1AC Secrecy Advantage

SECRECY ADVANTAGE
Mass surveillance chills investigative journalism due to
fear of NSA retaliation
Human Rights Watch, 14 (With Liberty to Monitor All: How Large-Scale US Surveillance is Harming Journalism,
Law, and American Democracy, July. https://www.hrw.org/sites/default/files/reports/usnsa0714_ForUPload_0.pdf)

Every national security reporter I know would say that the atmosphere in which
professional reporters seek insight into policy failures [and] bad military decisions is just
much tougher and much chillier. Steve Coll, staff writer for The New Yorker and Dean of the Graduate School of
Journalism at Columbia University, February 14, 2014

Numerous US-based journalists covering intelligence, national security, and law

enforcement describe the current reporting landscape as, in some respects, the most difficult
they have ever faced. This is the worst Ive seen in terms of the governments efforts to control information, acknowledged
Jonathan Landay, a veteran national security and intelligence correspondent for McClatchy Newspapers.68 Its a terrible time to be
covering government, agreed Tom Gjelten, who has worked with National Public Radio for over 30 years.69 According to Kathleen
Carroll, senior vice president and executive editor of The Associated Press, We say this every time theres a new occupant in the
White House, and its true every time: each is more secretive than the last.70 Journalists are struggling harder than

ever before to protect their sources, and sources are more reluctant to speak. This
environment makes reporting both slower and less fruitful. Journalists interviewed for this report
described the difficulty of obtaining sources and covering sensitive topics in an atmosphere
of uncertainty about the range and effect of the governments power over them. Both
surveillance and leak investigations loomed large in this context especially to the extent that there may
be a relationship between the two. More specifically, many journalists see the governments power as menacing because they know
little about when various government agencies share among themselves information collected through surveillance, and when they
deploy that information in leak investigations.71 [Government officials have been] very squishy about what they have and [what
they] will do with it, observed James Asher, Washington Bureau Chief for McClatchy Co., the third largest newspaper group in the
country.72 One Pulitzer Prize-winning reporter for a newspaper noted that even a decrease in leak prosecutions is unlikely to help,
unless we [also] get clear lines about what is collectable and usable.73 Others agreed. Im pretty worried that NSA information will
make its way into leak investigations, said one investigative journalist for a major outlet.74 A reporter who covers national defense
expressed concern about the possibility of a porous wall between the NSA and the Department of Justice, the latter of which
receives referrals connected to leak investigations.75 Jonathan Landay wondered whether the government

might analyze metadata records to identify his contacts. A national security reporter
summarized the situation as follows: Do we trust [the intelligence] portion of the
governments knowledge to be walled off from leak investigations? Thats not a good place
to be.77 While most journalists said that their difficulties began a few years ago, particularly with the increase in leak
prosecutions, our interviews confirmed that for many journalists largescale surveillance by the
US government contributes substantially to the new challenges they encounter. The
governments large-scale collection of metadata and communications makes it significantly
more difficult for them to protect themselves and their sources, to confirm details for their
stories, and ultimately to inform the public. In the 1970s, many journalists spoke with sources by phone, and
the government already had the technological capacity to tap those calls if it so chose. But traditional forms of
wiretapping or physical surveillance were time consuming and resource intensive. Today, so
many more transactions are handled electronically that there exists a tangible, easy-tostore,
easy-to-access record of a much larger proportion of any given persons life: banking
transactions, internet browsing, driving habits (though EZ Pass records, license plate cameras, and GPS
systems), cell phone location and activity, emailing patterns, and more. Metadata can reveal intimate
details about people, such as religious affiliations, medical diagnoses, and the existence of private relationships . Meanwhile, as
more transactions have become digitalized, the government has acquired a much greater
technical capacity to gather, store, analyze, and sift through electronic data. Even with rapidly

journalists expressed concern that

widespread government surveillance constrains their ability to investigate and report on
matters of public concern, and ultimately undermines democratic processes by hindering
open, informed debate.
evolving techniques for conducting research and contacting sources,

And, mass surveillance deters potential whistleblowers

Human Rights Watch, 14 (With Liberty to Monitor All: How Large-Scale US Surveillance is Harming Journalism,
Law, and American Democracy, July. https://www.hrw.org/sites/default/files/reports/usnsa0714_ForUPload_0.pdf)

many journalists said that the

governments increased capacity to engage in surveillance and the knowledge that it is
doing so on an unprecedented scalehas made their concerns about how to protect sources
much more acute and real. In fact, some believed that surveillance may be a direct cause of the spike
in leak investigations. It used to be that leak investigations didnt get far because it was too
hard to uncover the source, but with digital tools it's just much easier, and sources know that.
Yet, beyond the leak investigations and administrative efforts to prevent leaks,

observed Bart Gellman.98 Peter Maass, a senior writer at The Intercept, concurred: Leak investigations are a lot easier because you
leave a data trail calling, swiping in and out of buildings, [and] walking down a street with cameras. Its a lot easier for people to know
where youre going and how long youre there.99 Charlie Savage raised a similar point: [E]lectronic trails mak[e] it easier to figure
out whos talking to reporters. That has made it realistic [to investigate leaks] in a way that it wasnt before.100 Peter Finn, the
National Security Editor at the Washington Post, expressed concern that the governments ability to find the source will only get
better.101 A national security reporter made the link even clearer, stating that the Snowden revelations show that

