws are ignored or reinterpreted, and people are unable to challenge government actions in court. It breaks our commercial systems, as U.S. computer products and services are no longer trusted worldwide. It breaks our technical systems, as the very protocols of the Internet become untrusted. And it breaks our social systems; the loss of privacy, freedom, and liberty is much more damaging to our society than the occasional act of random violence.

And finally, these systems are susceptible to abuse. This is not just a hypothetical problem. Recent history illustrates many episodes where this information was, or would have been, abused: Hoover and his FBI spying, McCarthy, Martin Luther King Jr. and the civil rights movement, anti-war Vietnam protesters, and—more recently—the Occupy movement. Outside the U.S., there are even more extreme examples. Building the surveillance state makes it too easy for people and organizations to slip over the line into abuse.

NSA 1AC (Long Version) (9/18)

4. The First impact is the loss of personal autonomy and agency. Privacy is a gateway right, it enables all of our other freedoms.

PoKempne, General Counsel at Human Rights Watch, 2014,
(Dinah, , “The Right Whose Time Has Come (Again): Privacy in the Age of Surveillance” 1/21/14 http://www.hrw.org/world-report/2014/essays/privacy-in-age-of-surveillance)

Technology has invaded the sacred precincts of private life, and unwarranted exposure has imperiled our security, dignity, and most basic values. The law must rise to the occasion and protect our rights. Does this sound familiar? So argued Samuel Warren and Louis Brandeis in their 1890 Harvard Law Review article announcing “The Right to Privacy.” We are again at such a juncture. The technological developments they saw as menacing—photography and the rise of the mass circulation press—appear rather quaint to us now. But the harms to emotional, psychological, and even physical security from unwanted exposure seem just as vivid in our digital age.Our renewed sense of vulnerability comes as almost all aspects of daily social life migrate online. At the same time, corporations and governments have acquired frightening abilities to amass and search these endless digital records, giving them the power to “know” us in extraordinary detail.

In a world where we share our lives on social media and trade immense amounts of personal information for the ease and convenience of online living, some have questioned whether privacy is a relevant concept. It is not just relevant, but crucial.

Indeed, privacy is a gateway right that affects our ability to exercise almost every other right, not least our freedom to speak and associate with those we choose, make political choices, practice our religious beliefs, seek medical help, access education, figure out whom we love, and create our family life. It is nothing less than the shelter in which we work out what we think and who we are; a fulcrum of our autonomy as individuals.

The importance of privacy, a right we often take for granted, was thrown into sharp relief in 2013 by the steady stream of revelations from United States government files released by former National Security Agency (NSA) contractor Edward Snowden, and published in the Guardian and other major newspapers around the world. These revelations, supported by highly classified documents, showed the US, the UK, and other governments engaged in global indiscriminate data interception, largely unchecked by any meaningful legal constraint or oversight, without regard for the rights of millions of people who were not suspected of wrongdoing.

NSA 1AC (Long Version) (10/18)

5. The Second impact is Totalitarianism, the loss of autonomy due to surveillance enables “turnkey totalitarianism,” destroying democracy.

Haggerty, Professor of Criminology and Sociology at the University of Alberta, 2015
Kevin D., “What’s Wrong with Privacy Protections?” in A World Without Privacy: What Law Can and Should Do? Edited by Austin Sarat p. 230

Still others will say I am being alarmist. My emphasis on the threat of authoritarian forms of rule inherent in populations open to detailed institutional scrutiny will be portrayed as overblown and over dramatic, suggesting I veer towards the lunatic fringe of unhinged conspiracy theorists.66 But one does not have to believe secret forces are operating behind the scenes to recognize that our declining private realm presents alarming dangers. Someone as conservative and deeply embedded in the security establishment as William Binney – a former NSA senior executive – says the security surveillance infrastructure he helped build now puts us on the verge of “turnkey totalitarianism.”67

The contemporary expansion of surveillance, where monitoring becomes an ever-more routine part of our lives, represents a tremendous shift in the balance of power between citizens and organizations. Perhaps the greatest danger of this situation is how our existing surveillance practices can be turned to oppressive uses. From this point forward our expanding surveillance infrastructure stands as a resource to be inherited by future generations of politicians, corporate actors, or even messianic leaders. Given sufficient political will this surveillance infrastructure can be re-purposed to monitor – in unparalleled detail – people who some might see as undesirable due to their political opinions, religion, skin color, gender, birthplace, physical abilities, medical history, or any number of an almost limitless list of factors used to pit people against one another.

