Professional Documents
Culture Documents
Affirmative
Tentative 1AC
1ACDemocracy Advantage
Global democracy is under threatthe international image of democracy is
the crucial variable
Walker 15 - Christopher Walker is Executive Director of the National Endowment for Democracys International Forum for
Democratic Studies, a leading center for the analysis and discussion of the theory and practice of democratic development. (The
Authoritarian Resurgence, Journal of Democracy, Volume 26, Number 2, p. 21, Project Muse, April 2015) STRYKER
Attentive readers of this journal will have already noticed that NEDs
FISA court hears from only one side in the casethe governmentand its findings
are almost never made public." A court that is supreme, in the sense of having the final say, but where arguments are only
ever submitted on behalf of the government, and whose judges are not subject to the approval of a
democratic body , sounds a lot like the sort of thing authoritarian governments set up when they make a half-hearted attempt
to create the appearance of the rule of law. According to the Times, Geoffrey Stone, a law professor at the University of Chicago, "said he
was troubled by the idea that the court is creating a significant body of law without hearing from anyone outside the government, forgoing
the adversarial system that is a staple of the American justice system." I'm troubled, too. Meanwhile, the Wall Street Journal adds some
meat to the story by reporting that "The
orders starting in the mid-2000s, the court accepted that "relevant" could be broadened to permit an entire database of records on millions
of people, in contrast to a more conservative interpretation widely applied in criminal cases, in which only some of those records would
likely be allowed, according to people familiar with the ruling." Relevant"
senior counsel at Perkins Coie LLP who, until December, was the Justice Department's primary authority on federal criminal surveillance
law.[...]Two senators on the Intelligence Committee, Ron Wyden (D., Ore.) and Mark Udall (D., Colo.), have argued repeatedly that there
was a "secret interpretation" of the Patriot Act. The senators' offices tell the Journal that this new interpretation of the word "relevant" is
what they meant. Think about that. Doesn't that suggest to you that Messrs Wyden and Udall were afraid they might be subject to some sort
of censure or reprisal were they to share with the public specific details about the official interpretation of the law to which the public is
subject? And those specific details were about the interpretation of "relevant"? Now that that cat's out of the bag, I guess we're in danger?
All this somehow got me thinking of the doctrine of "democracy promotion", which was
developed under George W. Bush and maintained more or less by Barack Obama. The doctrine is
generally presented as half-idealism, half-practicality. That all the people of the Earth , by
dint of common humanity, are entitled to the protections of democracy is an inspiring principle .
However, its foreign-policy implications are not really so clear. To those of us who are sceptical that America has the authority to intervene
whenever and wherever there are thwarted democratic rights, the advocates of democracy-promotion offer a more businesslike proposition.
It is said that authoritarianism, especially theocratic Islamic authoritarianism, breeds anti-American terrorism, and that swamp-draining
democracy-promotion abroad is therefore a priority of American national security. If
power to determine that this is a discussion the public cannot afford to have
cannot reside in the democratic public . That power must reside elsewhere, with
the best and brightest, with those who have surveyed the perils of the world and know what it takes to meet them. Those deep
within the security apparatus, within the charmed circle, must therefore make the decision, on America's behalf, about how much
any attempt by those on the inside to reveal the real, secret rules governing American life be met with overwhelming, intimidating
retaliation. In order to maintain a legitimising democratic imprimatur, it is of course important that a handful of elected officials be brought
into the anteroom of the inner council, but it's important that they know barely more than that there is a significant risk that we will all
perish if they, or the rest of us, know too much, and they must be made to feel that they dare not publicly speak what little they have been
allowed know. Even senators. Even senators must fear to describe America's laws to America's citizens. This
is, yes,
democracy-suppression , but it is a vitally necessary arrangement. It keeps you and your adorable kids and even your
cute pet dog alive. Now, I don't believe I've heard anyone make this argument, no doubt because the logic of the argument cuts against it
being made. Yet it seems similar reasoning must underpin the system of secret government that has emerged from the examination of Mr
Snowden's leaks, and I cannot help but suspect that something along these lines has become the unspoken, unspeakable doctrine of Mr
Obama's administration. Yet I remember when the Mr Obama
exhortations to democracy sound to foreign ears? Mr Snowden may be responsible for having
exposed this hypocrisy, for having betrayed the thug omert at the heart of America's domestic democracy-suppression
programme, but the hypocrisy is America's . I'd very much like to know what led Mr Obama to change his mind, to
conclude that America is not after all safe for democracy, though I know he's not about to tell us. The matter is settled. It has been decided,
and not by us. We can't handle the truth.
United States should take steps to restore habeas corpus and bring wiretap
surveillance efforts back into the framework of the rule of law in the United
States. Sending the signal that the United States is cleaning up its act on these
fronts is a necessary step for reviving U.S. credibility on democracy
promotion in the Middle East. Without some progress on these measures, anything
else that the new administration tries to do on democracy promotion whether it is political party
building or civil society support, or any of the other traditional programs in the U.S. toolbox will likely yield few results
because of the substantial credibility gap . The new administration needs to send a
clear message that the United States intends to practice what it preaches by
adhering to the legal obligations it assumed in the International Covenant on Civil and
Political Rights, the Convention against Torture, and other human rights treaties. Strengthening the legal framework for rule of law
will require not only action on the part of the Obama administration but also engagement by leaders in the U.S. Congress. How the United
States reintroduces itself to the worldkeeping its national security policy in line with the highest human rights standardswill set the
framework for how U.S. actions on the democracy promotion front are perceived throughout the Middle East.
In 1975, a report prepared by the Trilateral Commission, The Crisis of Democracy, signaled the pessimism
and defeatism prevailing in Western democracies at the time about the future and
sustainability of democracy. The report reflected a deep economic downturn, as well as social and political turmoil. This
crisis of democracy was tightly connected with concerns about monopoly capitalism, rampant materialism and corruption. Four
decades later, democracy is again in a state of crisis . This comes as somewhat of a
surprise, given that successive waves of democratization have touched every region of the
world over the past 40 years. What is becoming evident now is that an opposite trend has
emerged. Democracy has in fact been in retreat for years, as many repressive
governments became even more repressive, civil liberties were dropped and the
military was empowered in many countries. The state of democracy today In the early 1990s, the end of the Cold War had
brought the revalidation of democracy with great vigour as the most representative form of government. Yet this exuberance has been
counterbalanced with criticism of its failings and shortcomings. Democracies
unwarranted invasions , toleration of brutality, genocide, misuse of the UN veto system at the expense of global
harmony and peace, as well geopolitical machinations or meddling in the affairs of weaker states these are all traits that have
characterized the foreign conduct of major democratic states at some point . Inequality alienates
Western democracies like the United States, United Kingdom or France traditionally considered
advanced democracies experience acute inequalities, and even cases of abject poverty. In 2009, a U.S. government
report pointed to the dramatic increase in hunger and food insecurity. About 50 million people were identified as having suffered food
insecurity at some point during the previous year. One in five people in the United Kingdom are also identified as falling below the poverty
line. Growing inequality is at times reinforced by, and an enabler of, shrinking opportunity. This fuels disillusionment and low political
participation. As Joseph Stiglitz has noted, The rich dont need to rely on government for parks or education or medical care or personal
security they can buy all these things for themselves. In the process, they become more distant from ordinary people, losing whatever
empathy they may once have had. Corporate financing of political campaigns have reinforced this, hijacking the democratic process. It
further alienates voters who feel they are excluded from a process that is beyond their control. The role of money in politics is worth singling
out as a major problem with democratic governance. Its effects are truly worrisome, especially when there is little transparency and
regulatory mechanisms to limit the distorting role of money in politics. A check is worth a thousand words The U.S. Supreme Courts 2010
decision in the Citizens United case openly enshrined the right of unlimited campaign spending, giving corporations, associations and
billionaire donors the freedom to heavily and undemocratically influence government, perversely as an expression of their free speech. The
super PACs have blurred the line between the personal and the political. They reinforce and perpetuate the rotation of policymakers in the
U.S. Congress and the executive branch, many of whom are already part of the wealthiest 1% (and, under any circumstance, remain kept in
office by money from the top 1%). Whatever constraints existed to this practice, they were expunged earlier in 2014 when the Supreme
Court opened the door to even more money in politics by striking down the aggregate contribution limits for campaigns. The decision
means, in very practical terms, that one single donor can contribute millions of dollars to political candidates or campaigns and thereby dim
the prospect of new entrants, ideas or challengers to the political arena. Finally, the
more feasible paradigm is an approach I call Sustainable History. It focuses on dignity rather than just freedom. And it allows for
reconciling accountable governance with various political cultures.