[w]hat were doing is not good enough. I used to think that the most careful people were
not at risk, [that they] could protect sources and keep them from being known. Now we
know that isnt the case.102 He added, Thats what Snowden meant for me. Theres a record of everywhere Ive walked,
everywhere Ive been.103 Peter Maass voiced a similar concern: [The landscape] got worse significantly after the Snowden
documents came into circulation. If you suspected the government had the capability to do mass surveillance, you found out it was
certainly true.104 Journalists repeatedly told us that surveillance had made sources much more

fearful of talking. The Snowden revelations have brought home a sense of the staggering
power of the government, magnifying the fear created by the increasing number of leak investigations.105
Accordingly, sources are afraid of the entire weight of the federal government coming
down on them.106 Jane Mayer, an award-winning staff writer for The New Yorker, noted,
[t]he added layer of fear makes it so much harder. I cant count the number of people
afraid of the legal implications [of speaking to me]. 107 One journalist in Washington, DC, noted, I think
many sources assume Im spied on. [Im] not sure theyre right but I cant do anything about their presumption.108 As a result, she
said, some remaining sources have started visiting her house to speak with her because they are too fearful to come to her office.109
One national security reporter estimated that intelligence reporters have the most skittish sources, followed by journalists covering the
Department of Justice and terrorism, followed by those on a military and national security beat.110 As a result, journalists

report struggling to confirm even unclassified details for stories, and have seen trusted,
long-standing sources pulling back. I had a source whom Ive known for years whom I wanted to talk to about a
particular subject and this person said, Its not classified but I cant talk about it because if they find out theyll kill me [figuratively
speaking].111 Several others have reported the sudden disappearance of formerly reliable

sources, or the reluctance of sources to discuss seemingly innocuous and unclassified

matters.112 One decorated intelligence and national security journalist indicated that even retired sources are
increasingly reluctant to speak.113 Though firing or revocation of security clearances no longer worries them, they fear
prosecution, and now [they] have to worry that their communications can be reached on a basis far short of probable cause.114
Though losing developed sources has proved frustrating to numerous journalists with whom we spoke, a number suggested

that the largest challenge they face is reaching new sources. Sources dont just
materialize, noted Peter Finn. They often are developed.115 That requires building trust,
which can be a slow and difficult process. Adding to the challenge of developing sources that
are already skittish is the fact that surveillance makes it very difficult for journalists to
communicate with them securely. Calling or emailing can leave a trail between the
journalist and the source; and it can be difficult to get casual contacts to take more
elaborate security measures to communicate. [H]ow do you even get going? asked Bart
Gellman, referring to the challenge of making first contact with a new would-be source

without leaving a trace. By the time you're both ready to talk about more delicate subjects,
youve left such a trail that even if you start using burner phones or anonymous email accounts youre already
linked.

Whistleblowers check government corruption and abuse

decline in whistleblowers risks national security mistakes
and wars
Benkler, 14 (Yochai, Professor of Entrepreneurial Legal Studies, Harvard Law School, Faculty Co-Director, Berkman Center
for Internet and Society, Harvard University. A Public Accountability Defense for National Security Leakers and Whistleblowers 8(2)
Harv. Rev. L. & Policy, July 2014 http://benkler.org/Benkler_Whistleblowerdefense_Prepub.pdf)
Criminal liability for leaking

and publishing classified materials is usually discussed in terms of a

conflict between high-level values: security and democracy. Here, I propose that the high-level
abstraction obscures the fact that national security is, first and foremost, a system of
organizations and institutions, subject to all the imperfections and failures of all other
organizations. Considering that the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence (SSCI) excoriated
the CIA for groupthink failures in the lead up to the invasion of Iraq, and again for its
failures and dissembling in conducting its torture interrogation program, it would be nave beyond
credulity to believe that the CIA, NSA, FBI, and Pentagon are immune to the failure
dynamics that pervade every other large organization, from state bureaucracies to telecommunications
providers, from automobile manufacturers to universities. When organizations that have such vast powers
over life and death as well as human and civil rights, the risks of error, incompetence, and
malfeasance are immeasurably greater than they are for these other, more workaday organizations. The Maginot
Line did not make France more secure from Germany and neither torture nor the invasion of Iraq, with its enormous human,
economic, and strategic costs, made America safer from terrorism, weapons of mass destruction, or rogue regimes. A

mechanism for identifying and disrupting the organizational dynamics that lead to such
strategic errors is necessary for any system of government , and in a democracy that mechanism is the
principle of civilian control: fundamental questions of war and peace require public understanding
and public decision.
Secrecy insulates self-reinforcing internal organizational dynamics from external
correction. In countering this tendency, not all leaks are of the same fabric. War story-type leaks that make an administration
look good or are aimed to shape public opinion in favor of an already-adopted strategy or to manipulate support for one agency over
another, trial balloons, and so forth, are legion.23 While these offer the public color and texture from inside the government and are
valuable to the press, they do not offer a productive counterweight to internal systemic failures and errors. Some leaks, however,

provide a critical mechanism for piercing the national security systems echo-chamber,
countering self-reinforcing information cascades, groupthink, and cognitive biases that
necessarily pervade any closed communications system. It is this type of leak, which exposes
and challenges core systemic behaviors, that has increased in this past decade , as it did in the early
1970s. These leaks are primarily driven by conscience, and demand accountability for systemic error, incompetence, or malfeasance.

Their critical checking function derives from the fact that conscience is uncorrelated with
well-behaved organizational processes. Like an electric fuse, accountability leaks , as we might
call them, blow when the internal dynamics of the system reach the breaking point of an
individual with knowledge, but without authority. They are therefore hard to predict, and function like
surprise inspections that keep a system honest. By doing so, these leaks serve both
democracy and security.
This failsafe view of whistleblowing is hardly unique to national security. American law in
general embraces whistleblowing as a critical mechanism to address the kinds of destructive organizational
dynamics that lead to error, incompetence, and abuse. In healthcare, financial, food and drug, or consumer
product industries; in state and federal agencies, throughout the organizational ecosystem, whistleblowers are
protected from retaliation and often provided with financial incentives to expose wrongs they have seen and subject the organizations
in which they work to public or official scrutiny.25 Whistleblowing is seen as a central pillar to address

government corruption and failure throughout the world. Unless one believes that the
national security establishment has a magical exemption from the dynamics that lead all
other large scale organizations to error, then whistleblowing must be available as a critical
arrow in the quiver of any democracy that seeks to contain the tragic consequences that
follow when national security organizations make significant errors or engage in illegality
or systemic abuse.