The twentieth century provides notorious examples of such repressive uses of surveillance. Crucially, those tyrannical states exercised fine-grained political control by relying on surveillance infrastructures that today seem laughably rudimentary, comprised as they were of paper files, index cards, and elementary telephone tapping.68

It is no more alarmist to acknowledge such risks are germane to our own societies than it is to recognize the future will see wars, terrorist attacks, or environmental disasters – events that could themselves prompt surveillance structures to be re-calibrated towards more coercive ends. Those who think this massive surveillance infrastructure will not, in the fullness of time, be turned to repressive purposes are either innocent as to the realities of power, or whistling past a graveyard.

But one does not have to dwell on the most extreme possibilities to be unnerved by how enhanced surveillance capabilities invest tremendous powers in organizations. Surveillance capacity gives organizations unprecedented abilities to manipulate human behaviors, desires, and subjectivities towards organizational ends – ends that are too often focused on profit, personal aggrandizement, and institutional self-interest rather than human betterment.

NSA 1AC (Long Version) (11/18)

6. Freedom and dignity are ethically prior to security.

Cohen, Ph.D., ethicist and political analyst, 2014
(Elliot D.. Technology of Oppression: Preserving Freedom and Dignity in an Age of Mass, Warrantless Surveillance.. DOI: 10.1057/9781137408211.0011. )

The threat posed by mass, warrantless surveillance technologies

Presently, such a threat to human freedom and dignity lies in the technological erosion of human privacy through the ever-evolving development and deployment of a global, government system of mass, warrantless surveillance. Taken to its logical conclusion, this is a systematic means of spying on, and ultimately manipulating and controlling, virtually every aspect of everybody's private life—a thoroughgoing, global dissolution of personal space, which is supposed to be legally protected. In such a governmental state of "total (or virtually total) information awareness," the potential for government control and manipulation of the people's deepest and most personal beliefs, feelings, and values can transform into an Orwellian reality—and nightmare.

As will be discussed in Chapter 6, the technology that has the potential to remove such scenarios from the realm of science fiction to that of true science is currently being developed. This is not to deny the legitimate government interest in "national security"; however, the exceptional disruption of privacy for legitimate state reasons cannot and should not be mistaken for a usual and customary rule of mass invasion of people's private lives without their informed consent. Benjamin Franklin wisely and succinctly expressed the point: "Those who surrender freedom for security will not have, nor do they deserve, either one." In relinquishing our privacy to government, we also lose the freedom to control, and act on, our personal information, which is what defines us individually, and collectively, as free agents and a free nation. In a world devoid of freedom to control who we are, proclaiming that we are "secure" is an empty platitude.

NSA 1AC (Long Version) (12/18)

Advantage Two is the Economy.

1. NSA surveillance has put the US economy at risk because of losses in the technology sector.

Mindock, Reporting Fellow at International Business Times – Internally quoting The Information Technology and Innovation Foundation. ITIF is a non-partisan research and educational institute, 2015
(Clark “NSA Surveillance Could Cost Billions For US Internet Companies After Edward Snowden Revelations” - International Business Times - June 10 2015 http://www.ibtimes.com/nsa-surveillance-could-cost-billions-us-internet-companies-after-edward-snowden-1959737)

