1AC Democracy Advantage

The NSAs militarization of the internet threatens

democracy and enables totalitarianism
Valeri, 13 (Andy, M.A. Interdisplinary Studies, adjunct at the School of Advertising Art, founder of UnCommon Sense
TVMedia. Communication, Human Rights, and The Threat of Weapons of Mass Surveillance: Why Communication Rights Are
Essential To the Protection and Advancement of Human Rights in the 21st Century. Paper presented at the conference on The Social
Practice of Human Rights: Charting the Frontiers of Research and Advocacy University of Dayton, October 3-5, 2013.
http://ecommons.udayton.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1043&context=human_rights)
Were all familiar with Lord Actons famous axiom about the corrupting effects of power, particularly that of absolute power. In light
of that, what are the ramifications for the future of human rights and our right to

communicate - to say nothing of the fate of global society on a whole due to these increasing levels of access
and control over the global information environment that we are witnessing today , all
consolidated among a small cadre of private and state agencies? It is a situation which demands that we redefine power and force
relations in society, for if we do not, the universality of the internet will merge global humanity into one giant grid of mass
surveillance and mass control" (Assange et al., p. 6). This situation is untenable for any society hoping to

assert democratic legitimacy in its governance, for no state can rightfully claim a monopoly
on both violence and information and communication, and still proclaim itself to be
democratically representative. A monopoly on the ability to access and impart information,
one imposed by the coercive force of state power, makes the ability to form actual,
legitimately participatory, democratically-based culture impossible (Goodman, May 29, 2013). And it
is this capacity for public participation and accountability in a society, which is essential to the defense and promotion of human rights
(M. Ensalaco, Politics of Human Rights POL 333 lecture, January 15, 2009). Social theorist and technologist Vinay Gupta (2013) has
pointed out how the Internet, once a promising opportunity for connecting people , creating new
businesses, and expanding our capacity for culture, has today become a surveillance trap. This certainly wasnt the
intention of its inventors, many of whom envisioned it as a way to attain more freedom from being snooped on, filtered, censored and
disconnected (Berners-Lee, 2011), not less. In fact, the very architecture of the Internet is predicated upon such decentralization of
power and authority over its operation (Wu, 2010, pp. 197- 202). Yet, in spite of its initial promise in further democratizing the
dynamics of power, we cannot be too overly surprised by some of the recent developments unfolding surrounding its use (or abuse,
depending on your perspective). Tools of liberation also serve as tools for power to push back. We saw this in Egypt, as the social
media platforms which were used to organize protests against the Mubarak regime were the same ones used by the regime to track
down and arrest the very same protestors (Gallagher, 2011). As Zeynep Tufekci (Ulrike Reinhard, 2012) has pointed out, the use of
new communication technologies may cause initial disruptions to power, but power always responds. For instance, the advent of the
printing press gravely wounded the Catholic Church, but the Church adapted and survived (Ulrike Reinhard, 2012). And now today,

the development of the Internet has served to open up practically every dimension of society
in a way never before experienced including to the means for total control The dream of being
connected is suddenly dystopic. The virtual commons is more closed than the real one ever was. And it is becoming clearer and
clearer that open source technology will not be enough to us. Our social networks have been infiltrated Totalitarian states around
the globe are waking up to the fact that if you really want to stay one step ahead, you dont suppress communication, instead you
empower communication with gadgets and free Wi-Fi and listen in. And now were all walking around with

personal surveillance devices in our pockets, smartphones which we voluntarily fill with
every single detail of our lives (A New Generation of Whistleblowers, 2013). Such developments pose
an existential threat to the future of human communication, and to our declared right to
engage in it without interference, to seek, receive and impart information and ideas
through any media and regardless of frontiers (Article 19, UDHR). The Corrosive Effects of Surveillance on
Society and Its Threat To Human Rights French sociologist Jacques Ellul, in his classic work The Technological Society (1964),
illustrated the way in which modern mass society becomes dependent upon the very technological processes which simultaneously
work to undermine it. Today, the shared instruments used by human beings around the world to

communicate with one another - the means by which we create culture, engage and maintain personal relationships,
participate in civic affairs, maintain our society, and fulfill our humanity - is being corrupted in ways which
threaten the future of democratic civilization. Just as mass production was the defining backdrop for the struggle
surrounding labor rights, mass surveillance is rapidly becoming the defining framework for those of communication rights. Under
the auspices of fighting a seemingly perpetual war against an ever-present threat of
terrorism, the Internet has become the active terrain of war, and is considered a

battleground, part of the operational domain of the military (Alexander, 2011). And
battlegrounds are the least hospitable of environments for the provision and the protection
of human rights and the rule of law (Human Rights and Conflicts, n.d.). The U.S. National Security
Agency (NSA), with no legal mandate, and beyond the bounds of American constitutional
and international human rights law, has made it its own explicit policy to collect and
monitor every single form of electronic communication on the planet (Nakashima & Warrick, 2013).
Or, as in the words of NSA director Gen. Keith Alexander, to collect it all (Nakashima & Warrick,
2013), mirroring the official motto of the Stasi, the infamous secret police force of the former
East Germany - To Know Everything. William Binney, an NSA whistleblower who was
the research head of its Signals Intelligence Division and one of the principle architects of
these surveillance systems, has warned that their existence creates the capacity for a
turnkey totalitarianism, the likes of which we have never seen before (Bamford, 2012).