Uniqueness
UniquenessDemocracy Promotion
Western democracy is in decline
Diamond 15 - Larry Diamond is founding coeditor of the Journal of Democracy, senior fellow at the Hoover Institution and the
Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies at Stanford University, and director of Stanfords Center on Democracy, Development,
and the Rule of Law. (Facing Up to the Democratic Recession, Journal of Democracy, Volume 26, Number 1, p. 140-153, Project Muse,
January 2015) STRYKER
Perhaps the
public trust in government are at historic lows. The ever-mounting cost of election campaigns, the surging role of
nontransparent money in politics, and low rates of voter participation are additional signs of democratic ill health. Internationally,
the international
perception is that democracy promotion has already receded as an actual priority
of U.S. foreign policy.
promoting democracy abroad scores close to the bottom of the publics foreign-policy priorities. And
The Obama administration is proposing to omit a longstanding legislative provision aimed at preventing American foreign
aid being blocked or manipulated by repressive foreign leaders. The proposed removal from the administrations budget
and appropriations request for next fiscal year of a provision instructing the Secretary of State not to seek the prior
approval of host governments when funding nonprofits and civil society groups overseas is
decade ago was meant to combat. This is turning the clock back to when the State Department would avoid funding civil
society groups blacklisted by their governments, says Cole Bockenfeld, director of Advocacy at the Project on Middle East
Democracy, a Washington D.C.-based nonprofit. He claims the omission will feed into perceptions the
decreasing funding for democracy and governance promotion and support. Speaking in
Poland last week during a European visit, President Obama once again pledged to support democracy movements around
the world. In a passionate speech he promised, Wherever people are willing to do the hard work of building democracy
from Tbilisi to Tunis, from Rangoon to Freetownthey will have a partner. Democracy-promotion advocates
say there is an increasing disconnect between the rhetoric and practice. They acknowledge
Obama has a difficult taskespecially when it comes to the post-Arab Spring Middle Eastin trying to balance U.S.
strategic and national security interests with promotion of democracy and human rights advocacy, and that political
setbacks in the region have not helped.
governance assistance programs in Iraq and that, for Egypt, the administration was adopting a wait-and-see
approach until after a January 15 referendum on a newly-drafted constitution. No extra funding for democracy
promotion is being earmarked for Libya, whose transition from autocracy following the
toppling of Libyan strongman Muammar Gaddafi has been plagued by lawlessness. USAID
democracy programs there were cut by about half last year, following the assault on the U.S.
consulate in Benghazi that led to the deaths of ambassador Christopher Sevens and three other Americans. The total
amount of foreign assistance requested by the Obama administration for the Middle East and North Africa for fiscal year
2014 is $7.36 billion, a nine percent decrease from FY2013. Of that, $298.3 million has been requested to support
democracy and governance programming across the region, a cut of $160.9 million from FY 2013. But those briefed last
month by State Department officials say the decrease in funding is likely in effect to be harsher and that it may be masked
when the administration goes through with plans to re-categorize so-called D&G funding by combining it with
development programs. That will make it difficult to follow what actually has been spent on democracy promotion. We
had expected big cuts in D&G to the region soon, says Cole Bockenfeld, director of Advocacy at the Project on Middle East
already a widespread perception that this administration was giving up on promoting democracy in the Middle East, and
major cuts to democracy funding will further confirm those fears." In that September 24 speech the President stressed
mutual security interests shared by the U.S. and countries in the region and was criticized for seemingly downplaying
democracy. When it came to Egypt, Obama made no explicit reference to standards for human rights, despite the ongoing
violent dispersal by the Egyptian security forces of demonstrators protesting the ousting of the Muslim Brotherhoods
Mohamed Morsi, the first democratically elected head of state in Egyptian history.
and national security interests with the promotion of democracy and that political
setbacks in the region have not helped . But Thomas Carothers, a noted authority on international
democracy support, says the Obama administration has always been lukewarm about democracy promotion, partly
because of its association with the neo-conservative policies and freedom agenda of the Bush era. The administration
never made a big push to increase money for democracy and governance in the Middle East after the Arab Spring, says
Carothers, a vice president at the Washington DC-based think tank the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. He
points out that D&G money for Iraq in Obamas first term was a holdover from earmarks by the Bush administration,
adding, it is notable the administration has never developed a democracy strategy for the
Middle East and this further reduction of emphasis on democracy reflects how the Arab
Spring has turned into a series of security headaches for the administration. The
challenge the administration has not solved is how to become a credible
pro-democracy actor in the region. In briefings, State Department officials have told democracy
advocates that they are too narrowly focused. Administration officials favorite phrase these days is that, you have to
widen the aperture, says Bockenfeld. They say we are looking at democracy promotion too narrowly, when we focus on
building up civil society groups or provide technical election support. They say if you do women empowerment programs
or if you do economic opportunity programs, that all feeds into the bigger picture of democracy. They are pushing them
altogether to brush over these cuts to democracy programs. Some activists argue the pullback from democracy promotion
reflects an administration fear about antagonizing governments in the region. Others say that with democracy
enlargement in the region faltering, the Obama administration is eager to shield itself from any blame for the Arab Spring
failing.
there is energy in the international system, it comes from the great-power autocracies,
China and Russia, and from would-be theocrats pursuing their dream of a new caliphate
in the Middle East. For all their many problems and weaknesses, it is still these autocracies and these
aspiring religious totalitarians that push forward while the democracies draw back, that
act while the democracies react, and that seem increasingly unleashed while the
democracies feel increasingly constrained. It should not be surprising that one of the side effects of
these circumstances has been the weakening and in some cases collapse of democracy in
those places where it was newest and weakest. Geopolitical shifts among the reigning great powers, often
but not always the result of wars, can have significant effects on the domestic politics of the smaller and weaker nations of
the world. Global democratizing trends have been stopped and reversed before .
http://www.brookings.edu/research/articles/2015/01/democracy-in-decline-weight-ofgeopolitics-kagan)//erg
Consider the interwar years. In 1920, when the number of democracies in the world had doubled in the aftermath of the
First World War, contemporaries such as the British historian James Bryce believed that they were witnessing a natural
trend, due to a general law of social progress.[1] Yet almost immediately the new democracies in
Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, and Poland began
to power in Italy in 1922, the crumbling of Germanys Weimar Republic, and the broader triumph of European fascism.
Greek democracy fell in 1936. Spanish democracy fell to Franco that same year. Military coups overthrew democratic
governments in Portugal, Brazil, Uruguay, and Argentina. Japans shaky democracy succumbed to military rule and then
to a form of fascism. Across three continents, fragile democracies gave way to authoritarian forces
exploiting the vulnerabilities of the democratic system, while other democracies fell prey to
the worldwide economic depression. There was a ripple effect, toothe success of fascism in one
country strengthened similar movements elsewhere, sometimes directly. Spanish fascists received military assistance from
the fascist regimes in Germany and Italy. The result was that by 1939 the democratic gains of the previous forty years had
been wiped out. The period after the First World War showed not only that democratic gains could be reversed, but that
democracy need not always triumph even in the competition of ideas. For it was not just that democracies had been
overthrown. The very idea of democracy had been discredited, as John A. Hobson observed.[2]
Democracys aura of inevitability vanished as great numbers of people rejected the idea
that it was a better form of government. Human beings, after all, do not yearn only for freedom, autonomy,
individuality, and recognition. Especially in times of difficulty, they yearn also for comfort,
security, order, and, importantly, a sense of belonging to something larger than
themselves, something that submerges autonomy and individualityall of which
autocracies can sometimes provide, or at least appear to provide, better than
democracies. In the 1920s and 1930s, the fascist governments looked stronger, more energetic and efficient, and
more capable of providing reassurance in troubled times. They appealed effectively to nationalist, ethnic, and tribal
sentiments. The many weaknesses of Germanys Weimar democracy, inadequately supported by the democratic great
powers, and of the fragile and short-lived democracies of Italy and Spain made their people susceptible to the appeals of
the Nazis, Mussolini, and Franco, just as the weaknesses of Russian democracy in the 1990s made a more authoritarian
government under Vladimir Putin attractive to many Russians. People tend to follow winners, and between the wars the
democratic-capitalist countries looked weak and in retreat compared with the apparently vigorous fascist regimes and
with Stalins Soviet Union. It took a second world war and another military victory by the Allied democracies (plus the
Soviet Union) to reverse the trend again. The United States imposed democracy by force and through
prolonged occupations in West Germany, Italy, Japan, Austria, and South Korea. With the victory of the democracies and
the discrediting of fascismchiefly on the battlefieldmany other countries followed suit. Greece and Turkey both moved
in a democratic direction, as did Brazil, Argentina, Peru, Ecuador, Venezuela, and Colombia. Some of the new nations
born as Europe shed its colonies also experimented with democratic government, the most prominent example being
India. By 1950, the number of democracies had grown to between twenty and thirty, and they governed close to 40 percent
of the worlds population. Was this the victory of an idea or the victory of arms? Was it the product of an inevitable human
evolution or, as Samuel P. Huntington later observed, of historically discrete events?[3] We would prefer to believe the
former, but evidence suggests the latter, for it turned out that even the great wave of democracy following
World War II was not irreversible. Another reverse wave hit from the late 1950s through the early 1970s.
