Nsa negative

Topicality Domestic Surveillance (1NC – 1/2) (JV/V)

A. Standards

1. Fair Limits: The resolution ensures a fair division of ground between the affirmative and negative teams.

2. Precision: The most precise interpretation of the resolution should be preferred, as it provides a predictable and fair understanding of the debate.

B. Violation

1. Interpretation - Domestic surveillance is surveillance that physically takes place on the surveilling state’s territory, which is distinct from foreign surveillance which is in surveillance across state borders and surveillance entirely overseas.

Deeks,Associate Professor, University of Virginia Law School, 2015
Ashley.. "An International Legal Framework for Surveillance." Virginia Journal of International Law 55 (2015): 2014-53.

As a result, this Article is focused on the category of spying that consists of foreign surveillance. “Foreign surveillance” here refers to the clandestine surveillance by one state during peacetime of the communications of another state’s officials or citizens (who are located outside the surveilling state’s territory) using electronic means, including cyber-monitoring, telecommunications monitoring, satellites, or drones. Foreign surveillance is comprised of two types of surveillance: “transnational surveillance” and “extraterritorial surveillance.”13 Transnational surveillance refers to the surveillance of communications that cross state borders, including those that begin and end overseas but incidentally pass through the collecting state. Extraterritorial surveillance refers to the surveillance of communications that take place entirely overseas. For example, if Australia intercepted a phone call between two French nationals that was routed through a German cell tower, this would be extraterritorial surveillance. In contrast, surveillance that takes place on the surveilling state’s territory (“domestic surveillance”) against either that state’s nationals or any other individual physically present in that state generally would be regulated by the ICCPR, as discussed below.14 This Article focuses predominately on transnational and extraterritorial surveillance, arguing that states should close the gap between the ways in which they regulate the two.

Topicality Domestic Surveillance (1NC – 2/2) (JV/V)

2. Violation – The NSA collection of internet traffic under 702 is foreign surveillance the communications of at least one party are outside the US.

Simcox 2015
Robin Simcox is a Research Fellow at The Henry Jackson Society “Surveillance After Snowden Effective Espionage in an Age of Transparency” 5/26/2015 Henry Jackson Society http://henryjacksonsociety.org/2015/05/26/surveillance-after-snowden-effective-espionage-in-an-age-of-transparency/

Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act Section 702 Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) governs the interception of communications – for the specific purpose of acquiring foreign intelligence information – of those based outside the US. It is widely considered to be more integral to the NSA’s work than that of Section 215.

3. The Affirmative interpretation is bad for debate

Limits are necessary for negative preparation and clash, and their interpretation makes the topic too big. They make the domestic limit meaningless. All surveillance becomes topical by their standards.

C. This is s voting issue

1. Education – Holding the affirmative to a topical plan ensures we are all prepared for the topic; thus, ensuring an educational debate.

2. Fairness – Limiting affirmatives to topical plans ensures both teams have a chance to win the debate.

Topicality Extensions – Domestic Interpretation

(___)

(__) Domestic Surveillance must be entirely within the territorial boundaries of a state.

Forcese, Associate Professor, Faculty of Law, University of Ottawa, 2011
(Craig. Canada"Spies Without Borders: International Law and Intelligence Collection." Journal of National Security Law and Policy 5 (2011).)

Likewise, electronic surveillance may have a domestic, foreign, and transnational nexus. As noted, a domestic wiretap may be the source of intelligence. In another scenario, one state may covertly monitor communications arising in another state from a listening facility housed in the first state’s embassy in the second state’s capital. In addition, signals emanating from the territory of one state may be intercepted on the territory of another.

The range of geographic permutations on spying is laid out in table 1. For the purposes of this paper, I shall use the terms “territorial” to describe purely domestic spying, “extraterritorial” to describe purely foreign spying and “transnational” to describe spying that straddles state borders.

Table 1: Geography of Spying

	Territorial	Extraterritorial	Transnational
Human intelligence	Collection of information by a state agent from people and their associated documents and media sources that takes place within the state.	Collection of information by a state agent from people and their associated documents and media sources that takes place on the territory of another the state.	Collection of information by a state agent from people and their associated documents and media sources in which the source (but not the agent) is located on the territory of another state.
Electronic surveillance	Interception of communications or actions passed by radio, wire, or other electromagnetic, photo-electronic and/or photooptical means and of electromagnetic radiations in which both the communication and the interception takes place within the state.