Nsa negative

Answer to Surveillance has chilling effect

(__)Surveillance does not eliminate dissent, empirical examples demonstrate the opposite.

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 identifies two major harms. The first is political in nature. Mass surveillance is said to stifle dissent because “a citizenry that is aware of always being watched quickly becomes a compliant and fearful one.” Compliance occurs because, anticipating being shamed or condemned for nonconformist behavior, individuals who know they are being watched “think only in line with what is expected and demanded.”13 Even targeted forms of surveillance are not to be trusted, Greenwald argues, because the “indifference or support of those who think themselves exempt invariably allows for the misuse of power to spread far beyond its original application.”14

These claims strike me as overblown. The more extreme claim, that surveillance furthers thought control, is neither logical nor supported by the facts. It is logically flawed because accusing someone of trying to control your mind proves that they have not succeeded in doing so. On a more practical level, the fate met by states that have tried to perfect mass control—the Soviet Union and the German Democratic Republic, for example—suggests that surveillance cannot eliminate dissent. It is also not clear that surveillance can undermine dissident movements as easily as Greenwald posits. The United States' record, he writes, “is suffused with examples of groups and individuals being placed under government surveillance by virtue of their dissenting views and activism—Martin Luther King, Jr., the civil rights movement, antiwar activists, environmentalists.”15 These cases are certainly troubling, but it hardly needs pointing out that surveillance did not prevent the end of segregation, retreat from Vietnam, and the rise of environmental consciousness. This record suggests that dissident movements that have public opinion on their side are not easily intimidated by state surveillance (a point reinforced by the Arab Spring).

Surveillance may make it harder for individuals to associate with movements on the far ends of the political spectrum. But why must a liberal democracy refrain from monitoring extremist groups such as neo-Nazis and anarchists? There is the danger that officials could label as “extreme” legitimate movements seeking to challenge the prevailing order. Yet the possibility that surveillance programs could expand beyond their original ambit does not constitute a good reason to end surveillance altogether. A more proportionate response is to see that surveillance powers are subject to oversight.

Answers to Surveillance is Tyranny

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(__)The argument that NSA surveillance enables tyranny is wrong. The data exists inevitably and if you are concerned about the risk of a tyrant taking over, there are much bigger issues than privacy to be concerned about.

Etzioni, Professor of International Relations at the George Washington University, 2014
(Amitai, Intelligence and National Security (2014): NSA: National Security vs. Individual Rights, Intelligence and National Security, DOI: 10.1080/02684527.2013.867221)

Part VI: The Coming Tyrant?

A common claim among civil libertarians is that, even if little harm is presently being inflicted by government surveillance programs, the infrastructure is in place for a less-benevolent leader to violate the people’s rights and set us on the path to tyranny. For example, it has been argued that PRISM ‘will amount to a “turnkey” system that, in the wrong hands, could transform the country into a totalitarian state virtually overnight. Every person who values personal freedom, human rights and the rule of law must recoil against such a possibility, regardless of their political preference’.177 And Senator Rand Paul (R-KY) has been ‘careful to point out that he is concerned about the possible abuses of some future, Hitler-like president’.178 A few things might be said in response.

First, all of the data that the government is collecting is already being archived (at least for short periods – as discussed above) by private corporations and other entities. It is not the case that PRISM or other such programs entail the collection of new data that was not previously available.

Second, if one is truly concerned that a tyrant might take over the United States, one obviously faces a much greater and all-encompassing threat than a diminution of privacy. And the response has to be similarly expansive. One can join civic bodies that seek to shore up democracies, or work with various reform movements and public education drives, or ally with groups that prepare to retreat to the mountains, store ammunition and essential foods, and plan to fight the tyrannical forces. But it makes no sense to oppose limited measures to enhance security on these grounds.

Turn - Surveillance Protects Rights

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(__)Private abuse of digital information is worse and only surveillance can stop that.

Simon, Arthur Levitt Professor of Law at Columbia University, 2014,
William H. Simon, 10-20-2014, "Rethinking Privacy," Boston Review, http://bostonreview.net/books-ideas/william-simon-rethinking-privacy-surveillance

The critics’ preoccupation with the dangers of state oppression often leads them to overlook the dangers of private abuse of surveillance. They have a surprisingly difficult time coming up with actual examples of serious harm from government surveillance abuse. Instead, they tend to talk about the “chilling effect” from awareness of surveillance.

By contrast, there have been many examples of serious harm from private abuse of personal information gained from digital sources. At least one person has committed suicide as a consequence of the Internet publication of video showing him engaged in sexual activity. Many people have been humiliated by the public release of a private recording of intimate conduct, and blackmail based on threats of such disclosure has emerged as a common practice. Some of this private abuse is and should be illegal. But the legal prohibitions can only be enforced if the government has some of the surveillance capacities that critics decry. Illicit recording and distribution can only be restrained if the wrongdoers can be identified and their actions effectively restrained. Less compromising critics would deny government these capacities.