Failure to reform National Security Administration spying programs revealed by Edward Snowden could be more economically taxing than previously thought, says a new study published by the Information Technology and Innovation Foundation Tuesday. The study suggests the programs could be affecting the technology sector as a whole, not just the cloud-computing sector, and that the costs could soar much higher than previously expected. Even modest declines in cloud computing revenues from the revealed surveillance programs, according to a previous report, would cost between $21.5 billion and $35 billion by 2016. New estimates show that the toll “will likely far exceed ITIF’s initial $35 billion estimate.” “The U.S. government’s failure to reform many of the NSA’s surveillance programs has damaged the competitiveness of the U.S. tech sector and cost it a portion of the global market share,” a summary of the report said. Revelations by defense contractor Snowden in June 2013 exposed massive U.S. government surveillance capabilities and showed the NSA collected American phone records in bulk, and without a warrant. The bulk phone-record revelations, and many others in the same vein, including the required complacency of American telecom and Internet companies in providing the data, raised questions about the transparency of American surveillance programs and prompted outrage from privacy advocates. The study, published this week, argues that unless the American government can vigorously reform how NSA surveillance is regulated and overseen, U.S. companies will lose contracts and, ultimately, their competitive edge in a global market as consumers around the world choose cloud computing and technology options that do not have potential ties to American surveillance programs. The report comes amid a debate in Congress on what to do with the Patriot Act, the law that provides much of the authority for the surveillance programs. As of June 1, authority to collect American phone data en masse expired, though questions remain as to whether letting that authority expire is enough to protect privacy. Supporters of the programs argue that they provide the country with necessary capabilities to fight terrorism abroad. A further reform made the phone records collection process illegal for the government, and instead gave that responsibility to the telecom companies.

NSA 1AC (Long Version) (13/18)

2. Reform is necessary to regain US leadership in the global marketplace.

Castro and Mcquinn, Director of the Center for Data Innovation and Research Assistant, 2015
(Daniel & Alan, 6/9/15, “Beyond the USA Freedom Act: How U.S. Surveillance Still Subverts U.S. Competitiveness” “Information Technology & Innovation Foundation” http://www.itif.org/publications/2015/06/09/beyond-usa-freedom-act-how-us-surveillance-still-subverts-us-competitiveness

When historians write about this period in U.S. history it could very well be that one of the themes will be how the United States lost its global technology leadership to other nations. And clearly one of the factors they would point to is the long-standing privileging of U.S. national security interests over U.S. industrial and commercial interests when it comes to U.S. foreign policy.

This has occurred over the last few years as the U.S. government has done relatively little to address the rising commercial challenge to U.S. technology companies, all the while putting intelligence gathering first and foremost. Indeed, policy decisions by the U.S. intelligence community have reverberated throughout the global economy. If the U.S. tech industry is to remain the leader in the global marketplace, then the U.S. government will need to set a new course that balances economic interests with national security interests. The cost of inaction is not only short-term economic losses for U.S. companies, but a wave of protectionist policies that will systematically weaken U.S. technology competiveness in years to come, with impacts on economic growth, jobs, trade balance, and national security through a weakened industrial base. Only by taking decisive steps to reform its digital surveillance activities will the U.S. government enable its tech industry to effectively compete in the global market.

3. The US is the driving force behind global economic recovery

Economist 2015 “American shopper,” 2-14, http://www.economist.com/news/leaders/21643188-world-once-again-relying-too-much-american-consumers-power-growth-american-shopper

A Global economy running on a single engine is better than one that needs jump leads. The American economy is motoring again, to the relief of exporters from Hamburg to Hangzhou. Firms added more than 1m net new jobs in the past three months, the best showing since 1997 (see article). Buoyed up by cheap petrol, Americans are spending; in January consumer sentiment jumped to its highest in more than a decade. The IMF reckons that American growth will hit 3.6% in 2015, faster than the world economy as a whole. All this is good. But growing dependence on the American economy—and on consumers in particular—has unwelcome echoes. A decade ago American consumers borrowed heavily and recklessly. They filled their ever-larger houses with goods from China; they fuelled gas-guzzling cars with imported oil. Big exporters recycled their earnings back to America, pushing down interest rates which in turn helped to feed further borrowing. Europe was not that different. There, frugal Germans financed debt binges around the euro area’s periphery.After the financial crisis, the hope was of an end to these imbalances. Debt-addicted Americans and Spaniards would chip away at their obligations; thrifty German and Chinese consumers would start to enjoy life for once. At first, this seemed to be happening. America’s trade deficit, which was about 6% of GDP in 2006, had more than halved by 2009. But now the world is slipping back into some nasty habits. Hair grows faster than the euro zone, and what growth there is depends heavily on exports. The countries of the single currency are running a current-account surplus of about 2.6% of GDP, thanks largely to exports to America. At 7.4% of GDP, Germany’s trade surplus is as large as it has ever been. China’s growth, meanwhile, is slowing—and once again relying heavily on spending elsewhere. It notched up its own record trade surplus in January. China’s exports have actually begun to drop, but imports are down by more. And over the past year the renminbi, which rose by more than 10% against the dollar in 2010-13, has begun slipping again, to the annoyance of American politicians. America’s economy is warping as a result. Consumption’s contribution to growth in the fourth quarter of 2014 was the largest since 2006. The trade deficit is widening. Strip out oil, and America’s trade deficit grew to more than 3% of GDP in 2014, and is approaching its pre-recession peak of about 4%. The world’s reliance on America is likely to deepen. Germans are more interested in shipping savings abroad than investing at home (see article). Households and firms in Europe’s periphery are overburdened with debt, workers’ wages squeezed and banks in no mood to lend. Like Germany, Europe as a whole is relying on exports. China is rebalancing, but not fast enough: services have yet to account for more than half of annual Chinese output.