Peru, Brazil, Argentina, Bolivia, Chile, Uruguay, Ecuador, South Korea, the Philippines, Pakistan, Indonesia, and Greece
all fell back under authoritarian rule. In Africa, Nigeria was the most prominent of the newly decolonized nations where
democracy failed. By 1975, more than three-dozen governments around the world had been installed by military coups.[4]
Few spoke of democracys inevitability in the 1970s or even in the early 1980s. As late as 1984, Huntington himself
believed that the limits of democratic development in the world had been reached, noting the unreceptivity to
democracy of several major cultural traditions, as well as the substantial power of antidemocratic governments
(particularly the Soviet Union).[5]
Snowden scandal. The reluctant responses by Germany and France to evidence that the NSA has been conducting
unprecedented surveillance of their officials indicate that Europe's governments may also be involved. Indeed, it now
appears that America has shared its intelligence trove with Germany's spy services when needed. So far, Obama's
handling of the Snowden affair shows that he places more stock in the logic of security
than in adherence to principle. Coming from a president who won global sympathy - and a Nobel Peace Prize for his moral stance, the claim that the NSA's activities are justified because 'that's how intelligence services operate' is
particularly disappointing. A state that emphasizes security over civil rights and liberties is
easily hijacked by security agencies. While America's 'war on terror' demands a stronger emphasis on
security, the NSA's activities expose an alarming willingness to violate the privacy of
millions of individuals - including in allied countries, whose constitutions and sovereignty have also been
breached. Western leaders must now ask themselves whether the ends justify the means. With the all-powerful U.S.
training its sights on a young former analyst, the answer appears to be no. The current scandal's impact on
violation of individuals' privacy implied by such activities lies the danger that
these firms will later make a deal with authoritarian regimes in Russia or
China , where little, if any, effort is made to preserve even the illusion of privacy. Google
already has some experience in turning over information to China's security services .
Against this background, it is impossible to know whether these companies are already spying on Western leaders,
together with the NSA. Snowden's presence in Russia, even in the airport's international transit zone, has given the U.S. a
pretext to declare that he is not a whistleblower, but a traitor. The fact that Snowden has now applied for temporary
asylum in Russia has reinforced that interpretation. Ironically, by turning the affair into a spy thriller, Putin has helped
the U.S. to salvage its reputation - or at least to deflect some of the attention from the NSA's surveillance programs. The
discussion about security, privacy, and freedom that the Snowden drama has sparked is long overdue. But the scandal has
begotten many losers. Snowden has effectively given up his future . The U.S. and Obama have lost their
claim to the moral high ground. And liberal democracies' apparent inability to protect
their citizens from infringement of their individual rights has undermined their standing
at home and abroad. Russian society will also pay a price, with the NSA's surveillance programs giving the Kremlin
ammunition to defend the expansion of state control over the Internet and other aspects of citizens' personal lives.
Similarly, the scandal will likely inspire China to strengthen its Great Firewall further. The ordeal's only victor
is
Putin, who now has grounds to dismiss U.S. criticism of his authoritarian rule . Indeed, at the
slightest provocation, Putin will be able to point to America's hypocrisy for spying on, say, European
Union facilities as part of expanded surveillance programs supposedly within the scope of the war on terror, and for
hunting Snowden after accusing Russia of unfairly prosecuting the whistleblower Sergei Magnitsky. Snowden did not
create the security-privacy dilemma, but he did illuminate a deeply rooted problem that Western leaders have long tried to
obscure. One can only hope that his actions, and the resulting scandal, will compel Western
leaders to reassess their approach to national security - and not simply lead them to try to conceal it
better.
have not even begun to grapple with the costs of mass surveillance to
privacy and other rights. A joint Human Rights Watch and American Civil Liberties
Union report in July documented the insidious effects of large-scale surveillance on
journalism and law in the United States. Interviews with dozens of leading journalists showed that increased
surveillance is stifling reporting, especially when government tightens controls to prevent sources from leaking
government information or even talking to journalists about unclassified topics. This damages the role of the fourth estate, particularly on
matters of public concern related to national security. Perhaps
power corrupts but he also figured out that "everything secret degenerates, even
the administration of justice." The creators of democratic forms of government throughout the ages, including America's
Founding Fathers knew these things too so they tried to ensure governmental
transparency, in part through constitutional guarantees of freedom of speech and press .
Sadly however, we've allowed our excessively secret government to take away almost all
the privacy of ordinary citizens. As I wrote here a couple months ago, "when a powerful government
like 'Top Secret America' enjoys maximum 'privacy' while private individuals are
subjected to full transparency, it might be time to turn that boat around !" It will be telling if
Lord Acton is famous for his insights on how
Congress can start the turn-around by allowing Section 215 of the Patriot Act to sunset, especially after a 2nd Circuit Court of Appeals
unanimously told them that the Bush and Obama Administrations' secret interpretation of this provision was and is completely illegal.
Until it gets righted, the topsy turvy situation that now exists is the antithesis of
democracy . As Tom Clancy put it: "The control of information is something the elite always
does, particularly in a despotic form of government . Information, knowledge, is
power. If you can control information, you can control people ." Here just one example: it's supposed to
be illegal to classify information evidencing illegality yet ironically, whistleblowers who disclose government illegality are the ones who are
threatened with imprisonment and they don't even get a chance to explain any of this or their righteous motivation to a jury. Maybe poor
Richard Nixon, with his theory of being above the law, just missed his time?! This currently anti-democratic system can likely be traced to a
couple of weeks after the September 11, 2001 attacks, when a top secret memo was written by Office of Legal Counsel (OLC) Attorney John
Yoo, (who would also write the "torture memo" a year later). The OLC memo stated, among other things: "First Amendment speech and
press rights may also be subordinated to the overriding need to wage war successfully. 'When a nation is at war, many things that might be
said in time of peace are such a hindrance to its effort that their utterance will not be endured so long as men fight and that no Court could
regard them as protected by any constitutional right.'" This OLC opinion--see full article by retired Army Major Todd Pierce--claimed
authority of the President as the Commander in Chief to use the military both inside and outside of the U.S., and was probably the authority
for the National Security Agency's (NSA's) military operation within the U.S., spying on Americans. In the years that followed,
we
learned, due to the courage of whistleblowers, culminating with the numerous documentary disclosures of
Edward Snowden, that the NSA and other US intelligence agencies secretly implemented
various massive data collection projects, vacuuming up trillions of pieces of info on
people all over the world, in a counter-productive effort to achieve a kind of "Total
Information Awareness." With its omnipresent surveillance , the US Government
also began aggressively targeting and prosecuting whistleblowers and other sources,
putting renowned journalists and publishers worldwide, even mainstream media like Associated Press,
directly or incidentally in their surveillance crosshairs.