Ending state secrecy is key- The government uses lack of

public knowledge on drone strikes to continue the
program. The plan increases public awareness on drones
which ultimately ends the program.
Satia, 15 (Priya, professor of history, Stanford University. Why We Need Persistent Questioning About Civilian Deaths by
Drones 4-30-15. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/priya-satia/why-we-need-persistent-questioning-about-civilian-deaths-bydrones_b_7177264.html)
Before Nepal and Baltimore seized headlines, news that a CIA drone strike mistakenly killed an innocent

American hostage in January momentarily energized our meager debate on drones. Critics
pressed drones' dangerous secrecy and fallibility and the political backlash they produce in
the Muslim world. The administration reached for platitudes about the sad inevitability of mistakes in the "fog of war."
Micah Zenko of the Council on Foreign Relations and author of a 2013 study of drones predicted,
"even this episode will have no effect" on public debate -- and our easy distraction since Friday has proven
him right.
Critics point to strong bipartisan support for drones as the reason for this inertia.

But persistent questioning is all the

urgent because studies show that this apparent support arises out of a fundamental,
deliberately propagated misunderstanding about how drones are used. According to a 2013 study,
while most Americans approve drone strikes targeting high-level terrorist targets, they
disapprove that recourse when there is the possibility of civilian deaths. In short, most
Americans would disapprove the current use of drones if it were ever properly aired.
High-ranking military and diplomatic officials I have spoken to indicate that the problem is
not military commitment to the drone strategy but our civilian leadership's commitment to
it. Within the Air Force especially, skepticism about the tactic arises from the way CIA and the Joint Special Operations Command's
more

independent, secret use of drones fatally compromises Air Force use of them.

I toured Creech Air Force Base in Nevada, where the USAF drones are remotely piloted. I
was pressed afterwards not to disclose the circumstances of the tour. I do not have much
faith in the reasoning behind keeping them secret, but some deluded sense of honor ties my
tongue, redoubled by my sensitivity as a South-Asian-American to suspicions of my
patriotism after I was warned that describing the circumstances would somehow endanger the security of our service men and
women (although arguably disclosure in the name of democracy is patriotic duty, too).

Such are the liabilities of being a hyphenated American with ancestral ties to the geography
being bombed. My son, whose name happens to have an Arabic root, was put on a Homeland Security no-fly list despite being
self-evidently three years old. These are real-life worries, and so I compromise.
More significantly, that I did visit the base but was censored from writing about it suggests the military is playing a
double-game, inviting public oversight on its own terms to safely air its doubts about the
drone strategy while its siege mentality prevents a full and clear airing of them as part of
real public debate.
While criticism remains episodic and marginal, the men and women who run operations at Creech are in thrall to Orientalist notions
about the "culture" of people in the AfPak region. Thus, for example, some believe Afghani men are indifferent to the death of women
and children without considering that Americans might appear similarly indifferent to Afghanis given our own evident tolerance of
civilian deaths there.
Orientalist notions about the terrain's otherworldliness are also in play, situating it somewhere beyond the pale of civilization where al
Qaeda finds sanctuary and thus where drone use can be countenanced in a way it would not be tolerated elsewhere. Indeed, romantic
descriptions of a fantastically remote, thickly-forested valley surrounded by snow-capped peaks ran through the New York Times
coverage of the American hostage's death in the Shawal Valley.
I have written extensively about how our military inherited these views from the British who first attempted to police the region from
the air after World War I. They are crucial to drone operators' ability to press the trigger, keeping the region permanently unreal and
alien, an eternal frontier-zone where civilization ends and something else, ungovernable, begins.

As much as defenders of drone strikes tout the hours of close surveillance that give remote pilots a kind of intimacy with their victims,
in fact, one-way surveillance of that kind is not aimed at producing empathy but greater confidence in the target's presumptive
otherness. Creech's motto is "Home of the Hunters," and the first hunter-killer drone is called the "Predator." Every good hunter must
know its prey's habits well, but we would never mistake that intimate knowledge for empathy.

The ugly truth is that our official policy is to count all dead as militants -- that is how we
dispensed with the matter of civilian casualties until last week's inconvenient news of the deaths of an American
hostage and Italian aid worker.

The cause of this absurd policy is not lack of civilian oversight of the military but lack of
democratic oversight of our civilian leadership. The day after the New York Times remarked the folly of drone
tactics revealed by the death of an innocent American, the paper fawned over the program's decimation of al Qaeda leadership -feebly in the end, for the article had to admit that al Qaeda has declined primarily because would-be militants prefer ISIS, hardly a
development our drone strategists should be proud of.

It is time for us, as Americans, to exercise our responsibility as citizens and take control of
the debate. Our leadership does not want journalists demanding revelatory tours of Creech.
Journalists and citizens, demand a tour. At the very least, demand an account of and an apology for every civilian death. Drones
routinely terrorize and kill civilians. Is this American culture?

Drones strikes kill thousands of people and causes major

psychological trauma to survivors
Purkiss, 15 (Jessica, freelance reporter working from the West Bank. US drone strikes have traumatised a generation of
Yemenis and will push them towards militancy 4-20-15. https://www.middleeastmonitor.com/articles/americas/18143-us-dronestrikes-have-traumatised-a-generation-of-yemenis-and-will-push-them-towards-militancy)

Hussein Ahmed Saleh Abu Bakr, a labourer, was travelling to work in Al-Bayda,
central Yemen, with 11 colleagues including family members when a drone struck the car.
A year ago today,

When the attack was over, Hussein emerged from where he had taken cover to look for the other passengers and found his father, 65,
slumped in the road with shrapnel injuries to his head and chest. The bodies of the other passengers were scattered around the area,
with some injuries so severe, Hussein was only able to identify them from their clothing. Four of the passengers were

killed: Sanad Nasser Hussein Al-Khushm, Abdullah Nasser Abu Bakr Al-Khushm, Yasser
Ali Abed Rabbo Al-Azzani and Ahmed Saleh Abu Bakr.
"Why? Why did they kill my son Sanad and my cousin Ahmed Saleh Abu Bakr? My son and my cousin did not belong to any
organisation," said Hussein Nasser Abu Bakr Al-Khushm to researchers of a report released by the Open Society Justice Initiative.