Mass surveillance enables tyranny

Lempert, 13 (Richard, Visiting Fellow in Governance Studies at the Brookings Foundation and the University of Michigans
Eric Stein Distinguished University Professor of Law and Sociology emeritus. PRISM and Boundless Informant: Is NSA
Surveillance a Threat? 6-13-13. http://www.brookings.edu/blogs/up-front/posts/2013/06/13-prism-boundless-informant-nsasurveillance-lempert)

Through its PRISM and Boundless Informant efforts, NSA is working to protect the nation,
apparently with some success. The 99.9% of us who pose no threat of terrorism and do not inadvertently consort with possible
terrorists should not worry that the government will track our phone or internet exchanges or that our privacy will be otherwise
infringed.

This does not mean, however, that the NSA programs and the capacities they reveal are of
no concern. They should be regarded as canaries in the coal mine; they provide early warning of dangers we may be confronting.
These capacities, along with increasingly ubiquitous surveillance cameras, photo recognition software, the ongoing development of
rapid recognition DNA analysis, drones that can spy or kill and DNA, fingerprint, photo and other searchable digital databases
together create what I have called the infrastructure of tyranny.

These technologies potentially enable small groups of people to control and restrict the
freedom of far larger numbers. We think this could not happen here, and I do not claim it is
imminent, but recent trends in politics and social life suggest that if the fear was ever
groundless, it no longer is. Not only are our politics deeply and too often viciously divided, but divisions seem to
be stoked by extremists who personally profit from their ability to arouse emotions and by
small numbers of extremely wealthy individuals who spend freely to advance their views of
the good society. Moreover, our political parties and Congress itself sometimes seem more interested in thwarting the
opposition or scoring points with their most committed supporters than with cooperating and compromising to promote the national
interest. Concerns raised by these developments are exacerbated by an increased tendency within Congress to ignore more or less
neutral procedural commitments and understandings that have allowed effective governance despite sometimes deep differences in
political goals. In addition, we live in a time of increasing inequality and decreasing social

mobility. The experience of other countries from the French Revolution on suggests that
when inequality becomes too great and a small group of haves is seen as capturing too large a share of the pie,
protests begin that even if peaceful at the start are prone to erupt into violence. Even before
violence from below erupts, and almost always afterwards, we have seen those on top
muster their resources to suppress dissent and to preserve their positions of power, using
violence of their own if need be.
Historically the masses tend, sooner or later, to prevail, but in PRISM, Boundless Informant and
other new technologies we are developing a set of tools that make it more likely that an elite
core will be able to disrupt nascent revolt and maintain its preferred position by increased
surveillance and even selective killing. Although it is not likely, it is not unimaginable that a
future administration could, with substantial popular support, use a genuine crisis as an excuse to
postpone a scheduled election, could put down subsequent protests with violence and could
create a situation in which it maintained itself in power using the infrastructure we are

creating to protect us from crime and terrorism. Even if the possibility is small it cannot be too much diminished.
Doing this is likely to involve combating inequality, strengthening democratic institutions and perhaps abandoning the volunteer army,
matters too far afield to be further discussed here.
Even if it seems fanciful to fear that American democracy could one day be imperiled by technologies and activities developed to fight
crime and terrorism, it is not farfetched to recognize the degree to which foreign governments can, and to some

degree are, using these technologies to enable powerful elites to control people who desire
more freedom or might seek to replace them in power. Moreover the lines demarcating those in control
may relegate people of certain religions, gender, or gender preferences or ethnic heritage to
permanent positions of economic disadvantage and powerlessness.

Tyranny is possible claims to the contrary take a short

view of history and ignore that dissidents are already
targeted by the government
Dotcom, 13 (Kim, German-Finnish Internet entrepreneur, founder of Megaupload. Prism: concerns over government tyranny
are legitimate http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2013/jun/13/prism-utah-data-center-surveillance)

Snowdens leak of classified US government information acquired during his work for the
National Security Agency (NSA) confirms that the US government is gathering and archiving online
data and metadata on a massive scale. The data is stored at NSA data centers, where zettabytes of cloud
storage are available to authorities. Snowdens revelations have again framed the debate over the balance between our
privacy rights and our need for security.
Some proponents of Prism assert that it is an essential tool against terrorism. They claim that only data belonging to foreigners (that is,
non-US residents) is retained, and that content is not reviewed as a matter of course, only algorithmically analysed for suspicious
patterns. They point out that a search warrant is still required from a secret court set up under the US. The Foreign Intelligence
Surveillance Act (FISA) may be spun up so that content accumulated over years of daily internet spooling may be extracted and
analysed, laying bare a suspects entire virtual life.
Those safeguards have limited value. According to congressional reporting, the FISA court received 1,789 applications
for authority to conduct electronic surveillance in 2012, but not one application was denied. We cannot debate whether the FISA court
is a rubber stamp, because its proceedings are secret. Further, any assurance to US citizens that the NSA will not gather and archive
their data is suspect. The Five Eyes alliance between the intelligence agencies of the US, Australia, Canada, New Zealand and the
UK effectively permits those governments to circumvent the prohibition against gathering data on their own citizens by sharing
information across the Five Eyes intelligence community. The UK for example can spy on Americans and make that information
available to the US government on its massive spy cloud one that the NSA operates and the Five Eyes share.