Surveillance undermines the US democratic model
Goh 15 - Benjamin Goh wrote this as his thesis for an International Relations PhD at New York University. (Prosperity and Security:
A Political Economy Model of Internet Surveillance, http://www.politics.as.nyu.edu/docs/IO/5628/Goh.pdf 4/3/2015) STRYKER
Edward Snowdens
UniquenessInternet Freedom
Internet freedom is slipping globally
PMS 15 - Plus Media Solutions. (Internet Insecurity, Lexis Nexis, 4/29/2015) STRYKER
From fingerprints to foreign policy, CAS researchers are addressing internet security on a national scale by challenging data
collection policiesan issue that has dominated the news since former National Security Agency (NSA)
contractor Edward Snowden blew the whistle on US surveillance methods . The classified
documents Snowden leaked to journalists prove that the NSA reached deeper into our lives than we realized,
amassing a staggering cache of information about our phone calls and internet
communications. These revelations have challenged our definition of privacy and fueled a
national debate over the balance between security and civil rights. As a society, we have established
fairly sharply defined boundaries for other kinds of communication, like the telephone and the US Postal Service, Crovella says. Whats
changed with respect to the internet is that with the ease and scope with which monitoring can be performed, weve slipped out of those
traditional boundaries. Were out of whack. In a paper that made national news in summer 2014, Goldberg exposed a policy loophole that
illustrates just how far weve slipped. She discovered that although
internet communications are globally routed and stored on servers in data centers throughout the world. Consequently, says Goldberg,
this protection of foreign soil versus American soil is no protection at all in terms of privacy. Crovella says lawmakers seem to be as
confused by the internets complexities as the rest of us, making it difficult for them to evaluate the technical impact of their policies on the
digital domain. Equally problematic, much of this legislation passes under the radar of the average American. Goldberg points to Section
309 of the Intelligence Authorization Act, which passed in Congress on December 10, 2014, with no reports in the media whatsoever.
Anywhere. Section 309 sanctions Reagans order by enforcing a five-year limit on the length of time US citizens phone and internet
communications can be held. It
provision not only passed without notice in the media, it nearly eluded detection by Congress, as it was snuck into the 47-page act the
morning it was headed to vote. Congressman Justin Amash (R-Mich.) noticed the addition and petitioned his colleagues to vote against it,
but Congress passed the bill 325 to 100apparently without reading it. Problematic
in democratic and authoritarian countries alike, according to the summary of Freedom on the Net 2014, a
report released in 2014 by the independent watchdog organization Freedom House. While every government has a
legitimate need to protect its countrys infrastructure, trade secrets, and public safety,
the problem here is to balance our concerns over protecting our computer networks
especially in the way they interact with critical infrastructurewith personal liberty and
privacy, said Timothy H. Edgar, a CAS computer science visiting lecturer, in a talk at the Berkman Center for Internet & Society at
Harvard University. A growing list of countries have adopted a variety of more or less restrictive
internet filtering practices, and not just the usual suspects, said Edgar, who served under President Barack Obama as the
first director of privacy and civil liberties for the White House National Security Staff. Democratic countries are
debating internet filtering , joining authoritarian states like China, Russia, and Iran,
where citizens online freedom has long been restricted . In 2014, according to the
Freedom House report, internet freedom declined globally for the fourth year
in a row : 41 countries proposed or passed legislation that gives the government more
control over internet content, more surveillance power , and more authority to punish users for their actions
online. And 38 countriesparticularly in North Africa and the Middle Eastarrested users for posting content
relating to politics and social issues. In response to this tension between security and civil liberty, Edgar suggests that in
trying to secure our online world, we may undo the openness that has allowed it to thrive. He asks: Will we destroy the
internet to try to save it?
Internet freedom is low nowUS is doing a bad job promoting itplan is key
Peralta, 14, (Adriana, PanAm Post reporter, Censors Close In on Global Internet
Freedom Four Years Running, PanAm, DECEMBER 8, 2014,
http://panampost.com/adriana-peralta/2014/12/08/censors-close-in-on-globalinternet-freedom-four-years-running/)//erg
Internet freedom around the world has declined for the fourth consecutive year, warns the
latest report from Freedom House. More and more governments have increased their censorship
and monitoring of the web, using increasingly sophisticated and aggressive methods .+ On
the American continent, Venezuela (56), the United States (19), and Mexico (39) were the three countries that registered
the greatest slip in their rating out of 100 points, with a loss of three, two, and three points, respectively.+ The Freedom on
the Net 2013 report, published December 3, examined 65 countries between May 2013 and May 2014, analyzing laws
affecting the internet and the accessibility of web pages, and interviewed those who used the web as both a method of
communication and for online activism.+ With zero being the best rating and 100 the worst, Iran (89), Syria (88) and
China (87) were the worst-scored countries in the study. China was found to have intimidated and in some cases
arrested users who had posted criticisms of the government online.+ In Syria, pro-government hackers
infected more than 10,000 computers with a virus that hid warnings of ongoing cyber
attacks. The report classifies the war-torn state as the most dangerous place in the world for journalists: 24 reporters
were killed between 2013 and 2014.+ Russia (60), Turkey (55), and Ukraine (33) were the countries that increased
their control over web content the most, such as blocking access to information during
political crises, above all during the Russian annexation of Crimea. In the past year, Turkey has
increased blocks on social networks, and expanded its program of cyber attacks against Twitter, YouTube, and news and
opposition websites.+ Conversely, internet freedom has increased in only 12 countries. The majority of the
improvements were due to the further reduction of technical controls on internet use,
rather than a broader, genuine approach by governments to lessen their control over the
internet.+ India was the most successful in decreasing restrictions on web access, largely due to the removal of blocks
to web content, imposed in 2013 with the stated aim of preventing civil disturbances in the northeast of the country.
significant legal decisions by the FISC and the FISC Court of Review. We recognize that unclassified summaries of FISC opinions may be
necessary in some cases but believe that greater
(especially those already committed to protecting human rights online) should lead by
example and report on their own surveillance requests . GNI commends the 21 governments of
the Freedom Online Coalition for their commitment to protecting free expression and privacy online and urges other governments to follow
their lead. However, the
UniquenessSoft Power
American influence is on the brinkthe changing world order necessitates
changes like the affirmative
Nye 15 - Joseph Nye is university distinguished service professor and former dean of Harvard's Kennedy School of Government. He
has served as assistant secretary of defense for international security affairs, chair of the National Intelligence Council, and deputy under
secretary of state for security assistance, science, and technology. (Is the American Century Over? pp. 186-188 e-book, 2015) STRYKER
In conclusion, the
The American century is likely to continue for a number of decades at the very least, but it will look very different from how it did when
Henry Luce first articulated it.
Council, China-Led Bank a Sign of U.S. Struggle to Transform Power Into Policy
Success, Washington Wire, 4/29/15,
http://blogs.wsj.com/washwire/2015/04/29/china-led-bank-a-sign-of-u-s-struggle-totransform-power-into-policy-success/?KEYWORDS=%22soft+power%22)//kjz
The failure of the U.S. campaign to dissuade allies from joining Chinas Asian
Infrastructure Investment Bank was greeted in some quarters as a sign of American
decline. But this episode was not a crisis of American power, which remains unequaled. And while the threat that the
bank poses to that power and to the international order it undergirds has been much touted, it is in fact overstated. In fact,
the main portent of the episode is not Beijings overturning of the international economic order or the arrival of
China as a U.S. peer but the
Washingtons lack of progress toward IMF and trade reform means that the U.S. has
been fighting something with nothing. The experience with Chinas investment bank is
less a demonstration that Chinese soft power is compelling than that Americas has been
allowed to atrophy. Its tempting to chalk up U.S. policy paralysis to political polarization, but that wouldnt be
accurate. IMF reform is opposed primarily on the right; trade-promotion authority on the left. As campaigning has
increasingly trumped governing, bipartisan consensus has become more elusive even on issues where it once reigned such
as Iran and Israel policy. A similar erosion of statecraft is evident in U.S. foreign relations. The
United States has faced difficulty in recent years in challenging adversariesfailing, for
example, to transform economic leverage into negotiating gains in the Iran nuclear talks
or to deter serial Russian aggression in its near abroad. At the same time, we have neglected alliances
that would conserve and amplify U.S. power. It would be challenging to identify a single U.S. alliance that is stronger today
than it was in 2009. How to think about all this? The world is changing, but our diplomacy has not kept up. During the
Cold War, it was relatively straightforward to make the case that states should not only pursue their own interests but also
uphold the Western-led international order in the face of the Communist threat. Today, we are victims of our own success:
No such unifying threat exists, and power and prosperity are more diffuse. Our diplomacy must therefore be more
nimblesetting priorities, forming coalitions around shared values and interests, and working assiduously to maintain the
broad appeal of the international order. This means working harder not only to understand how our allies perceive their
interestsin this case, allies clearly determined that their interests were better served by joining with Beijingbut also
demonstrating U.S. dedication to those interests amid diminishing national security budgets and commitments.
the mass leak of secrets by Edward Snowden, has entered another phase of intensity, this
time centred on Europe. Revelations that the US tapped the phone of German Chancellor
Angela Merkel, operated numerous listening posts on European soil, and sucked up vast quantities of
communications data from millions of citizens across Europe have broken in the press .