The attack was part of the US's targeted killing programme, a tactic which was employed in
combat operations in Afghanistan and Iraq and is a core part of "counterterrorism" efforts
in Pakistan, Yemen and Somalia. US Secretary of State John Kerry said at a BBC forum in 2013: "The only people that
we fire a drone at [sic] are confirmed terrorist targets at the highest level after a great deal of vetting that takes a long period of time.
We don't just fire a drone at somebody and think they're a terrorist." However, the report entitled "Death by Drone: Civilian harm

found no evidence that the passengers in the car were linked to

any terrorist organisation. It seems that they were "collateral damage" in a targeted attack
on the car driving in front of them.
Collateral damage in US drone attacks have claimed many innocent lives. For example, in
Yemen strikes targeting 17 named men killed 273 people, at least seven of them children,
caused by US targeted killings in Yemen",

according to the Guardian. These attacks have explicit support from the Yemeni government and President Abd Rabbuh Mansur Hadi,
who took over power following former President Ali Abdullah Saleh's 33-year reign ended amid widespread protests during the Arab
Spring, praised US drone strikes in Yemen and stated that he personally approved every drone strike taking place in the country.

These attacks have stayed largely out of mainstream news, except in December 2013 when a
drone attack hit the wedding procession of Abdullah Mabkhut Al-Amri and Warda AlSorimi killing 12 of the guests. The Yemeni government gave the families $101,000 and 101 rifles in compensation. The
US did not publically launch an investigation or provide compensation. Although the wedding attack led to Yemen's Parliament
passing an almost unanimous but nonbinding resolution to prohibit the US from continuing drone strikes.
A lack of justice is however typical in such cases. Jen Gibson, an attorney at Reprieve who represents drone victims

"For many innocent people in places like Yemen and Pakistan, drones are judge, jury
and executioner all in one." She added: "The true extent of the US drone programme is
shrouded in secrecy, and when the families of the victims seek redress for the terrible injustice of
losing their loved ones often women and children there is zero accountability."
said:

According to Reprieve, the

US has used drones to execute without trial some 4,700 people in

Pakistan, Yemen and Somalia all countries against whom it has not declared war.
Contrary to the claims by Yemen and the US that the strikes help contain Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula's (AQAB) activities,
clinical and forensic psychiatrist Peter Schaapveld expressed fear in an interview to Channel 4 that the drones

conducting research in Yemen, he warned of a

"psychological emergency" in towns impacted by drones, with 99 per cent of Yemenis he
spoke to suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). He described the children he assessed as
were pushing the youth into the hands of militant organisations. After

"hollowed-out shells of children" who are being "traumatised and re-traumatised"

American drone usage causes a global arms race that

risks global wars
Xiaolin, 13 (Duan, PhD student in Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy, National university of Singapore. Research interests
include small wars, foreign and public policy analysis. The Rise of the Drones 11-2-13. http://thediplomat.com/2013/11/the-rise-ofthe-drones/?allpages=yes)
In a broader sense, Americas

use of drones may create more strategic dilemmas for regional and
global peace and stability: specifically proliferation and a possible arms race involving
drones that could leave the world more prone to conflict.
Drones are usually deployed and sent to turbulent areas for intelligence collection and targeted assassinations. They rely heavily on
remote control and information links. Small technical errors can result in the rapid proliferation of

modern weapons and technology. Case in point: In December 2011, Iran hijacked a U.S. Stealth
RQ-170 by spoofing its GPS signal. Iranian Revolutionary Guards then reversedengineered it, decoded the data and software, and produced a copy. Now, Iran has around
17 drones, including six armed UAVs in use. Its Shahed-129 is capable of attacking air and land targets, which marks a
significant technological advance.

Americas use of drones has also prompted many other countries to develop their own or
buy drones from the international market, including Britain, Israel, India, Russia, South
African and China. Indeed, China is particularly ambitious, having sold Wing Loong UAVs to a number of countries. It is
now developing its stealth drone Li Jian (Sharp Sword), which makes it the third country capable of producing such weapons, after
Americas X-47 and Frances nEUROn.
Countries that dont have drones may feel threatened and less secure, and seek similar or other
asymmetrical means to maintain the balance of power. This

could lead to an arms race. Whats more, as the

adage says, to the man with a hammer everything looks like a nail. Leaders and field
commanders may become overconfident in their technology, making them more assertive
than prudence would normally dictate.
Security experts worry that drones, usually fielded in geopolitically dangerous areas of the
world, may contribute to the outbreak of more small wars and conflict escalation. In the Middle
East, Iran and Israel are adversaries armed with advanced drones. Israel is now more likely to use drones in
strikes against Irans nuclear facilities. If that happens, Iran will certainly retaliate, probably
using drones, too. In East Asia, China has used drones to monitor the disputed Senkaku/Diaoyu
islands in the East China Sea, and Japan has indicated that it plans to do the same. Tokyo
has said it may shoot down Chinese drones, prompting a warning by Beijing that this would
mean war with China. Taiwan, South Korea, India and a number of ASEAN countries are
seeking to buy Global Hawk drones from the U.S., potentially escalating tensions in the
South China Sea.
While the U.S. today enjoys the advantages of drones in its fight against terrorism, the White House needs to consider
the strategic implications: proliferation, possible arms races, and the irresponsible use of
UAVs in regional disputes and conflicts. As a global leader, the U.S. should cooperate with
the UN and other international organizations to monitor and regulate the use of drones.
Irresponsible use should be taken very seriously, and condemned by the international community.