Prior to 9/11, the operative presumption in developed nations favoured privacy, but the
security narrative has since reversed the presumption, eroding our privacy rights in favour
of government control over our personal information. However, government is an instrument
sometimes a crude one susceptible to abuse, as demonstrated by recent admissions that the US
Internal Revenue Service has targeted specific groups based on ideology. When we empower the
state, we empower those that hold sway over the state, and the state is subject to influence from a multitude of quarters.
I have personally been a victim of such abuses. The US government has indicted me, shut down my cloud storage company
Megaupload and seized all of my assets because it claims I was complicit in copyright infringement by some of the people who used
the Megaupload service. I have emphasised that I am being prosecuted not because the charges against me have some sound basis in
US copyright law, but because the US justice department has been instrumentalised by certain private interests that have a financial
stake in neutralising my business. That trend represents a danger not just to me, but to all of us.
Recent polls in the US suggest that the public is not much preoccupied with the fact that our

data is being retained, so long as our own political party is in control of the government.
That kind of fickle comfort is small-minded. The point we should derive from Snowdens
revelations a point originally expressed in March 2013 by William Binney, a former senior NSA crypto-mathematician is
that the NSAs Utah Data Center 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. Others take a more cavalier approach, such as former Google CEO Eric Schmidt in 2009: If you have something that you
don't want anyone to know, maybe you shouldn't be doing it in the first place.
We should heed warnings from Snowden because the prospect of an Orwellian society outweighs whatever security benefits we derive
from Prism or Five Eyes. Viewed through the long lens of human history, concerns over

government tyranny are always legitimate. It is those concerns that underpin the

constitutions of most developed countries, and inform international principles of human

rights and the rule of law. Prism and its related practices should be discontinued immediately, and the Utah Data Center
should be leased to cloud storage companies with encryption capabilities.

Democracy prevents wars the less democratic the world

is the more global wars will occur
LAPPIN 09 PhD candidate at the Centre for Peace Research and Strategic Studies at the
Catholic University of Leuven in Belgium under the supervision of Prof. Dr. Luc Reychler
Richard Lappin, What Democracy? Exploring the Absent Centre of Post-Conflict Democracy Assistance, Journal of Peace, Conflict
and Development, Issue 14, July 2009,

http://www.humansecuritygateway.com/documents/JPCD_ExploringAbsentCentrePostConflictDe
mocracyAssistance.pdf
Security

The relationship between democracy and security has been expounded on both the international
and national levels and the connection has been embraced at the highest strata of peacebuilding .
In 2000, for example, UN Secretary General Kofi Annan declared: There are many good reasons for
promoting democracy, not least in the eyes of the United Nations is that, when sustained over time, it is
a highly effective means of preventing conflict, both within and between states . 6 It is on the
international level that the primacy of democracy to post-conflict peacebuilding has received its
strongest support with reference made typically to the so-called democratic peace theory. This theory derives from
one of the most striking results to emerge from empirical research on war and peace and posits
that dyads of democratic states are considerably less likely to fight one another than dyads made
up of non-democracies, or a combination of a democracy and a non-democracy. 7
Although research into this proposition has grown exponentially since the mid 1980s, the basis of the theory can be traced back to
Immanuel Kants 1795 essay, Perpetual Peace. Kant contended that in democracies, those who pay for wars
that is, the public are

the ones who make the decisions, and are therefore understandably more
cautious about commencing a war as they are the ones who ultimately have to foot the costs through both blood
(fatalities) and treasure (taxes).8

More recent explanations of the theory include arguments that democratic countries have
internalised values of peaceful bargaining and conflict resolution which are externalised into their
international relations, 9 that substantial trade links between democracies make war an
economically crippling proposition, 10 and that democratic leaders avoid fighting wars because
they fear it will damage their chances of staying in power . 11
Although the democratic peace theory has periodically been contested on the grounds of
statistical significance,12 what qualifies as a democracy, 13 and what qualifies as an international conflict, 14 it has
proved remarkably robust over the decades. Several contemporary scholars, such as Tony Smith,
maintain that a democratic society operating under a market economy has a strong
predisposition to peace 15 , whilst many internationally peer-reviewed articles declare in
their introductions that the majority of research now accepts the democratic peace theory
as an empirical reality. 16 As Jack Levy writes, the absence of war between democracies
comes as close as anything to an empirical law in international relations . 17 Thus, in order to
achieve a more peaceful international system, acceptance of the democratic peace theory suggests
that the more democratic states that exist, the lower the chances of international violence. 18 This is
a factor that should not be underestimated in postconflict environments, and one only has to look at the spill-over of internal
conflicts in places such as Liberia, Sudan and Rwanda to understand the necessity of promoting regional peace zones if security is to
prove sustainable.

Moreover, the reasoning behind the democratic peace theory has also influenced the assertion that
democratic government is superior to other forms of government in positively managing internal
security. Rudolph Rummel has demonstrated that democracies are significantly less likely to
experience domestic disturbances such as revolutions, guerrilla warfare and civil war . 19

Rummel claims this is because:

Social conflicts that might become violent are resolved through voting, negotiation, compromise,
and mediation. The success of these procedures is enhanced and supported by the restraints on
decision makers of competitive elections, the cross-pressures resulting from the natural pluralism of democratic societies,
and the development of a domestic culture and norms that emphasise rational debate, toleration, negotiation of differences,
conciliation, and conflict resolution. 20

The notion that democracy can bring domestic peace to a post-conflict state is supported by
several other important writers. Samuel Huntington asserts that democracies are not often
politically violent due to constitutional commitments which guarantee at least a minimal
protection of civil and political liberties. 21 William Zartman argues that democracy transfers
conflict from the violent to the political arena , by providing mechanisms to channel dissent and
opposition peacefully, thus reducing the incentive to use violence. 22
This is endorsed by Hans Spanger and Jonas Wolff who emphasise that the openness and freedoms in
democracies to express discontent and to protest circumvents the need for widespread violence .
Moreover, the very articulation of discontent through the freedom of speech and freedom of press
can act as an early warning system for the state to identify issues that may become overly divisive
and to respond accordingly. 23 Judith Large and Timothy Sisk, amongst many, have emphasised how
democracies extend the protection of rights to minority groups , 24 which, according to Ted Gurr,
inhibits communal rebellion 25 .