NSA 1AC (Long Version (14/18)

4. The impact of economic decline is great power war.

James, Professor of History at Princeton, 2014 (Harold, “Debate: Is 2014, like 1914, a prelude to world war?”, 7-2, http://www.theglobeandmail.com/globe-debate/read-and-vote-is-2014-like-1914-a-prelude-to-world-war/article19325504/)

Some of the dynamics of the pre-1914 financial world are now re-emerging. Then an economically declining power, Britain, wanted to use finance as a weapon against its larger and faster growing competitors, Germany and the United States. Now America is in turn obsessed by being overtaken by China – according to some calculations, set to become the world’s largest economy in 2014. In the aftermath of the 2008 financial crisis, financial institutions appear both as dangerous weapons of mass destruction, but also as potential instruments for the application of national power. In managing the 2008 crisis, the dependence of foreign banks on U.S. dollar funding constituted a major weakness, and required the provision of large swap lines by the Federal Reserve. The United States provided that support to some countries, but not others, on the basis of an explicitly political logic, as Eswar Prasad demonstrates in his new book on the “Dollar Trap.” Geo-politics is intruding into banking practice elsewhere. Before the Ukraine crisis, Russian banks were trying to acquire assets in Central and Eastern Europe. European and U.S. banks are playing a much reduced role in Asian trade finance. Chinese banks are being pushed to expand their role in global commerce. After the financial crisis, China started to build up the renminbi as a major international currency. Russia and China have just proposed to create a new credit rating agency to avoid what they regard as the political bias of the existing (American-based) agencies. The next stage in this logic is to think about how financial power can be directed to national advantage in the case of a diplomatic tussle. Sanctions are a routine (and not terribly successful) part of the pressure applied to rogue states such as Iran and North Korea. But financial pressure can be much more powerfully applied to countries that are deeply embedded in the world economy. The test is in the Western imposition of sanctions after the Russian annexation of Crimea. President Vladimir Putin’s calculation in response is that the European Union and the United States cannot possibly be serious about the financial war. It would turn into a boomerang: Russia would be less affected than the more developed and complex financial markets of Europe and America. The threat of systemic disruption generates a new sort of uncertainty, one that mirrors the decisive feature of the crisis of the summer of 1914. At that time, no one could really know whether clashes would escalate or not. That feature contrasts remarkably with almost the entirety of the Cold War, especially since the 1960s, when the strategic doctrine of Mutually Assured Destruction left no doubt that any superpower conflict would inevitably escalate. The idea of network disruption relies on the ability to achieve advantage by surprise, and to win at no or low cost. But it is inevitably a gamble, and raises prospect that others might, but also might not be able to, mount the same sort of operation. Just as in 1914, there is an enhanced temptation to roll the dice, even though the game may be fatal.

NSA 1AC (Long Version) (15/18)

Advvantage 3 is Internet Freedom

1. NSA spying has undermined American foreign policy. It undercut any credibility to push for democratic freedom in repressive regimes, repressive surveillance is growing worldwide as a result.

Schneier, fellow at the Berkman Center for Internet and Society at Harvard Law School 2015 (Bruce, Inc 3/2/15, Data and Goliath: The Hidden Battles to Collect Your Data and Control Your World. P. 106)

In 2010, then secretary of state Hillary Clinton gave a speech declaring Internet freedom a major US foreign policy goal. To this end, the US State Department funds and supports a variety of programs worldwide, working to counter censorship, promote encryption, and enable anonymity, all designed "to ensure that any child, born anywhere in the world, has access to the global Internet as an open platform on which to innovate, learn, organize, and express herself free from undue interference or censorship." This agenda has been torpedoed by the awkward realization that the US and other democratic governments conducted the same types of surveillance they have criticized in more repressive countries.