Public expressions of displeasure have been forthcoming , including a European Union
statement. Taken together, these vignettes of public dissention will be enough to make many ask the question: is the
US losing its influence even over its allies? Is this just a tricky moment for a particular president, or
harbinger of a broader trend? Global shift First, the necessary caveats: enduring alliance relationships resemble long
marriages, in that the mere presence of moments of strain, or even audible arguments, cannot be taken as evidence of
imminent separation. Looking back over the longer-term history of Americas relations with its allies, episodes such as the
Vietnam War, the Euromissile crisis of the 1980s, and the controversial interventions in the former Yugoslavia in the
1990s, demonstrate that sharp differences of opinion and conflicting priorities are no radical new state of affairs. And
however unhappy they may be with their recent treatment, it is not obvious that countries such as Germany, France or
Saudi Arabia have anywhere to go if they did decide the time had come to tout for alternative alliance partners. It is not
entirely clear how European annoyance might manifest in ways that have practical importance. It is true they have it in
their power to threaten progress on the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership process, but it is not clear that
such an action would harm the US more than Europe itself. In short, even if they are disgruntled, necessity may ultimately
prove a sufficient force to help them get over it. The reason present friction between the US and its
allies carries greater weight, however, is that it arises in the context of a global shift in
power away from the US and its established allies and towards new powers . The prospect
of American decline in terms of relative international power is the focus of a great deal
of debate over both substance and semantics. But the central fact is that even the part of the USs own
intelligence apparatus charged with long-term foresight regards it as established that within 20 years the world
will have transitioned from the unipolar American dominance of the first post-Cold
War decades to a world in which multiple centres of power must coexist . The centre of
economic gravity has already shifted markedly towards Asia during the last decade.
engaged in thinking carefully about how best to leverage their advantages to retain the
maximum possible influence into the future. If they cannot continue to be first among equals in managing
the world order, they will wish at least to ensure that order is one that runs in line with their own established preferences.
Soft power Many of those who are optimistic about the ability of the US to pull off this
project of declining power without declining influence place emphasis on two things : the
extent to which the US has soft power due to widespread admiration for its political and
cultural values, and the extent to which it has locked in influence through the extent of its
existing networks of friends and allies. Even if these advantages cannot arrest Americas decline on harder
metrics, if played properly they can mitigate its consequences and secure an acceptable future. Shoring up support from
like-minded countries such as those of Europe ought to be the low-hanging fruit of such an effort. So the current
problems do harm on both fronts. It will be difficult to maintain the allure of soft power
if global opinion settles on the view that American political discord has rendered its
democracy dysfunctional at home, or that its surveillance practices have given rein to the
mores of a police state. And it will be harder to preserve American status through the force
of its alliances if its politicians' economic irresponsibility (for example, publicly contemplating a
default on American national debt) or scandals over surveillance or drone strikes alienate their
public or cause their leaders to question the extent to which they really are on the same
side as the US. Obamas day-to-day foreign policy struggles should not be simplistically taken as signs of collapsing
American influence. But if the long-term plan is to carefully manage relative decline so as to preserves maximum
influence, episodes such as those his country has faced since August do nothing to boost the prospects of success.
relations. Snowden positioned himself as a political dissenter who knowingly took an extreme step in violation of the law
to make his political point. The US and China have an appropriate official mechanism for consultation on cyber war issues
within the important US-China Strategic and Economic Dialogue process. The Snowden affair seems to be an appropriate
agenda item for the upcoming July meeting, an opportunity for Washington to provide a full explanation. Americans
naturally want military and other capabilities to defend their country, but we do not want such capabilities turned on
ourselves in violation of the US constitution. Since the 9/11 attacks, however, the Bush administration and the Obama
administration engaged in internal surveillance activities which are controversial if not unconstitutional. The Snowden
case has had more impact on US domestic politics than on the state-to-state relations between the US and China. China
has maintained a diplomatic low-profile stance. Russia and Iceland have indicated they would consider an asylum request
by Snowden. It would be understandable if China would do the same at some point. The impact on US domestic politics is
squarely on issues of constitutional law. Already the watchdog American Civil Liberties Union has filed a
court case against the government as a result of Snowden's revelations. Irate politicians from both
the Republican and Democratic parties denounce what they see as improper and unconstitutional
behavior. The constitutional issue in the US is complicated by the fact that the US
Congress itself passed legislation, opposed by critics, which included vague language and
loopholes that the White House took advantage of for domestic surveillance activities.
Critics were outraged by what they saw as White House lying about possibly illegal domestic surveillance activities. There
was further outrage over the recent congressional testimony of the head of the NSA and the head of the US Intelligence
Community. Critics said these two men committed perjury by lying to the US Congress, which is a high crime. In the US
system governed by its unique constitution, the separation of executive, legislative, and judicial powers is a core value.
Constitutions and political systems naturally vary around the world, but the separation of powers doctrine is fundamental
to the US constitution. It is based on ancient principles found in Greco-Roman tradition as well as in European
parliamentary tradition. As a result of the Snowden affair, one aspect of the internal crisis of US
democracy is before the world. The construction of the "imperial presidency" and
distortion of the separation of powers started during the Cold War. Critics today say US
constitutional democracy is in deep decline reflecting not only the disintegration of the
rule of law, but also reflecting the disintegration of US civic culture. While some US politicians
and officials hypocritically attempt to manipulate the cyber war issue to undermine US-China relations, the real issue is
the constitutional crisis and disintegration of democracy in the US. The Snowden affair shows the US must clean up its
own house rather than point an accusing finger at others.
unilaterallyif it is perceived to act ONLY in its own interest as if it were a NORMAL power is, by definition, to
undermine the basis of the consensual hegemony granted to it by others, who expect it to
look after their interests as well. Without dwelling on facts familiar to all during the buildup to war, acting in
the name of the world but without the worlds consent forfeited too much political capitalthat is, soft
power. Another superpower did emerge to oppose US policy in the past year: global public opinion. It was led,
figuratively, by Nelson Mandela, the ultimate soft power icon of moral leadership, who said early on, America
is a threat to world peace. Its opposition to US policy meant that the political objectives for which our
unparalleled military might paved the way could not in the end be met. Soft power checkmated hard power. Here it might
be apt to paraphrase Stalin on the Pope. Some skeptics might ask how many divisions does global public opinion have?
Answer: It has the divisions so direly needed now but not deployed in Iraqno divisions from Turkey, from the French,
from Spain, from NATO. Walter Lippmann wrote about phantom public opinion. But in this case weve seen a phantom
coalition, where public opinion from Japan to Italy to Britain doesnt stand behind their leaders, constraining the actual
capacity of the coalition to shape postwar Iraq. Spain bowed out after the fact of war; the fledgling democracy in Turkey,
though championed by the US for membership in Europe, bowed out before, making the US invasion jump through
tactical hoops to get into Iraq. It turned out to be only an assumed ally. In this context, and by contrast, across much of
Asia, China has become seen as the stabilizer seeking a peaceful rise while the US upsets the apple cart, not only through
the war in Iraq but with its anti-terror crusade that is a low priority for most Asians. The lack of consent for going into
Iraq, and the daily demonstration of powerlessness since, have made even those Asians suspicious of Chinas new power
concerned about whether they can rely on the US. Tokyos nationalist governor, Shintaro Ishihara, told me as much in a
long conversation last year: Japan, he said, can no longer depend on the US to take care of anyones interest but its own,
so Japan must reopen its nuclear option and be prepared to remilitarize. Just as DeGaulle was sure the US would not
sacrifice New York for Paris, so too the new breed of Japanese politician doesnt trust the US not to sacrifice Tokyo in
pursuit of other interests. Paradoxically, by willfully ignoring the interests of others as expressed in their public opinion,
the US unilateralist approach to Iraq and other issues has pushed the multipolar world order out of its post-Cold War
womb. This is the most profound strategic consequence of the loss of US soft power. America has been demoted from a
hegemon to a preponderant powerby the public opinion of its own allies! Condi Rice once argued to me that the French
call for a multipolar world was the rhetoric of an adversary, not an ally, especially when proclaimed at summits in Beijing
and Moscow. The rhetoric is now on its way to realization. In this respect, the Iraq war has had a demonstration effect, but
not the one Donald Rumsfeld and Dick Cheney envisioned. Rather than demonstrate American power it has demonstrated
the limits to American power. Qian Qichen, Chinas former foreign minister, has summed up the lesson as most of the
world sees it: The st Century is not the American Century. That does not mean the US does not want the dream. It
means it is incapable of realizing the goal. As Joe Nye writes in his book Soft Power, Politics in an information age may
ultimately be about whose story wins. Much of Americas winning story which accounted for it being a soft superpower
human rights, the rule of law, an historic liberator instead of occupierwas further undercut by the images of humiliation,
torture and sexual abuse at Abu Ghraib prison. Certain images so iconify a moment in history they are impossible to erase.