Democratic freedom is the ultimate good insures value

to life, and allows people to rule themselves insures no
famine, or genocide will go unquestioned. It is the
ultimate good
RUMMEL 09 Professor Emeritus of Political Science at the University of Hawaii
[Rudy (R.J.) Rummel, Democracy, Democratic peace, freedom, globalization, This entry was posted on Sunday, January 18th, 2009 at
4:02 pm, http://democraticpeace.wordpress.com/2009/01/18/why-freedom/ ]
In the world today, billions of human beings are

still subject to impoverishment , exposure, starvation, disease,

torture, rape, beatings, forced labor, genocide, mass murder, executions, deportations, political violence, and war.
These billions live in fear for their lives, and for those of their loved ones. They have no human rights, no liberties.
These people are only pieces on a playing board for the armed thugs and gangs that oppress their nations, raping them, looting them,
exploiting them, and murdering them. We hide the identity of the gangswe sanctify themwith the benign concept of
government, as in the government of Khmer Rouge Cambodia, Stalins Soviet Union, or Hitlers Germany.

The gangs that control these so-called governments oppress whole nations under cover of
international law. They are like a gang that captures a group of hikers and then does with them what it wills, robbing all,
torturing and murdering some because gang members dont like them or they are disobedient, and raping others. Nonetheless, the

thugs that rule nations govern by the right of sovereignty: the community of nations explicitly grants them the
right by international law to govern a nation when they show that they effectively control the national government, and this right
carries with it the promise that other nations will not intervene in their internal affairs.

International law now recognizes that if these gangs go to extremes, such as massive ethnic
cleansing or genocide, then the international community has a countervailing right to stop them .
However, this area of international law is still developing, and in the current examples of Cuba, Burma, Iran, North Korea,
Rwanda, Saudi Arabia, Sudan, and Syria, among others, the thugs still largely have their way with their victims.
This is unconscionable. The people of these countries, and all people everywhere have the right to freedom
of speech, religion, organization, and a fair trial , among other rights, and one overarching right to be
free subsumes all these civil and political rights. This right overrules sovereignty, which is granted
according to tradition based on a system of international treaties, not natural law. Freedom, by contrast, is not something
others grant. It is a right due every human being.
For too many intellectuals, however, it is not enough to point out that a people have a right to be
free. They will counter by arguing that freedom is desirable, but first people must be made equal,

given food to eat, work, and health care. Freedom must be limited as a means to good ends, such as the public welfare,
prosperity, peace, ethnic unity, or national honor. Sometimes the intellectuals who go about creating such
justifications for denying people their freedom are so persuasive that even reasonable
people will accept their convoluted arguments. Need I mention the works of Marx and Lenin, for
example, who provided scientific excuses for the tyranny of such thugs as Stalin, Mao, and Pol Pot?
To many compassionate people, such intellectuals, arguing that freedom must be sacrificed for a better life, have

had the best of the argument and the moral high ground. These intellectuals have tried to show that freedom
empowers greed, barbaric competition, inefficiency, inequality, the debasement of morals, the weakening of ethnic or racial identity,
and so on.
To be defensive about freedom in the face of such justifications is morally wrong-headed . No moral
code or civil law allows that a gang leader and his followers can murder, torture, and repress some at will as long as the thugs provide
others with a good life. But even were it accepted that under the cover of government authority, a ruler can murder and repress his
people so long as it promotes human betterment, the burden of proof is on those who argue that therefore those

people will be better off

There is no such proof. Quite the opposite: in the twentieth century, we have had the most costly
and extensive tests of such arguments, involving billions of people. The Nazis , Italian fascists under
Mussolini, Japanese militarists, and Chinese Nationalists under Chiang Kai-shek have tested fascist
promises of a better life. Likewise, Lenin, Stalin, Mao, and Pol Pot have tested the utopian promises of communism, to
mention the most prominent communist experiments; and Burma, Iraq, and Syria, among others, also have tested state socialism . All
these vast social experiments have failed, utterly and miserably, and they have done so at the vast human cost that has
included global social upheaval, the displacement of millions, the impoverishment of billions, and the death of tens of millions from
famine, extreme internal violence, and the most destructive warsnot to mention the many hundreds of millions murdered outright.
These social experiments have involved the mass murder of 262,000,000 Russians, Chinese, Cambodians,
Poles, North Koreans, Cubans, Vietnamese, and others, such that were their souls to comprise a land of the dead it would be among
the worlds top three in population
In sharp contrast, there are the arguments for freedom. Not only is a right certified in international law (e.g.,
the various human rights multinational conventions), but a supreme moral good in itself. The

very fact of a peoples

freedom creates a better life for all.

Free people create a wealthy and prosperous society
When people are free to go about their own business, they put their ingenuity and creativity in the service of all. They search for ways
to satisfy the needs, desires, and wants of others. The true utopia lies not in some state-sponsored tyranny, but the free market in
goods, ideas, and services, whose operating principle is that success depends on satisfying others. Moreover, it is not by chance

that:
No democratically free people have suffered from mass famine
It is extraordinary, how little known this is. There are plenty of hunger projects and plans to increase food aid for the starving millions,
all of which is good enough in the short run. A starving person will die before the people can kick out their rulers or make them reform
their policies. Yet simply feeding the starving today is not enough. They also have to be fed tomorrow and every day thereafter.
However, free these people from their rulers commands over their farming, and soon they will be able

to feed themselves and others as well. There is an adage that applies to this: Give a starving person a fish to eat and you
feed him only for one day; teach him how to fish, and he feeds himself forever. Yet teaching is no good alone, if people are not free to
apply their new knowledgeyes, teach them how to fish, but also promote the freedom they need to do so
Surprisingly, the incredible economic productivity and wealth produced by a free people and their freedom from famines are not the
only moral goods of freedom, nor, perhaps, even the most important moral goods. When people are free, they comprise a spontaneous
society the characteristics of which strongly inhibit society-wide political violence. Freedom greatly reduces the possibility of
revolutions, civil war, rebellions, guerrilla warfare, coups, violent riots, and the like. Most of the violence within nations occurs where
thugs rule with absolute power. There is a continuum here:

The more power the rulers have, and the less free their people, the more internal violence
these people will suffer
Surely that which protects people against internal violence, that which so saves human lives, is a
moral good. And this is freedom
Then there is mass democide, the most destructive means of ending human lives of any form of
violence. Except in the case of the Nazi Holocaust of European Jews, few people know how murderous the
dictators of this world have been, and could be. Virtually unknown are the shocking tens of millions murdered by
Stalin and Mao, and the other millions wiped out by Pol Pot, Ho Chi Minh, Kim Il-sung, and their kind. Just omitting foreigners, who
are most often murdered during a war, such thugs murdered about 161,000,000 of their own people from 1900 to 1987. Adding
foreigners and including the whole twentieth century raises the toll they have killed to nearly the incredible aforementioned
262,000,000.

Even now, in the twenty-first century, these mass murders still go on in Burma, Sudan, North Korea, and the
Congo (DR), just to mention the most glaring examples.

What is true about freedom and internal violence is also so for this mass democide :
The more freedom a people have, the less likely their rulers will murder them . The more power
the thugs have, the more likely they are to murder their people
Could there be a greater moral good than to end or minimize such mass murder? This is what freedom does and for this it is,
emphatically, a moral good.

1AC Rights Advantage

The Internet Age requires a rethinking of traditional

notions of human rights control over the internet is now
synonymous with the ability to wield power
Valeri, 13 (Andy, M.A. Interdisplinary Studies, adjunct at the School of Advertising Art, founder of UnCommon Sense
TVMedia. Communication, Human Rights, and The Threat of Weapons of Mass Surveillance: Why Communication Rights Are
Essential To the Protection and Advancement of Human Rights in the 21st Century. Paper presented at the conference on The Social
Practice of Human Rights: Charting the Frontiers of Research and Advocacy University of Dayton, October 3-5, 2013.
http://ecommons.udayton.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1043&context=human_rights)

The evolution and progression of

human rights principles and practices throughout history have been defined by - and have very
often defined - the conditions and circumstances of the eras within which they develop. For example,
Communication Rights: The Primary Human Rights Struggle of The Information Age

new standards of civil and political rights arose as Enlightenment-inspired ideals took root in the latter years of the Agrarian Age,
finding their globally transformative expression as the animating principles which drove the American and French Revolutions of the
late 18th Century (and nearly triggering a similar such revolution in Britain at the time, as well). It was the conditions and

effects of the Industrial Revolution which moved labor rights squarely to the center of the
ongoing struggle for human rights. From abolitionism to the rise of unions and beyond, these rights even became the
foundational basis for the development of entire ideological movements (for example, socialism and communism), ones whose
political ramifications continue to have global significance to this day. And now in todays Information Age,

one defined by the revolutionary expansion of digital media technologies and networked
communication systems, we find communication rights, and the associated information
rights ingrained within them, thrust into a similar position of preeminent importance. This
is because any meaningful protection and exercise of rights within a society are eventually
dependent upon power, and in todays modern mass mediated society, communication and
information are where the central nexus of power lies. If the work of human rights is to be fundamentally
about empowerment rather than charity (thus underlying the very premise of the concept of rights as opposed to privileges), then it
must act in accordance with this essential truth. For the human rights community to ignore this is to seriously risk marginalizing the
value and effectiveness of its work. It should be made clear, however, that this rising primacy of communication rights does not
replace the essential importance of many of the other rights which came to prominence in earlier times. Rather, they serve to build
upon them. Like the composition of a mountain, these new stratum of rights provide further evolutionary formation of both our
understanding and practice of human rights, as they continue to evolve through the ages, and through the worlds histories and cultural
notions of the common good (Ishay, 2004/2008). The Internet Ground Zero In The Battle For Communication Rights There is

no issue that more defines the ongoing struggle for communication rights and their
preeminent importance to the future of human rights, than that over access and control of
the Internet. Its presence has become ubiquitous throughout society, and in many respects
essential, serving as the primary foundation for the digital communication revolution
underway today. Whether this revolution represents the most important shift in the course of
human history is a debatable point, and one best left to academics for another time. What is
incontrovertible is that it is the most important shift happening now, with the Internet
serving as the axial point for practically all human knowledge and activity within society
today. Relationships are being shaped and defined through it. Society itself has become
embedded into it. Almost nothing happens outside some form of contact with it. It is the
device by which practically all communication transpires, the matrix upon which we engage
in trade, create culture, and participate in civic affairs. Sir Tim Berners-Lee, the man who invented the
computer protocol that made the Web as we know it possible, envisioned its very structure as one built specifically upon egalitarian
ideals, its purpose to provide electronic human rights, its principles founded upon the Magna Carta and U.S. Constitution, and other
such rights-expanding documents (Berners-Lee, 2011). Ambassador Philip L. Verveer, U.S. Coordinator for International
Communications and Information Policy, sees the Internet as the vehicle by which we are able to manifest our human right to
communicate [our] ideas [and] to secure information (USA and Europe, 2011) . According to Berners-Lee (2011),

the Web is now more critical to democracy and free speech than any other medium,

providing a communications channel that makes possible a continuous worldwide

conversation. Its been said that the Internet has led the greatest period of political
education among the greatest number of people ever (Goodman, May 29, 2013). For whenever a new form of
communication is introduced, one that increases peoples ability to share ideas and information about how the world works, and is
beyond the reach of centralized control, the state of humanity notably improves (Goodman, May 29, 2013). According to new media
sociologist Zeynep Tufekci (Ulrike Reinhard, 2012), it is because of the Internet that we are moving away from a world where rule is
based upon gatekeeping and censorship, and power can no longer readily operate through tactics of divide