1AC Internet Freedom

U.S. mass surveillance is the root cause of eroding global
norms supporting internet freedom. The plan changes
that.
Washington Post, 14 (Citing a Freedom House report. In the global struggle for Internet freedom, the Internet is losing,
report finds 12-4-14. http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/the-switch/wp/2014/12/04/in-the-global-struggle-for-internet-freedomthe-internet-is-losing-report-finds/)

The year 2014 marks the moment that the world turned its attention to writing laws to
govern what happens on the Internet. And that has not been a great thing, according to an
annual report from the U.S.-based pro-democracy think tank Freedom House.
Traditionally, countries eager to crack down on their online critics largely resorted to blocking Web sites and filtering Internet content,
with the occasional offline harassment of dissidents. But that has changed, in part because online activists have gotten better at
figuring out ways around those restrictions; Freedom House points to Greatfire, a service that takes content blocked in mainland China
and hosts it on big, global platforms, like Amazon's servers, that the Chinese government finds both politically and technologically
difficult to block.
In the wake of these tactics, repressive regimes have begun opting for a "technically uncensored Internet,"

but one that is increasingly controlled by national laws about what can and
can't be done online. In 36 of the 65 countries surveyed around the world the state of
Internet freedom declined in 2014, according to the report.
Russia, for example, passed a law that allows the country's prosecutor general to block
"extremist" Web sites without any judicial oversight. Kazakstan passed a similar law.
Vietnam passed decrees cracking down on any critiques of the state on social media sites.
Nigeria passed a law requiring that Internet cafes keep logs of the customers who come into
their shops and use their computers.
There's a bigger worry at work, too, Freedom House says: the potential for a "snowball
effect." More and more countries, the thinking goes, will adopt these sorts of restrictive
laws. And the more that such laws are put in place, the more they fall within the range of
acceptable global norms.
Also shifting those norms? According to Freedom House, "Some states are using the revelations of
widespread surveillance by the U.S. National Security Agency (NSA) as an excuse to
augment their own monitoring capabilities, frequently with little or no oversight, and often
aimed at the political opposition and human rights activists."
Freedom House finds,

Mass surveillance undermines U.S. attempts to promote

global internet freedom it discredits local civil society
and justifies restrictive internet policy
Kehl et. al, 14 (Danielle Kehl is a Policy Analyst at New Americas Open Technology Institute (OTI). Kevin Bankston is the
Policy Director at OTI, Robyn Greene is a Policy Counsel at OTI, and Robert Morgus is a Research Associate at OTI.Surveillance
Costs: The NSAs Impact on the Economy, Internet Freedom & Cybersecurity July 2014.
https://www.newamerica.org/downloads/Surveilance_Costs_Final.pdf)

The effects of the NSA disclosures on the Internet Freedom agenda go beyond the realm of
Internet governance. The loss of the United States as a model on Internet Freedom issues
has made it harder for local civil society groups around the worldincluding the groups that the State
Departments Internet Freedom programs typically support203 to advocate for Internet Freedom within their
own governments.204 The Committee to Protect Journalists, for example, reports that in

Pakistan, where freedom of expression is largely perceived as a Western notion, the

Snowden revelations have had a damaging effect. The deeply polarized narrative has
become starker as the corridors of power push back on attempts to curb government
surveillance.205 For some of these groups, in fact, even the appearance of collaboration with or
support from the U.S. government can diminish credibility, making it harder for them to
achieve local goals that align with U.S. foreign policy interests.206 The gap in trust is particularly
significant for individuals and organizations that receive funding from the U.S. government for free expression activities or
circumvention tools. Technology supported by or exported from the United States is, in some cases, inherently suspect due to the
revelations about the NSAs surveillance dragnet and the agencys attempts to covertly influence product development. Moreover,

revelations of what the NSA has been doing in the past decade are eroding the moral high
ground that the United States has often relied upon when putting public pressure on
authoritarian countries like China, Russia, and Iran to change their behavior. In 2014,
Reporters Without Borders added the United States to its Enemies of the Internet list for
the first time, explicitly linking the inclusion to NSA surveillance. The main player in [the United
States] vast surveillance operation is the highly secretive National Security Agency (NSA) which, in the light of Snowdens
revelations, has come to symbolize the abuses by the worlds intelligence agencies, noted the 2014 report.207 The damaged

perception of the United States208 as a leader on Internet Freedom and its diminished
ability to legitimately criticize other countries for censorship and surveillance opens the
door for foreign leaders to justifyand even expand their own efforts.209 For example,
the Egyptian government recently announced plans to monitor social media for potential
terrorist activity, prompting backlash from a number of advocates for free expression and
privacy.210 When a spokesman for the Egyptian Interior Ministry, Abdel Fatah Uthman,
appeared on television to explain the policy, one justification that he offered in response to
privacy concerns was that the US listens in to phone calls, and supervises anyone who
could threaten its national security.211 This type of rhetoric makes it difficult for the U.S.
to effectively criticize such a policy. Similarly, Indias comparatively mild response to
allegations of NSA surveillance have been seen by some critics as a reflection of Indias
own aspirations in the world of surveillance, a further indication that U.S. spying may now
make it easier for foreign governments to quietly defend their own behavior.212 It is even more
difficult for the United States to credibly indict Chinese hackers for breaking into U.S. government and commercial targets without
fear of retribution in light of the NSA revelations.213 These challenges reflect an overall decline in U.S. soft power on free expression
issues.

U.S. leadership shapes global internet norms profreedom rhetoric must be paired with concrete policy
changes
Gross, 13 (David, U.S. Coordinator for International Communications and Information Policy at the State Department from
2001-2009. Walking the Talk: The Role of U.S. Leadership in the Wake of WCIT, 1-17-13. http://www.bna.com/walking-the-talkthe-role-of-u-s-leadership-in-the-wake-of-wcit-by-david-a-gross/)
During the past month, more has been written about December's World Conference on International Telecommunications (WCIT),
hosted by the United Nation's International Telecommunication Union (ITU) in Dubai, than about any previous international telecoms
treaty conference. And for good reason. Despite the fact that the nominal focus of the conference was to bring up-to-date a 1988
telecommunications treaty regarding traditional international telecoms services, countries such as Russia, Saudi Arabia, China and
others sought to use the gathering to establish new international rules through the ITU governing the internet. Although many believe
that WCIT failed because 55 countriesincluding the United States, virtually all of Europe, and other internet-leading countries such
as Kenya and Indiadid not sign the revised treaty, in reality WCIT was an important early chapter in the critical global process of
determining the internet's political and policy futureand in turn, its technical and economic future.