Germans knocking down the Berlin Wall piece by piece with sledge hammers is one. The lone individual standing down a
Chinese tank near Tiananmen Square is another. On the ignoble side, now there are the images of Abu Ghraib. The further
the truth of the image is from a false claim, the deeper and more enduring the damage. Whereas American softpower
undermined Soviet hard power nearly years ago, here American hard power undermined its own soft power. As
Brezezinski argued recently: In our entire history as a nation, world opinion has never been as hostile toward the US as it
is today. The hearts and minds once won are now being lost. And there are real costs. Just two examples to
illustrate the case. After the Abu Ghraib images emerged, I asked Boutros Boutros-Ghali about the impact in the Arab
world and beyond. First, of course, he said these photos were a gift to Al Qaeda recruiters. Second, he said, they
damage the role of organizations all around the world that deal with the protection of
human rights and law in the time of war. I am the president of the Egyptian Commission on Human Rights,
he told me. It will be difficult for me now to say, Look, the international community is demanding that we clean up the
human rights situation in the Arab world. Their response now is: The superpower is not respecting human rights in Iraq
or Guantanamo. So the pressure is off . . . governments all over the world will say that security is
level of distrust created by recent revelations about U.S. National Security Agency surveillance,
and that lack of trust will drive other countries away from U.S. technology firms, said Andrew McLaughlin, former White
House deputy CTO. "We, as an advocate for freedom of speech and privacy worldwide, are much, much, much more
screwed than we generally think in Washington, and ... American industry and our Internet sector is more much, much,
much more screwed than we think internationally," McLaughlin said during a speech at a Human Rights First summit in
Washington, D.C. Many overseas critics of the U.S. see the Obama administration's push for
revelations, who will listen to America on human rights?, The Guardian, 11/11/13,
http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2013/nov/11/nsa-revelations-americahuman-rights)//kjz
One of the unfortunate consequences of the spying by the NSA that has now been revealed is
that it makes it more difficult for the United States to be effective in promoting human
rights internationally. America's ability to exercise a positive influence on the practices of
other governments had been severely damaged under the Bush administration. That was
because American abuses against detainees at Guantnamo and Abu Ghraib deprived Washington of the moral authority
to criticise others when they engaged in such practices as prolonged detentions without charges or trials, or trials before
irregular courts, or cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment, or torture. President Obama's inability to fulfil his promise to
close Guantnamo because of congressional opposition, and his unwillingness to hold Bush-era officials to account for
their abuses, has hampered his administration in recovering lost moral authority. That may help to explain why the
Obama administration has been relatively reluctant to speak out forcefully about abuses of rights by governments such as
those of China and Russia. Of course, dependence on those governments economically and eagerness for their
collaboration in the ongoing global struggle against terrorism were also probably factors in muting American criticism.
What the world has learned about the NSA's systematic intrusions on the privacy of
others has dashed hopes that the US would gradually recover its voice in speaking out for
rights. It is difficult, if not impossible, for a government that is seen by many worldwide
as a great violator of rights to be credible in promoting those same rights. Of course, the
damage to American foreign policy by the practices of the NSA goes far beyond American capacity to promote human
rights. Perhaps the damage in Europe has been the greatest. Europe has much stronger protections for privacy than the
US, reflecting a high level of public concern. Nowhere is the commitment to privacy stronger than in Germany, where
article one of the country's constitution, the Basic Law, begins with the assertion: "Human dignity is inviolable. To respect
it and protect it is the duty of all state power." Dignity, which also has a central place in the European charter of
fundamental rights, but is not mentioned in the US constitution, is understood in Germany and elsewhere in Europe to
encompass a commitment to privacy. In the absence of a clear repudiation by the Obama administration of practices of the
NSA that go far beyond the requirements of national security, including a pledge to discontinue spying on European
leaders, and to end indiscriminate surveillance of many millions of European citizens, it seems likely that co-operation
with the United States on a host of issues will decline drastically. The US once enjoyed a reputation as a
country that respected human rights. This enhanced its political standing with other
countries and gave Washington the capacity to promote these rights worldwide . Its stand on
rights had been an asset; now it is turning into a liability. The main reason to respect rights, of course, is because of their
intrinsic worth and significance. A secondary reason that is not negligible, however, is that America's practices on
rights also have a significant impact on the country's other interests in its relations with
the rest of the world.
Link
Lead By ExampleDemocracy
Curtailing surveillance allows the US to lead by example
Condon 14 - Stephanie Condon is a political reporter for CBSNews.com. (Obama: U.S. must lead the world by example,
http://www.cbsnews.com/news/obama-u-s-by-lead-the-world-by-example/ 5/28/2014) STRYKER
"America must always lead on the world stage . If we don't, no one else will," President Obama told the
graduating class at the United States Military Academy at West Point on Wednesday. Responding to critics that have cast his foreign policy
as feckless and weak, Mr. Obama used the commencement address to make the case that his leadership has positioned the U.S. to be a
nation that leads by example and that the United States has never been stronger than it is now. "Those who argue otherwise - who suggest
that America is in decline, or has seen its global leadership slip away - are either misreading history or engaged in partisan politics," Mr.
Obama said. The president reassured the cadets that the military is the backbone of U.S. leadership but that it must be used with restraint.
"Just because we have the best hammer does not mean that every problem is a nail ," he said,
defining his leadership style in contrast to the overzealous interventions of the Bush era. "It is a particularly useful time for America to
reflect on those who have sacrificed so much for our freedom," Mr. Obama said, "for you are the first class to graduate since 9/11 who may
not be sent into combat in Iraq or Afghanistan." Mr.
more consistent ,
realistic and multilateral approach will help to secure at-risk democracies and plant the
seeds of freedom in oppressed countries. Patience, persistence and savvy diplomacy will serve the next president far
better than moralistic rhetoric that divides the world into good and evil. We've seen where that got us.
this shift in strategy will require significant changes in how the United
States implements its national security policies , Katulis concludes. But the most
important step that the United States and the full range of U.S. institutions and
organizations can do to advance human rights and democracy in the Middle East is to
practice what it preaches lead by example and ensure that its actions match the
democratic values and ideals it seeks to advance in the Middle East.
Thorough democracy is crucial to successful modeling
Kemming and Humborg 10 - Jan Dirk Kemming is Creative Director for Weber Shandwick Continental Europe and a
visiting lecturer at Cologne University of Applied Science. His PhD from Giessen University deals with nation branding and public
diplomacy for Turkeys EU accession. Christian Humborg is the Managing Director for an NGO in Berlin and a visiting lecturer at the
University of Potsdam. He holds a PhD from the same university. His recent academic work focuses on the linkage of democracy and
lobbyism. (Democracy and nation brand(ing): Friends or foes? Ebsco, 8/1/2010) STRYKER
How have the priorities of "homeland security " in the post9/11 era been mobilized to
bolster an expanding global industry, and what are the consequences of this industry
expansion on surveillance practices transnationally ? It is the aim of this chapter to consider the
globalization of homeland security. It examines the extent to which the US model of homeland security
has been exported to other countries, and what the results have been for the spread of
new surveillance practices across national borders. Homeland security" is typically understood as a policy
program instituted in the United States as a response to the 9/11 terrorist attacks. I argue that it is more adequately understood as a broader
govern- mental rationality that recongures the US Cold War national security" regime in ways more amenable to the post-Cold War
context, and to the priorities of an emerging global security industry. In
Western policymakers should appreciate that the more consistently they can support
democratization across all Arab countries, the more likely they will be to benefit from its
success in any of them.