and conquer simply by preventing people from talking to each other. What we are
witnessing today is an entirely new phenomenon, as the aggregate of all intellectual
knowledge from throughout human history is being placed upon the Internet, resulting in a
merging of global civilization with the Internet itself (Assange, Appelbaum, Mller-Maguhn & Zimmerman,
2012). This is why efforts by states and private corporations to wield dominate influence and
control over the Internets infrastructure, and the information that passes over it, has such
profound implications for the future of our society and the protection of our rights within it.
Information after all, is power, and the Internet is the modern conduit both to it and of it.
These communication networks are not only at the center of power structures, they are the
tools for actually creating them and controlling them. As Berners-Lee (2011) warned,
control over the Internet is the sort of power that if you give it to a corrupt government,
you give them the ability to stay in power forever. This is why the Internet, as the
consolidator of what is often referred to as big data, has become the goldmine to be
controlled and exploited for political and economic political advantage. Its where real
power and wealth resides today. Its why a social networking site like Facebook becomes
valued at over 100 billion dollars (Watson, 2012). Its why numerous African countries are
being provided whole internet infrastructures from the Chinese, including fiber optic cable
and backbone switches, yet arent being asked to pay for them in money, but rather in data
(Assange et al., p. 49). It is why the U.S. government spends tens of billions every year to
track, copy, and store every piece of electronic communication from the hundreds of
millions - potentially even billions of peoples communications that it is increasingly able
to access (Andrews & Lindeman, 2013).

Mass surveillance produces self-censorship and breaks

down all social relations of trust. This is not a dystopian
fantasy: East Germany, Uzbekistan, and Soviet
Czechoslovakia demonstrate the threat to human dignity
and authenticity
Valeri, 13 (Andy, M.A. Interdisplinary Studies, adjunct at the School of Advertising Art, founder of UnCommon Sense
TVMedia. Communication, Human Rights, and The Threat of Weapons of Mass Surveillance: Why Communication Rights Are
Essential To the Protection and Advancement of Human Rights in the 21st Century. Paper presented at the conference on The Social
Practice of Human Rights: Charting the Frontiers of Research and Advocacy University of Dayton, October 3-5, 2013.
http://ecommons.udayton.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1043&context=human_rights)

The rapidly expanding and indiscriminate use of these weapons of mass surveillance is
destroying the intrinsic capacity for human beings to communicate and to share
information in ways commiserate with our fundamental human rights to privacy,
information, and communication. It threatens our ability to maintain our personal dignity
and authenticity as human beings, by degrading our right and ability to define and control
the meaning and purpose of the lives we live, and the relationships we engage with among
each other. It turns our humanity against us, perverting and prostituting our every
expressed thought or desire, declared affirmation or repudiation, into potential grounds for
criminal investigation, commercial exploitation, or political intimidation. The NSA is

making every phone conversation, every email, every webpage viewed, every purchase
made, into a secret government document (Nakashima & Warrick, 2013). Facebook is transforming every personal
statement into a public proclamation (Kee, 2013). Regardless of the self-serving announcements made by the creator of Facebook
Mark Zuckerberg, that privacy is no longer a social norm (Johnson, 2010), share with friends is not taken by the users of social
media to mean share with friends, corporations, and the state. Facebook is also endeavoring to make peoples ostensibly private wall
posts on it available to media corporations for potential use in their programming, without even the knowledge or permission of the
poster (Kee, 2013). Such forms of surfacing (to use the companys euphemism for this practice) strips people of their inherent right
of agency over their own communicative process, agency over who the recipient of that communication is and its intended meaning. 2
Zuckerberg and his confederates among the information technology field may feel that people are much more accepting of sharing
and exposure in todays technological environment (Johnson, 2010), but sharing is one thing, taking quite another. This calls to

mind the repetitive refrain often heard from defenders of these surveillance practices, that
if you dont have anything to hide, you dont have anything to worry about. However, one
doesnt leave ones doors unlocked, or computer programs without passwords simply
because one doesnt have anything to hide. As Vinay Gupta has astutely observed, privacy may be dead to the
likes of Mark Zuckerberg, but try telling that to lawyers, doctors and accountants Our society cannot function without professional
confidentiality, and having foreign powers be presumed to intercept all communications is simply the end of these professions as we
have known them. Theres no trusted advisor to consult with when its all ending up in the Utah

data center to be consulted in future decades under administrations with unknown

political agendas (Gupta, 2013). Perhaps even more disconcerting are the demonstrable effects
that persistent surveillance has on the psychological well being of individuals and societies.
Studies have detailed the many distorting impacts that it has on how we think and act (Parramore, 2013). Some have shown
that the electronic monitoring of employees increases the levels of tension, anxiety, anger,
depression, even boredom and fatigue among workers (Smith, Carayon, Sanders, Lim & LeGrande, 1992).
East German society has never fully recovered from the corrupting effects of the voyeuristic
interference by the state in the social relationships of its people (Jacob & Tyrell, 2010). Internet
research in places like Uzbekistan and Azerbaijan have shown how the presence of
surveillance on the Web corrodes the meaning and relevancy of peoples communication,
particularly as it relates to matters of civic participation (Kendzior, 2012). These studies show
that, regardless of the amount of official censorship present, the shifting of social norms
in respect to privacy expectations has a marked impact on our willingness to confide, to
criticize, to make mistakes, to change our minds (Kendzior, 2012). The detrimental societal
effects of this kind self-censorship were well-documented by Elisabeth Noelle-Neumann
(1974) in her groundbreaking research on what she termed the spiral of silence. We see its
effects in the perception falsification that takes place when people fail to express their real
thoughts or preferences out of fear of failing to conform to social or political norms (Ars
Electronica, 2011). Czech writer, dissident, and later president Vclav Havel, argued that the
credibility of the entire structure of society itself is eroded by its reliance upon rituals and
norms untested by public discussion and controversy (Keane, 2000). When it comes to the destructive
effects wrought by mass surveillance, there is probably no more brutal example than that of Ceausescus Rumania, where truly every
action observable would be reported to the secret police (Duque, 2011) . In such a society, deliberate deception