Those repressive countries are seizing on the opportunity, pointing to US surveillance as a justification for their own more draconian Internet policies: more surveillance, more censorship, and a more isolationist Internet that gives individual countries more control over what their citizens see and say. For example, one of the defenses the government of Egypt offered for its plans to monitor social media was that "the US listens in to phone calls, and supervises anyone who could threaten its national security." Indians are worried that their government will cite the US's actions to justify surveillance in that country. Both China and Russia publicly called out US hypocrisy.

This affects Internet freedom worldwide. Historically, Internet governance—what little there was—was largely left to the United States, because everyone more or less believed that we were working for the security of the Internet instead of against it. But now that the US has lost much of its credibility, Internet governance is in turmoil. Many of the regulatory bodies that influence the Internet are trying to figure out what sort of leadership model to adopt. Older international standards organizations like the International Telecommunications Union are trying to increase their influence in Internet governance and develop a more nationalist set of rules.

This is the cyber sovereignty movement, and it threatens to fundamentally fragment the Internet. It's not new, but it has been given an enormous boost from the revelations of NSA spying. Countries like Russia, China, and Saudi Arabia are pushing for much more autonomous control over the portions of the Internet within their borders.

NSA 1AC (Long Version) (16/18)

2. This hypocrisy created the conditions that will accelerate the global rise of authoritarianism.

Chenoweth & Stephan, political scientist at the University of Denver & Senior Policy Fellow at the U.S. Institute of Peace, 2015 (Erica,.& Maria J, , 7-7-2015, "How Can States and Non-State Actors Respond to Authoritarian Resurgence?," Political Violence @ a Glance, http://politicalviolenceataglance.org/2015/07/07/how-can-states-and-non-state-actors-respond-to-authoritarian-resurgence/

Chenoweth: Why is authoritarianism making a comeback?

Stephan: There’s obviously no single answer to this. But part of the answer is that democracy is losing its allure in parts of the world. When people don’t see the economic and governance benefits of democratic transitions, they lose hope. Then there’s the compelling “stability first” argument. Regimes around the world, including China and Russia, have readily cited the “chaos” of the Arab Spring to justify heavy-handed policies and consolidating their grip on power. The “color revolutions” that toppled autocratic regimes in Serbia, Georgia, and Ukraine inspired similar dictatorial retrenchment.

There is nothing new about authoritarian regimes adapting to changing circumstances. Their resilience is reinforced by a combination of violent and non-coercive measures. But authoritarian paranoia seems to have grown more piqued over the past decade. Regimes have figured out that “people power” endangers their grip on power and they are cracking down. There’s no better evidence of the effectiveness of civil resistance than the measures that governments take to suppress it—something you detail in your chapter from my new book.

Finally, and importantly, democracy in this country and elsewhere has taken a hit lately. Authoritarian regimes mockingly cite images of torture, mass surveillance, and the catering to the radical fringes happening in the US political system to refute pressures to democratize themselves. The financial crisis here and in Europe did not inspire much confidence in democracy and we are seeing political extremism on the rise in places like Greece and Hungary. Here in the US we need to get our own house in order if we hope to inspire confidence in democracy abroad.

NSA 1AC (Long Version) (17/18)

3. American surveillance is the primary driver behind this authoritarian acceleration. Curtailing the surveillance of the NSA is necessary to restore US credibility.

Jackson, M.A. from the University of Chicago’s Committee on International Relations 2015 (Dean, 7-14-2015, "The Authoritarian Surge into Cyberspace," International Forum For Democratic Studies, http://www.resurgentdictatorship.org/the-authoritarian-surge-into-cyberspace/)

This still leaves open the question of what is driving authoritarian innovation in cyberspace. Deibert identifies increased government emphasis on cybersecurity as one driver: cybercrime and terrorism are serious concerns, and governments have a legitimate interest in combatting them. Unfortunately, when democratic governments use mass surveillance and other tools to police cyberspace, it can have the effect of providing cover for authoritarian regimes to use similar techniques for repressive purposes—especially, as Deibert notes, since former NSA contractor Edward Snowden’s disclosure of US mass surveillance programs.