Consistency key
Babayan 15 - Nelli Babayan has a PhD from the University of Trento and is a Senior Researcher at the Freie Universitat Berlin,
where she has also taught on democratization and the role of information technologies in democracy. (Democratic Transformation and
Obstruction: EU, US, and Russia in the South Caucasus, p. 2, Google Books, 2015) STRYKER
Given that never in human history had international forces political, eco- nomic, and culturalbeen
so supportive of democratic ideas and institutions (Dahl 1998), the limited progress of
democracy has been even more surprising. Since the early 1990s, states and organizations have
targeted virtually every corner of the world with democracy-promotion activities.
However, after the third wave of democratization" (Huntington 1993), liberal democracy has
made little progress or has even broken down (Diamond 2008), arguably pointing to a third reversewave of democratization. However, policies of democracy promo- tion have also lacked
consistency and well-dened strategies, leaving practition- ers and academics wondering how
democracy promotion would proceed (Cox et al. 2000; Smith 2008; Youngs 2002). To shed light on these
issues, the book investigates democracy promotion by the European Union (EU) and the United States of America (US) in Armenia,
Azerbaijan, and Georgia against the back- drop of Russia's regional interests.
As birthplace of the Internet the United States remains a worldwide standard for how to
use it, yet America sends conflicting examples when it advocates digital liberty
while practicing domestic surveillance . This influence is evident in Tunisia, which is drafting a new
constitution a year after social media-connected Arab Spring protesters ousted Zine al-Abidine Ben Ali from his 23 year-long presidency.
During Googles recent Internet at Liberty conference, Noomane Fehri of the Tunisian National Constitutional Assembly said open Internet
made the Arab Spring possible, but the plans he described for his countrys new laws reflect the duality between individual rights and
government security Americans face. Tunisias new leaders want to uphold First Amendment principles, he said, and will have a
constitutional commission for transparency. While Fehri said monitoring the Internet and tracking an individual should absolutely not be
allowed, he added except in very few cases, such as when someone is known to be unlawful. I have no problem [with] collecting data.
My problem is who accesses it and in which conditions they access it. Thats where we need to be extremely careful, Fehri said. Accessing
data, Fehri said, could be valuable not just for security but for research, statistics, advancing public health and economic growth to develop
Tunisia. You need to put the right level of anonymity on it, Fehri said. But for government issue, again, we need to be extremely,
extremely strict. There should be a constitutional commission outside the government who observe and monitor the behavior of any
[governmental access] to that data. Thats what we are aiming to do. The
information about their customers without a subpoena would make it more efficient to detect hackers sending malware and viruses. It
turns out many of the people who are sending us malware are customers Baker said. If you cant share that information because of a dumb
law from the 80s, you ought to get rid of the dumb law from the 80s. Dismissing a recent article on the Utah Data Center in Wired as
filled with innuendo, Baker said the complex is not being used to collect information on citizens with no criminal record, but data
collection is where we are headed. Being able to sift through large amounts of data to find patterns of behavior that alert us to terrorist
activity is part of what were going to end up having to do, Baker said. When
worldwide, said John Kampfner, author of Freedom For Sale: Why The World Is Trading Democracy For Security. It gives a
wonderful get out clause for authoritarian leaders to harbor on, said Kampfner, former chief executive
of Index on Censorship. It may be entirely illegitimate, but they use the perception of moral
equivalence to pursue their own agendas. Criticizing preemptive censorship of online behavior by governments
through the use of terrorism accusations, Global Voices columnist Renata Avila said even the simpler communications tech of the 80s
allowed military dictator Ros Montt to repress citizens in her native Guatemala. We
worlds largest tech companies are based in the United States, some of which sell technology to repressive nations such as Syria that could
be used it to build surveillance and censorship networks. In April the government issued sanctions against certain equipment to Syria. One
recent example of controversial technology sales to Syria is Blue Coat Systems. These technologies give the private sector unprecedented
ability to influence law enforcement and human rights, and thus greater responsibility to consider the global impact of their actions, said
Cynthia Wong, director of the Project on Global Internet Freedom at the nonprofit Center for Democracy and Technology. Companies need
to think about how to avoid complicity in human rights violations, Wong said. African Development Bank Consultant Mohamed El
Dahshan said other risks to human rights worldwide include companies giving into government requests for user information or setting
privacy polices that do not protect anonymity. Citing Googles Transparency Report indicates as an example, El Dahshan said the Google
does not respond to requests for user data or content removal from developing nations such as Pakistan as often as they do from the United
States or European countries. If you are a foreign activist, and all your data is stored on the server of a U.S. company, is it possible that my
country which is an autocratic country, would send a friendly request to disclose information about me as a user? said El Dahshan, coauthor of Diaries of the Revolution, which recounts the Egyptian uprising of 2011. The dilemma with government oversight of the Internet
is that technology advances too fast for law to keep up with it, said Sunil Abraham, executive director of Indias Centre for the Internet and
Society. One solution could be co-regulation of the tech industry between companies and governments, Abraham said. Once a practice is
developed, or a standard in the private sector the penalties or remedies when that practice is violated can be administered by a government
official, Abraham said. A privacy commission for example, could fine a company because it is in violation of a self-regulatory call.
Attendees of Googles Internet at Liberty conference admired the host company for its commitment to two days of reviewing global Internet
The
United States preaches freedom but also the free market. Kampfner said the republic
must be an example of an open Internet so other countries will uphold the
freedom to participate in the online public realm as much as the private online
freedoms the Internet offers users.
freedom, but ironically also feared the search engine represented surrender of privacy and anonymity in exchange for convenience.
lead by
example and report on their own surveillance requests. GNI commends the 21 governments of the
Freedom Online Coalition for their commitment to protecting free expression and privacy online and urges other governments to follow
their lead. However, the
matters more than that of other countries. Thats because most of the world today lives
within an order that the United States built, one that is both underwritten by U.S. power
and legitimated by liberal ideas. American commitments to the rule of law, democracy, and
free trade are embedded in the multilateral institutions that the country helped establish
after World War II, including the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund, the United Nations, and later the
World Trade Organization. Despite recent challenges to U.S. preeminence, from the Iraq war to the financial crisis, the
international order remains an American one. This system needs the lubricating oil of hypocrisy to keep its gears turning.
To ensure that the world order continues to be seen as legitimate, U.S. officials must regularly promote and claim fealty to
its core liberal principles; the United States cannot impose its hegemony through force alone .
But as the recent leaks have shown, Washington is also unable to consistently abide by
the values that it trumpets. This disconnect creates the risk that other states might
decide that the U.S.-led order is fundamentally illegitimate. Of course, the United States has gotten
away with hypocrisy for some time now. It has long preached the virtues of nuclear nonproliferation, for example, and has
coerced some states into abandoning their atomic ambitions. At the same time, it tacitly accepted Israels nuclearization
and, in 2004, signed a formal deal affirming Indias right to civilian nuclear energy despite its having flouted the Nuclear
Nonproliferation Treaty by acquiring nuclear weapons. In a similar vein, Washington talks a good game on democracy, yet
it stood by as the Egyptian military overthrew an elected government in July, refusing to call a coup a coup. Then theres
the war on terror: Washington pushes foreign governments hard on human rights but claims sweeping exceptions for its
own behavior when it feels its safety is threatened. The reason the United States has until now suffered few consequences
for such hypocrisy is that other states have a strong interest in turning a blind eye. Given how much they benefit from the
global public goods Washington provides, they have little interest in calling the hegemon on its bad behavior. Public
criticism risks pushing the U.S. government toward self-interested positions that would undermine the larger world order.