becomes the key to survival, a trait which quickly bleeds into all other human relations;
personal, family, commercial, etc. The true cost of surveillance thus becomes the destruction
of society itself (Duque, 2011).

The protection of rights outweighs the small risk of

terrorism. The threat of terrorism should be understood
as a built-in cost to living in a free society
Wallace, 07 (David Foster, correspondent w/r/t John McCain's presidential campaign in 2000, mastermind behind the incredibly
potent DMZ, commencement speaker at Kenyon College. Just Asking, November 2007.
http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2007/11/just-asking/306288/)

Are some things still worth dying for? Is the American idea one such thing? Are you up for a
thought experiment? What if we chose to regard the 2,973 innocents killed in the atrocities of 9/11
not as victims but as democratic martyrs, sacrifices on the altar of freedom? In other
words, what if we decided that a certain baseline vulnerability to terrorism is part of the
price of the American idea? And, thus, that ours is a generation of Americans called to
make great sacrifices in order to preserve our democratic way of life sacrifices not just of our soldiers
and money but of our personal safety and comfort? In still other words, what if we chose to accept the fact
that every few years, despite all reasonable precautions, some hundreds or thousands of us
may die in the sort of ghastly terrorist attack that a democratic republic cannot 100-percent
protect itself from without subverting the very principles that make it worth protecting? Is
this thought experiment monstrous? Would it be monstrous to refer to the 40,000-plus
domestic highway deaths we accept each year because the mobility and autonomy of the car
are evidently worth that high price? Is monstrousness why no serious public figure now will speak of the delusory
trade-off of liberty for safety that Ben Franklin warned about more than 200 years ago? What exactly has changed between Franklins
time and ours? Why now can we not have a serious national conversation about sacrifice, the inevitability of sacrificeeither of (a)
some portion of safety or (b) some portion of the rights and protections that make the American idea so incalculably precious? In the
absence of such a conversation, can we trust our elected leaders to value and protect the American idea as they act to secure the
homeland? What are the effects on the American idea of Guantnamo, Abu Ghraib, PATRIOT Acts I and II, warrantless surveillance,
Executive Order 13233, corporate contractors performing military functions, the Military Commissions Act, NSPD 51, etc., etc. ?

Assume for a moment that some of these measures really have helped make our persons and
property saferare they worth it? Where and when was the public debate on whether theyre worth it? Was there no
such debate because were not capable of having or demanding one? Why not? Have we actually become so selfish
and scared that we dont even want to consider whether some things trump safety? What
kind of future does that augur?

Human rights are an Apriori issue. They guarantee the

baseline conditions for living a decent human life. You
should be highly skeptical of any attempts to discard
them in favor of utilitarian calculation.
Donnelly, 85 (Jack,

College of the Holy Cross, The Concept of Human Rights, 1985, p. 55-58)

Basic moral and political rights are not just weighting factors in utilitarian calculations that
deal with an undifferentiated 'happiness'. Rather, they are demands and constraints of a different
order, grounded in an essentially substantive judgement of the conditions necessary for
human development and flourishing. They also provide means - rights - for realising human
potentials. The neutrality of utilitarianism, its efforts to assure that everyone counts
'equally,' results in no-one counting as a person; as Robert E. Goodin puts it, people drop
out of utilitarian calculations, which are instead about disembodied preferences (1981:95;
compare Dworkin 1977:94-100,232-8, 274 ff.). In Aristotelian terms, utilitarianism errs in basing its judgements on 'numerical' rather
than 'proportional' equality. For our purposes, such differences should be highlighted. Therefore, let us consider utilitarianism, whether
act or rule, as an alternative to rights in general, and thus human rights as well. In particular, we can consider utility and human rights
as competing strategies for limiting the range of legitimate state action. Once again, Bentham provides a useful focus for our
discussion. While Bentham insists on the importance of limiting the range of legitimate state action (1838:11, 495, VIII, .557 ff.), he
also insists that (natural) rights do not set those limits. In fact, he argues that construed as limits on the state, natural rights 'must ever
be, - the rights of anarchy', justifying insurrection whenever a single right is violated (1838:11, 522, 496, 501, 506). For

