Nsa affirmative

Answers to Economic Decline Doesn’t Cause War

(___)

(__) Statistics prove decline does cause war

Blomberg & Hess,Professor of Economics at Wellesley & Oberlin respectively, 2002
(Brock & Gregory, February 2002, “The Temporal Links between Conflict and Economic Activity,” Journal of Conflict Resolution

To begin this temporal “causal” investigation, we first need to develop a statistical framework to estimate the joint, dynamic determination of the occurrence of internal conflict, external conflict, and growth. Because conflict is measured as a discrete variable, researchers typically estimate the occurrence as a probability, or if we consider both internal and external conflict, we can always estimate the joint probability distribution. But are there similar interpretations of economic activity as a discrete state? Indeed, a broad literature considers the evolution of states in the economy as the natural progression of phases. In fact, one of the key historical studies of U.S. and international business cycles, undertaken by Burns and Mitchell (1944), treated the state of the economy as either an expansion or contraction, on which the National Bureau of Economic Research’s dating procedure for recessions was founded. 4 The relevance for our study is that breakpoints in the state of the economy, either expansion or recession, are analogous to break points in peace—internal or external conflicts.5 Using an unbalanced panel of data covering 152 countries from 1950 to 1992, we therefore consider the joint determination of internal conflict, external conflict, and the state of the economy as measured by the aforementioned discrete variables. We find that the relationship between the variables is not a simple one. Conflict does appear to be highly related to the economy for the entire sample. However, it seems to be most highly related when considering certain nation-groups. For nondemocracies or in regions highly populated by nondemocracies, there seems to be an intimate link between a poor economy and the decision to go to war—both internally and externally. These results confirm much of the original hypotheses put forth in Blomberg, Hess, and Thacker (2001)—namely, that there is compelling evidence of a conditional poverty-conflict trap.

Answers to Cybersecurity Sector Turn

(__)

(__) The mass surveillance model hurts cybersecurity and global Internet freedom.

Kehl et al, Policy Analyst at New America’s Open Technology Institute, 2014

(Danielle, New America’s Open Technology Institute Policy Paper, Surveillance Costs: The NSA’s Impact on the Economy, Internet Freedom & Cybersecurity, July 2014)

Costs to Cybersecurity: The NSA has done serious damage to Internet security through its weakening of key encryption standards, insertion of surveillance backdoors into widely-used hardware and software products, stockpiling rather than responsibly disclosing information about software security vulnerabilities, and a variety of offensive hacking operations undermining the overall security of the global Internet. The U.S. government has already taken some limited steps to mitigate this damage and begin the slow, difficult process of rebuilding trust in the United States as a responsible steward of the Internet. But the reform efforts to date have been relatively narrow, focusing primarily on the surveillance programs’ impact on the rights of U.S. citizens. Based on our findings, we recommend that the U.S. government take the following steps to address the broader concern that the NSA’s programs are impacting our economy, our foreign relations, and our cybersecurity: Strengthen privacy protections for both Americans and non-Americans, within the United States and extraterritorially. Provide for increased transparency around government surveillance, both from the government and companies. Recommit to the Internet Freedom agenda in a way that directly addresses issues raised by NSA surveillance, including moving toward international human-rights based standards on surveillance. Begin the process of restoring trust in cryptography standards through the National Institute of Standards and Technology. Ensure that the U.S. government does not undermine cybersecurity by inserting surveillance backdoors into hardware or software products. ​Help to eliminate security vulnerabilities in software, rather than stockpile them. Develop clear policies about whether, when, and under what legal standards it is permissible for the government to secretly install malware on a computer or in a network. ​Separate the offensive and defensive functions of the NSA in order to minimize conflicts of interest.

Answers to USA Freedom Act Solves

(___)

(__) Freedom Act insufficient to restore US technology reputation

The Nation 15
June 11, 2015, http://www.cfr.org/latin-america-and-the-caribbean/snowden-come-between-us-latin-america/p31109, “New Headlight;Study shows cost of whistle-blower Snowden's revelations to US tech firms”

US technology companies are getting hit harder than anticipated by revelations about surveillance programmes led by the National Security Agency, a study showed yesterday. The study by the Information Technology and Innovation Foundation, a Washington think-tank, said the impact would be greater than its estimate nearly two years ago of losses for the cloud- computing sector. In 2013, the think-tank estimated that US cloud computing firms could lose between $22 billion and $35 billion (Bt739.8 billion and Bt1.1 trillion) in overseas business over three years. It now appears impossible to quantify the economic damage because the entire sector has been tarnished by the scandal from revelations in documents leaked by former NSA contractor Edward Snowden, the report said. "These revelations have fundamentally shaken international trust in US tech companies and hurt US business prospects all over the world," the report said. Study co-author Daniel Castro said the impact is now open-ended, with the NSA scandal having tarnished a wide range of US tech firms. Since 2013, he said, "we haven't turned this around; it's not just cloud companies. It's all tech firms implicated by this," he said. "It doesn't show any signs of stopping." @New Subhead;New law insufficient @BT New Screen/briefs Text - no indent;The report said foreign customers are increasingly shunning US companies, and governments around the world "are using US surveillance as an excuse to enact a new wave of protectionist policies". One survey cited by the researchers found 25 per cent of businesses in Britain and Canada planned to pull company data out of the United States as a result of the NSA revelations. Some companies in Europe do not want their data hosted in North America due to these concerns, the researchers said. Meanwhile, foreign companies have used the revelations as a marketing opportunity. "There is also an increasingly distressing trend of countries, such as Australia, China, Russia, and India, passing laws that prevent their citizens' personal information from leaving the country's borders, effectively mandating that cloud computing firms build data centres in those countries or risk losing access to their markets." The report said several US tech firms including Apple and Salesforce have already started to build data centres abroad "to appease foreign watchdogs and privacy advocates". While this "data nationalism" may create some jobs in the short term, Castro said that countries enacting these policies "are hurting themselves in the long term by cutting themselves off from the best technology". Castro said the passage of a reform measure last week called the USA Freedom Act is not sufficient to repair the reputation of US tech firms. The report recommends further reforms including boosting transparency of surveillance practices, opposing government efforts to weaken encryption and strengthening its mutual legal assistance treaties with other nations. "Over the last few years, the US government's failure to meaningfully reform its surveillance practices has taken a serious economic toll on the US tech sector and the total cost continues to grow each day," Castro said. Castro said the USA Freedom Act, which curbs bulk data collection among its reforms, is "good legislation and a step in the right direction. We have ignored the economic impact of US surveillance".