Second, Deibert observes that authoritarian demand for cybersecurity technology is often met by private firms based in the democratic world—a group that Reporters Without Borders (RSF) calls the “Corporate Enemies of the Internet.” Hacking Team, an Italian firm mentioned in the RSF report, is just one example: The Guardian reports that leaked internal documents suggest Hacking Team’s clients include the governments of “Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Russia, Bahrain, Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates.” Deibert writes that “in a world where ‘Big Brother’ and ‘Big Data’ share so many of the same needs, the political economy of cybersecurity must be singled out as a major driver of resurgent authoritarianism in cyberspace.”

Given these powerful forces, it will be difficult to reverse the authoritarian surge in cyberspace. Deibert offers some possible solutions: for starters, he writes that the “political economy of cybersecurity” can be altered through stronger export controls, “smart sanctions,” and a monitoring system to detect abuses. Further, he recommends that cybersecurity trade fairs open their doors to civil society watchdogs who can help hold governments and the private sector accountable.

Similarly, Deibert suggests that opening regional cybersecurity initiatives to civil society participation could mitigate violations of user rights. This might seem unlikely to occur within some authoritarian-led intergovernmental organizations, but setting a normative expectation of civil society participation might help discredit the efforts of bad actors.

Deibert concludes with a final recommendation that society develop “models of cyberspace security that can show us how to prevent disruptions or threats to life and property without sacrificing liberties and rights.” This might restore democratic states to the moral high ground and remove oppressive regimes’ rhetorical cover, but developing such models will require confronting powerful vested interests and seriously examining the tradeoff between cybersecurity and Internet freedom. Doing so would be worth it: the Internet is far too important to cede to authoritarian control.

NSA 1AC (Long Version) (18/18)

4. The spread of democracy prevents nuclear war.

Sharansky, Israel’s Minister for Jerusalem and Diaspora Affair, 2004, (Nathan, The Case for Democracy, p. 88

Now we can see why nondemocratic regimes imperil the security of the world. They stay in power by controlling their populations. This control invariably requires an increasing amount of repression. To justify this repression and maintain internal stability, external enemies must be manufactured. The result is that while the mechanics of democracy make democracies inherently peaceful, the mechanics of tyranny make nondemocracies inherently beliligerent. Indeed, in order to avoid collapsing from within, fear societies must maintain a perpetual state of conflict. Nondemocratic societies have always been powder kegs ready to explode, but today the force of that explosion can be far more lethal than it was in the past. In an age of weapons of mass destruction and global terrorism, the dangers of ignoring the absence of democracy in any part of the world have increased dramatically. For a half century, the totalitarian regime in Pyongyang has threatened the security of South Korea. Once it developed long-range missiles, it threatened the security of neighboring Japan and endangered other countries with the proliferation of ballistic missile technology. Now that Pyongyang has reportedly developed nuclear weapons— weapons that can be provided to international terrorist organizations—it endangers the security of the entire world. The threat posed by North Korea is not a function of the increase of the destructive capacity of its weapons. Rather, it is the enhanced capacity of its weapons coupled with the nature of its regime that is the source of the problem. Just as nuclear weapons in the hands of a democratizing Russia do not pose the same threat as they did in the hands of the Soviet Union, the weapons of a democratic North Korea would pose no greater danger to the world than if they would be in the hands of a democratic South Korea. In the hands of leaders whose power is dependent on people who see war as a last resort, weapons of mass destruction will be a weapon of last resort. But in the hands of leaders whose survival depends on maintaining a constant state of tension, the danger of these weapons being used directly, or via terrorist proxies, increases enormously. That is not to say that nondemocratic regimes will never sign peace agreements. From time to time, if it suits their interests, they will. But we must remember that for these regimes, the decision to wage war or make peace is not based upon its impact on the public welfare but on whether it strengthens the regime’s control. To democratic governments, whose power is ultimately dependent on the popular will, peace is always an interest. To nondemocratic regimes, peace and war are merely interchangeable methods of subjugation. One day staying in power will necessitate making peace. The next, it will necessitate waging war. That is why a genuine and lasting peace can only be made with democracies.