Bentham, natural rights are absolute rights, and thus inappropriate to the real world of
political action. In fact, though, no major human rights theorist argues that they are
absolute. For example, Locke holds that the right to revolution is reserved by society, not the individual (1967: para. 243).
Therefore, individual violations of human rights per se do not justify revolution. Furthermore, Locke supports revolution only in cases
of gross, persistent and systematic violations of natural rights (1967:paras 204, 207, 225), as does Paine. The very idea of absolute
rights is absurd from a human rights perspective, since logically there can be at most one absolute right, unless we (unreasonably)
assume thatrights never come into conflict. A more modest claim would be that human rights are 'absolute' in the sense that they
override all principles and practices except other human rights. Even this doctrine, however, is rejected by most if not all major human

rights theorists and documents. For example, Article I of the French Declaration of the Rights of Man, after declaring that 'men are
born, and always continue, free and equal in respect of their rights', adds that 'civil distinctions, therefore, can befounded only on
public utility', thus recognising restrictions on thecontinued complete equality of rights. Similarly, the Universal Declaration of Human
Rights (Article 29) permits such limitations as are determined by law solely for the purpose of securing due recognition and respect
for the rights and freedoms of others and of meeting the just requirements of morality,public order and the general welfare in a
democratic society. The International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights includes a similar general limiting proviso (Article 4) as
well as particular limitations on most of the enumerated rights. Rights ordinarily 'trump' other considerations,

but the mere presence of a right - even a basic human right - does not absolutely and
automatically determine the proper course of action, all things considered. In certain
exceptional circumstances, needs, utility, interests or righteousness may override rights. The
duties correlative to rights, and even the trumping force ofrights, are prima facie only. But other principles also have prima facie moral
force. Sometimes this will be sufficient to overcome even the special entrenched priority of rights. The obligations arising from such
rights therefore ought not to be discharged, all things considered. In such cases, we can speak of the right being 'infringed', since the
(prima facie) obligation correlative to the rightis not discharged, but it would be seriously misleading to say that ithad been 'violated'
(Thomson 1976, 1977). But if even basic human rights can be justifiably infringed, aren't rights

ultimately subservient to utility? If recalcitrant political realities sometimes require subordinating natural rights, aren't
we simply suggesting that human rights are merely utopian aspirations inappropriate to a world in which dirty hands are often a
requirementof political action - and thus where utility is the only reasonableguide? Such a response misconstrues the relationship
between rights and utility and the ways in which rights are overridden. Consider a very simple case, involving minor rights that on
their face would seem to be easily overridden. If A promises to drive B and C to the movies but later changes his mind, in deciding
whether to keep his promise and discharge his rights-based obligations). A must consider morethan the relative utilities of both courses
of action for all the partiesaffected; in most cases, he ought to drive them to the movies even ifthat would reduce overall utility. At the
very least he must ask themto excuse him from his obligation, this requirement (as well as thepower to excuse) being a reflection of
the right-holder's control overthe rights relationship. Utility alone usually will not override even minor rights; we require more than a
simple calculation of utility to justify infringing rights. The special priority of rights/titles, as we have seen, implies that the quality,
not just the quantity, of the countervailing forces(utilities) must be taken into consideration. For example, if, whenthe promised time
comes, A wants instead to go get drunk with someother friends, simply not showing up to drive B and C to the movieswill not be
justifiable even if that would maximise utility; the desirefor a drunken binge is not a consideration that ordinarily willjustifiably
override rights. But if A accompanies an accident victimto the hospital, even if A is only one of several passers-by whostopped to offer
help, and his action proves to be of no real benefitto the victim, usually this will be a sufficient excuse, even if utilitywould be
maximised by A going to the movies. Therefore, evenrecasting rights as weighted interests (which would seem to be theobvious
utilitarian 'fix' to capture the special priority of rights) stillmisses the point, because it remains essentially quantitative. Rights even
tend to override an accumulation of comparable or parallel interests. Suppose that sacrificing a single innocent person with a rare
blood factor could completely and permanently cure ten equally innocent victims of a disease that produces a sure, slow and agonising
death. Each of the eleven has the 'same' right to life.Circumstances require, however, that a decision be made as to whowill live and
who will die. The natural rights theorist would almostcertainly choose to protect the rights of the one individual - andsuch a
conclusion, when faced with the scapegoat problem, is one ofthe greatest virtues of a natural rights doctrine to its advocates.
Thisconclusion rests on a qualitative judgement that establishes theright, combined with the further judgement that it is not
society'srole to infringe such rights simply to foster utility, a judgementarising from the special moral priority of rights. Politically,
such considerations are clearest in the case of extremely unpopular minorities. For example, plausible arguments can be made that
considerations of utility would justify persecution of selected religious minorities (e.g. Jews for centuries in the West,Mormons in
nineteenth-century America, Jehovah's Witnesses incontemporary Malawi), even giving special weight to the interests ofmembers of
these minorities and considering the precedents set by such persecutions. None the less, human rights demand that anessentially
qualitative judgement be made that such persecutions are incompatible with a truly human life and cannot be allowed - andsuch
judgements go a long way to explaining the relative appeal ofhuman rights theories. But suppose that the sacrifice of one innocent
person would savenot ten but a thousand, or a hundred thousand, or a million people.All things considered, trading one innocent life
for a million, even ifthe victim resists most forcefully, would seem to be not merelyjustifiable but demanded. Exactly how do we
balance rights (in thesense of 'having a right'), wrongs (in the sense of 'what is right') andinterests? Do the numbers count? If so, why,
and in what way? Ifnot, why not? Ultimately the defender of human rights is forced back to human

nature, the source of natural or human rights. For a natural rights theorist there are certain
attributes, potentialities and holdings that are essential to the maintenance of a life worthy
of a human being.These are given the special protection of natural rights; any 'utility' that
might be served by their infringement or violation would be indefensible, literally inhuman
- except in genuinely extraordinary circumstances, the possibility of which cannot be
denied, but the probability of which should not be overestimated. Extraordinary
circumstances do force us to admit that, at somepoint, however rare, the force of utilitarian
considerations builds up until quantity is transformed into quality. The human rights
theorist, however, insists on the extreme rarity of such cases. Furthermore,exotic cases should not be
permitted to obscure the fundamental difference in emphasis (and in the resulting judgements in virtuallyall cases) between utility and
(human) rights. Nor should they be allowed to obscure the fact that on balance the flaws in rights-based theories and practicesseem
less severe, and without a doubt lessnumerous, than those of utility-based political strategies.

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.