It is important to recognize that the internet's political and policy future will be shaped by
American leadershipnot just through traditional U.S. rhetoric about competition, private sector
leadership, and multi-stakeholder decisionmaking, but by America's ability to walk the talk by showing
unequivocally that the ideals we preach internationally are fully reflected in what we do at
home.

American policymakers recognize that what we do domestically is watched and analyzed

with great care by much of the rest of the world. For example, before the WCIT
negotiations began in Dubai, Congress unanimously passed resolutions on internet
governance that stated that the United States should continue to preserve and advance the multi-stakeholder governance model
under which the Internet has thrived as well as resist the imposition of an International Telecommunication Union (ITU) mandated
international settlement regime on the Internet. Declaring, among other things, that it is essential that the

Internet remain stable, secure, and free from government control.

Congress's Clear Message Was Heard
This action was important not only because of the substance of Congress's statements, but also because the world understood just how
extraordinary it is for our Congress to act with unanimity, especially in an era when Congress has immense difficulty reaching
consensus on almost anything. At the end of WCIT, I heard from many foreign officials that they knew that

the United States would not sign the revised treaty with its Internet-related provisions
because Congress had sent a clear and unequivocal message that such an agreement was
unacceptable to the American people.
Looking ahead, we must recognize the obviousinternet policy issues affect virtually
everyone in the world, and U.S. leadership depends on the power of its forward looking
arguments, not just the historical fact that the United States gave the world a
transformational technology. Although establishing global internet policy will be long, complex and challenging, we are
fortunate that we have a well-established road map to follow.
No Room for Hypocrisy

We can continue to lead the world toward greater prosperity and the socially
transformational benefits long associated with the internet. But if we fail to match our
words with action; if we insist that others avoid an approach that imposes regulations and
laws that limit the internet's capacity to advance freedom, openness and creativity,
micromanages markets, or limits competition and investment, but do otherwise at home,
then the world will quickly recognize our hypocrisy.

Repressed internet dooms innovation that is vital to

solving the worlds collective problems
Genachowski 13
[Chair-FCC, 4/16, "The Plot to Block Internet Freedom",
http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2013/04/16/plot_block_internet_freedom?page=full]
The Internet has created an extraordinary new democratic forum for people around the world to express their opinions. It is
revolutionizing global access to information: Today, more than 1 billion people worldwide have access to the Internet, and at current
growth rates, 5 billion people -- about 70 percent of the world's population -- will be connected in five years. But this growth
trajectory is not inevitable, and threats are mounting to the global spread of an open and truly "worldwide"

web. The expansion of the open Internet must be allowed to continue: The mobile and social
media revolutions are critical not only for democratic institutions' ability to solve the collective
problems of a shrinking world , but also to a dynamic and innovative global economy that
depends on financial transparency and the free flow of information. The threats to the open Internet were on
stark display at last December's World Conference on International Telecommunications in Dubai, where the United States fought
attempts by a number of countries -- including Russia, China, and Saudi Arabia -- to give a U.N. organization, the International
Telecommunication Union (ITU), new regulatory authority over the Internet. Ultimately, over the objection of the United States and
many others, 89 countries voted to approve a treaty that could strengthen the power of governments to control online content and deter
broadband deployment. In Dubai, two deeply worrisome trends came to a head. First, we see that the Arab Spring and similar events
have awakened nondemocratic governments to the danger that the Internet poses to their regimes.

In Dubai, they pushed for a treaty that would give the ITU's imprimatur to governments' blocking
or favoring of online content under the guise of preventing spam and increasing network security.
Authoritarian countries' real goal is to legitimize content regulation, opening the door for
governments to block any content they do not like, such as political speech. Second, the basic
commercial model underlying the open Internet is also under threat . In particular, some proposals, like the

one made last year by major European network operators, would change the ground rules for payments for transferring Internet
content. One species of these proposals is called "sender pays" or "sending party pays." Since the beginning of the Internet, content
creators -- individuals, news outlets, search engines, social media sites -- have been able to make their content available to Internet
users without paying a fee to Internet service providers. A sender-pays rule would change that, empowering governments to require
Internet content creators to pay a fee to connect with an end user in that country. Sender pays may look merely like a commercial
issue, a different way to divide the pie. And proponents of sender pays and similar changes claim they would benefit Internet
deployment and Internet users. But the opposite is true: If a country imposed a payment requirement, content creators would be less
likely to serve that country. The loss of content would make the Internet less attractive and would lessen demand for the deployment of
Internet infrastructure in that country. Repeat the process in a few more countries, and the growth of global connectivity

-- as well as its attendant benefits for democracy -- would slow dramatically. So too would the
benefits accruing to the global economy. Without continuing improvements in transparency and information sharing,
the innovation that springs from new commercial ideas and creative breakthroughs is sure to be
severely inhibited. To their credit, American Internet service providers have joined with the
broader U.S. technology industry, civil society, and others in opposing these changes. Together,
we were able to win the battle in Dubai over sender pays, but we have not yet won the war. Issues
affecting global Internet openness, broadband deployment, and free speech will return in
upcoming international forums, including an important meeting in Geneva in May, the World Telecommunication/ICT
Policy Forum. The massive investment in wired and wireless broadband infrastructure in the United States demonstrates that
preserving an open Internet is completely compatible with broadband deployment. According to a recent UBS report, annual wireless
capital investment in the United States increased 40 percent from 2009 to 2012, while investment in the rest of the world has barely
inched upward. And according to the Information Technology and Innovation Foundation, more fiber-optic cable was laid in the
United States in 2011 and 2012 than in any year since 2000, and 15 percent more than in Europe. All Internet users lose something
when some countries are cut off from the World Wide Web. Each person who is unable to connect to the Internet diminishes our own
access to information. We become less able to understand the world and formulate policies to respond to our shrinking planet.
Conversely, we gain a richer understanding of global events as more people connect around the world, and those societies nurturing
nascent democracy movements become more familiar with America's traditions of free speech and pluralism. That's why we believe
that the Internet should remain free of gatekeepers and that no entity -- public or private -- should be able to pick and choose the
information web users can receive. That is a principle the United States adopted in the Federal Communications Commission's 2010
Open Internet Order. And it's why we are deeply concerned about arguments by some in the United States that broadband providers
should be able to block, edit, or favor Internet traffic that travels over their networks, or adopt economic models similar to
international sender pays. We must preserve the Internet as the most open and robust platform for the

free exchange of information ever devised. Keeping the Internet open is perhaps the most important free speech issue
of our time.

We need a free and open internet it solves all the

worlds problems
Eagleman 10 [David Eagleman is a neuroscientist at Baylor College of Medicine, where he
directs the Laboratory for Perception and Action and the Initiative on Neuroscience and Law and
author of Sum (Canongate). Nov. 9, 2010, Six ways the internet will save civilization,
http://www.wired.co.uk/magazine/archive/2010/12/start/apocalypse-no]
Many great civilisations have fallen, leaving nothing but cracked ruins and scattered genetics.
Usually this results from: natural disasters, resource depletion, economic meltdown, disease,
poor information flow and corruption . But were luckier than our predecessors because we
command a technology that no one else possessed: a rapid communication network that
finds its highest expression in the internet. I propose that there are six ways in which the net
has vastly reduced the threat of societal collapse. Epidemics can be deflected by telepresence
One of our more dire prospects for collapse is an infectious-disease epidemic. Viral and
bacterial epidemics precipitated the fall of the Golden Age of Athens, the Roman Empire and
most of the empires of the Native Americans. The internet can be our key to survival because
the ability to work telepresently can inhibit microbial transmission by reducing human-tohuman contact. In the face of an otherwise devastating epidemic, businesses can keep supply
chains running with the maximum number of employees working from home. This can reduce

host density below the tipping point required for an epidemic. If we are well prepared when an
epidemic arrives, we can fluidly shift into a self-quarantined society in which microbes fail
due to host scarcity. Whatever the social ills of isolation, they are worse for the microbes than for
us. The internet will predict natural disasters We are witnessing the downfall of slow central
control in the media: news stories are increasingly becoming user-generated nets of up-to-theminute information. During the recent California wildfires, locals went to the TV stations to
learn whether their neighbourhoods were in danger. But the news stations appeared most
concerned with the fate of celebrity mansions, so Californians changed their tack: they uploaded
geotagged mobile-phone pictures, updated Facebook statuses and tweeted. The balance tipped:
the internet carried news about the fire more quickly and accurately than any news station
could. In this grass-roots, decentralised scheme, there were embedded reporters on every block,
and the news shockwave kept ahead of the fire. This head start could provide the extra hours that
save us. If the Pompeiians had had the internet in 79AD, they could have easily marched 10km to
safety, well ahead of the pyroclastic flow from Mount Vesuvius. If the Indian Ocean had the
Pacifics networked tsunami-warning system, South-East Asia would look quite different
today. Discoveries are retained and shared Historically, critical information has required
constant rediscovery. Collections of learning -- from the library at Alexandria to the entire
Minoan civilisation -- have fallen to the bonfires of invaders or the wrecking ball of natural
disaster. Knowledge is hard won but easily lost. And information that survives often does not
spread. Consider smallpox inoculation: this was under way in India, China and Africa centuries
before it made its way to Europe. By the time the idea reached North America, native
civilisations who needed it had already collapsed. The net solved the problem. New
discoveries catch on immediately; information spreads widely. In this way, societies can
optimally ratchet up, using the latest bricks of knowledge in their fortification against risk.
Tyranny is mitigated Censorship of ideas was a familiar spectre in the last century, with stateapproved news outlets ruling the press, airwaves and copying machines in the USSR, Romania,
Cuba, China, Iraq and elsewhere. In many cases, such as Lysenkos agricultural despotism in the
USSR, it directly contributed to the collapse of the nation. Historically, a more successful
strategy has been to confront free speech with free speech -- and the internet allows this in a
natural way. It democratises the flow of information by offering access to the newspapers of the
world, the photographers of every nation, the bloggers of every political stripe. Some posts are
full of doctoring and dishonesty whereas others strive for independence and impartiality -- but all
are available to us to sift through. Given the attempts by some governments to build firewalls, its
clear that this benefit of the net requires constant vigilance. Human capital is vastly increased
Crowdsourcing brings people together to solve problems. Yet far fewer than one per cent of
the worlds population is involved. We need expand human capital. Most of the world not have
access to the education afforded a small minority. For every Albert Einstein, Yo-Yo Ma or Barack
Obama who has educational opportunities, uncountable others do not. This squandering of talent
translates into reduced economic output and a smaller pool of problem solvers. The net opens
the gates education to anyone with a computer. A motivated teen anywhere on the planet can
walk through the worlds knowledge -- from the webs of Wikipedia to the curriculum of MITs
OpenCourseWare. The new human capital will serve us well when we confront existential
threats weve never imagined before. Energy expenditure is reduced Societal collapse can
often be understood in terms of an energy budget: when energy spend outweighs energy return,
collapse ensues. This has taken the form of deforestation or soil erosion; currently, the worry
involves fossil-fuel depletion. The internet addresses the energy problem with a natural
ease. Consider the massive energy savings inherent in the shift from paper to electrons -- as seen
in the transition from the post to email. Ecommerce reduces the need to drive long distances to
purchase products. Delivery trucks are more eco-friendly than individuals driving around, not
least because of tight packaging and optimisation algorithms for driving routes. Of course, there

are energy costs to the banks of computers that underpin the internet -- but these costs are less
than the wood, coal and oil that would be expended for the same quantity of information flow.
The tangle of events that triggers societal collapse can be complex, and there are several
threats the net does not address. But vast, networked communication can be an antidote to
several of the most deadly diseases threatening civilisation. The next time your coworker
laments internet addiction, the banality of tweeting or the decline of face-to-face conversation,
you may want to suggest that the net may just be the technology that saves us.

1AC Plan

Plan: The United States federal government should curtail

the authority to do non-targeted domestic mass
surveillance by enacting the Surveillance State Repeal
Act.

1AC - Solvency
Solvency
The Surveillance State Repeal Act would only allow for
targeted surveillance while removing the legal
justifications for mass surveillance.
Buttar, 15
(Shahid, executive director, leads the Bill of Rights Defense Committee in its efforts to restore civil liberties, constitutional rights, and
rule of law principles undermined by law enforcement and intelligence agencies within the United States. 4-18-15.
http://www.occupy.com/article/can-surveillance-state-repeal-act-shift-course-spying)

Eager to reset the debate and anchor it in long overdue transparency, a bipartisan block of
representatives have introduced a bill to restore civil liberties, privacy, and freedom of
thought. The Surveillance State Repeal Act, HR 1466, would do this by repealing the twin
pillars of the NSA dragnet: the PATRIOT Act (not only the three expiring provisions) and the 2008
FISA amendments. On multiple occasions, executive officials have lied under oath to congressional oversight committees
about the scope of domestic surveillance. Yet the very same officials still appear in oversight hearings as if they maintained any
credibility. It took whistleblowers resigning their careers to prove that senior government officials blithe assurances to Congress were
in fact self-serving lies. Some members of Congress paid attention: the authors of the PATRIOT Act moved to curtail their own
legislative opus, and have encouraged their colleagues not to reauthorize the expiring provisions unless they are first curtailed .

HR 1466 (the SSRA) represents a profound challenge by members of Congress from across
the political spectrum fed up with the national security establishment and its continuing
assault on our Constitution.
By repealing the twin pillars of the surveillance dragnet, the SSRA would essentially shift
the burden of proof, forcing intelligence agencies like the NSA and FBI to justify the
expansion of their powers from a constitutional baseline, rather then the illegitimate status
quo.
Most policymakers forget the 9/11 commissions most crucial finding: the intelligence community's failures that enabled the 9/11
attacks were not failures of limited data collection, but rather failures of data sharing and analysis.

Over the last 15 years, Congress has allowed the agencies to expand their collection
capacities, solving an imaginary problem while creating a host of real threats to U.S.
national security far worse than any act of rogue violence: the specter of state omniscience ,
immune from oversight and accountability, and thus vulnerable to politicization. This was among the fears of which President
Eisenhower warned us in his last speech as President.

Meanwhile, the SSRA would preserve what the PATRIOT Acts authors have said they
meant to authorize: targeted investigations of particular people suspected by authorities to
present potential threats.
HR 1466 would also advance transparency, both by protecting conscientious whistleblowers from the corrupt retaliation of agencies
and careerists, and by giving judges on the secret FISA court access to technical expertise they have been denied.
Finally, the bill would directly address disturbing government duplicity, prohibiting agencies

from hacking encryption hardware and software, and from using an executive order
authorizing foreign surveillance as a basis to monitor Americans.

Only the plan goes far enough

Clabough, 15 (Raven, writer for The New American, M.A. University of Albany. House Members Target Patriot Act with
"Surveillance State Repeal Act, 3-31-15. http://www.thenewamerican.com/usnews/constitution/item/20560-house-members-targetpatriot-act-with-surveillance-state-repeal-act)
U.S. Representatives Mark Pocan (D-Wis., photo on left) and Thomas Massie (R-Ky.), who are seeking to
repeal the PATRIOT Act in its entirety and combat any legal provisions that amount to American spying,

Surveillance State Repeal Act on Tuesday.

unveiled their

This isnt just tinkering around the edges, Pocan said during a Capitol Hill briefing on
the legislation. This is a meaningful overhaul of the system, getting rid of essentially all
parameters of the PATRIOT Act.
The PATRIOT Act contains many provisions that violate the Fourth Amendment and have
led to a dramatic expansion of our domestic surveillance state , added Massie (R-Ky.), who co-authored
the legislation with Pocan. Our Founding Fathers fought and died to stop the kind of warrantless spying and searches that the
PATRIOT Act and the FISA Amendments Act authorize. It is long past time to repeal the PATRIOT Act and reassert the constitutional
rights of all Americans.
The House bill would completely repeal the PATRIOT Act, passed in the days following the 9/11 attacks, as well as the 2008 FISA
Amendments Act, which permits the NSA to collect Internet communications a program exposed by former NSA contractorturned-whistleblower Edward Snowden.

Likewise, the bill would reform the court that oversees the nations spying powers, enhance
protections for whistleblowers, and stop the government from forcing technology companies
to create easy access into their devices.
The warrantless collection of millions of personal communications from innocent Americans is a direct violation of our constitutional
right to privacy, declared Congressman Pocan, adding, Revelations about the NSAs programs reveal the extraordinary extent to
which the program has invaded Americans privacy. I reject the notion that we must sacrifice liberty for security. We can live in a
secure nation which also upholds a strong commitment to civil liberties.
Massie stated, Really, what we need are new whistleblower protections so that the next Edward Snowden doesnt have to go to
Russia or Hong Kong or whatever the case may be just for disclosing this."
According to The Hill, the bill is not likely to gain much traction, as leaders in Congress have been worried that even much milder
reforms to the nations spying laws would tragically handicap the nations ability to fight terrorists.

A 2013 Surveillance State Repeal Act never picked up any momentum, and even bills with
smaller ambitions have failed to gain passage. Senator Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.) introduced the
USA Freedom Act in 2014, which sought to curtail the amount of mass surveillance that
could be performed by the NSA and other groups.
As predicted, however, the bill was dramatically watered down during the consensus
process. The White House signaled its strong support for the bill only after privacy protections and transparency provisions were
substantially weakened.

Privacy advocates who once supported the USA Freedom Act were dismayed by its
transformation into a consensus bill, which no longer prevented the NSA or FBI from
warrantlessly sifting through international communications databases.
Some critics even argued that the USA Freedom Act in its final form would have expanded
NSA authorities because of its vague wording about what constituted a connection
between call records.