Moreover, the United States can punish those who point out the inconsistency in its actions by downgrading trade
relations or through other forms of direct retaliation. Allies thus usually air their concerns in private. Adversaries may
point fingers, but few can convincingly occupy the moral high ground. Complaints by China and Russia hardly inspire
admiration for their purer policies. The ease with which the United States has been able to act inconsistently has bred
complacency among its leaders. Since few countries ever point out the nakedness of U.S. hypocrisy, and since those that
do can usually be ignored, American politicians have become desensitized to their countrys double standards. But
thanks to Manning and Snowden, such double standards are getting harder and harder
to ignore. THE IMPORTANCE OF BEING EARNEST To see how this dynamic will play out, consider the implications
of Snowdens revelations for U.S. cybersecurity policy. Until very recently, U.S. officials did not talk about their countrys
offensive capabilities in cyberspace, instead emphasizing their strategies to defend against foreign attacks. At the same
time, they have made increasingly direct warnings about Chinese hacking, detailing the threat to U.S. computer networks
and the potential damage to U.S.-Chinese relations. But the United States has been surreptitiously waging its own major
offensive against Chinas computers -- and those of other adversaries -- for some time now. The U.S. government has
quietly poured billions of dollars into developing offensive, as well as defensive, capacities in cyberspace. (Indeed, the two
are often interchangeable -- programmers who are good at crafting defenses for their own systems know how to penetrate
other peoples computers, too.) And Snowden confirmed that the U.S. military has hacked not only the Chinese militarys
computers but also those belonging to Chinese cell-phone companies and the countrys most prestigious university.
Although prior to Snowdens disclosures, many experts were aware -- or at least reasonably certain -- that the U.S.
government was involved in hacking against China, Washington was able to maintain official deniability. Protected from
major criticism, U.S. officials were planning a major public relations campaign to pressure China into tamping down its
illicit activities in cyberspace, starting with threats and perhaps culminating in legal indictments of Chinese hackers.
Chinese officials, although well aware that the Americans were acting hypocritically, avoided calling them out directly in
order to prevent further damage to the relationship. But Beijings logic changed after Snowdens leaks. China suddenly had
every reason to push back publicly against U.S. hypocrisy. After all, Washington could hardly take umbrage with Beijing
for calling out U.S. behavior confirmed by official U.S. documents. Indeed, the disclosures left China with little choice but
to respond publicly. If it did not point out U.S. hypocrisy, its reticence would be interpreted as weakness. At a news
conference after the revelations, a spokesperson for the Chinese Ministry of National Defense insisted that the scandal
reveal[ed] the true face and hypocritical conduct regarding Internet security of the United States. The United States has
found itself flatfooted. It may attempt, as the former head of U.S. counterintelligence Joel Brenner has urged, to draw
distinctions between Chinas allegedly unacceptable hacking, aimed at stealing commercial secrets, and its own perfectly
legitimate hacking of military or other security-related targets. But those distinctions will likely fall on deaf ears.
Washington has been forced to abandon its naming-and-shaming campaign against Chinese hacking. Mannings and
Snowdens leaks mark the beginning of a new era in which the U.S. government can no longer count on keeping its secret
behavior secret. Hundreds of thousands of Americans today have access to classified documents that would embarrass the
country if they were publicly circulated. As the recent revelations show, in the age of the cell-phone camera and the flash
drive, even the most draconian laws and reprisals will not prevent this information from leaking out. As a result,
Washington faces what can be described as an accelerating hypocrisy collapse -- a dramatic narrowing of the countrys
room to maneuver between its stated aspirations and its sometimes sordid pursuit of self-interest. The U.S. government,
its friends, and its foes can no longer plausibly deny the dark side of U.S. foreign policy and will have to address it headon. SUIT THE ACTION TO THE WORD, THE WORD TO THE ACTION The collapse of hypocrisy presents the United
States with uncomfortable choices. One way or another, its policy and its rhetoric will have to move closer to each other.
The easiest course for the U.S. government to take would be to forgo hypocritical rhetoric altogether and acknowledge the
narrowly self-interested goals of many of its actions. Leaks would be much less embarrassing -- and less damaging -- if
they only confirmed what Washington had already stated its policies to be. Indeed, the United States could take a page out
of Chinas and Russias playbooks: instead of framing their behavior in terms of the common good, those countries decry
anything that they see as infringing on their national sovereignty and assert their prerogative to pursue their interests at
will. Washington could do the same, while continuing to punish leakers with harsh prison sentences and threatening
countries that might give them refuge. We have a brand new look! We've made some changes to our website to give you a
better experience. LEARN MORE HERE The problem with this course, however, is that U.S. national interests are
inextricably bound up with a global system of multilateral ties and relative openness. Washington has already undermined
its commitment to liberalism by suggesting that it will retaliate economically against countries that offer safe haven to
leakers. If the United States abandoned the rhetoric of mutual good, it would signal to the world that it was no longer
committed to the order it leads. As other countries followed its example and retreated to the defense of naked self-interest,
the bonds of trade and cooperation that Washington has spent decades building could unravel. The United States would
not prosper in a world where everyone thought about international cooperation in the way that Putin does. A better
alternative would be for Washington to pivot in the opposite direction, acting in ways more compatible with its rhetoric.
This approach would also be costly and imperfect, for in international politics, ideals and interests will often clash. But
the U.S. government can certainly afford to roll back some of its hypocritical behavior
without compromising national security. A double standard on torture, a near indifference to casualties
among non-American civilians, the gross expansion of the surveillance state -- none of these is
crucial to the countrys well-being, and in some cases, they undermine it. Although the current
administration has curtailed some of the abuses of its predecessors, it still has a long way to go. Secrecy can be defended as
a policy in a democracy. Blatant hypocrisy is a tougher sell. Voters accept that they cannot know everything that their
government does, but they do not like being lied to. If the United States is to reduce its dangerous dependence on
doublespeak, it will have to submit to real oversight and an open democratic debate about its policies. The era of easy
hypocrisy is over.
the United States can remain at the center of the international system for a long time to
come because there is still a strong market for American power, for both geopolitical
and economic reasons. But even more centrally, there remains a strong ideological demand for
it (p. 234). The United States can remain the pivot of international politics by assuaging the
need of rising powers for validation of their status; avoiding the imposition of its preferences on the
rest of the world; and engaging in consultation, cooperation, and even compromise (p. 233).25 For the
United States, Zakaria argues, the way to retain preeminence in the emerging
international system is through soft power, not hard power
US KeyInternet Freedom
US leadership key for Internet freedom
The Nation 13 - (John Negroponte, Lexis Nexis, 8/22/2013) STRYKER
The Internet as we know it is open, secure and resilient . This is no mistake. It was designed and evolved this
way. Due to its open nature, the Internet has gained traction at a fantastic pace and
transformed the world by fostering communication and innovation while generating
economic growth. Roughly 2.5 billion people currently use the Internet, and another 2.5 billion are expected to go online by the
end of this decade. But the open Internet that governments, corporations and individuals rely
on is under threat . Only concerted moves by stakeholders can protect its valued openness. The Internet, as it transforms, has
become a victim of its own success. The various groups that rely on Internet services governments, corporations and individuals
have different needs. Sometimes these needs overlap, sometimes they are at odds. However,
sovereign governments
are increasingly seeking control of their own domestic spheres as well as the flow of data
and information between countries and, in doing so, are attacking the openness that
represents one of the foundations of the Internet . Nation-states are increasingly attempting to regulate social,
political and economic activity and content in cyberspace and, in many cases, suppress expression they view as threatening. Justifying
their actions by claiming to protect children or national security, more than 40 governments have
erected restrictions of information, data and knowledge flow on the Internet. Censoring the Internet takes many forms, including
censorship of opinions (Vietnam, Saudi Arabia); of specific websites or ISPs (Australia, Pakistan, Russia); of specific information (China,
Germany); demanding information be taken down (France, Singapore); demanding users' IP addresses (more than 50 countries); and
erecting regulatory barriers to cross-border information flow (Brunei and Vietnam). More drastically, others including Iran, China, Saudi
Arabia and Russia have considered building national computer networks that would tightly control or even sever connections to the global
Internet. The
among people's access to knowledge, but also have a negative effect on the shape, architecture, safety and resilience of the Internet. In 2012,
for example, two proposals in the US Congress to allow filtering of the Domain Name System, or DNS, which would enable the government
restrictive
and discriminatory operating rules complicate trade and slow economic growth. The
Internet economy accounted for 4.7 per cent of US gross domestic product in 2010, or
$68.2 billion, and is projected to rise to 5.4 per cent of GDP in 2016 . The US captures more than 30
to require US companies to block access to certain websites, were deemed a significant risk to cyber-security. Moreover,
per cent of global Internet revenues and more than 40 per cent of net income. Filtering, blocking and other limitations on data flow make it
more difficult for companies of all sizes to reach customers, provide services or share critical information globally. There are many possible
approaches the US could pursue to address this issue, but one of the most promising is mandating that all future trade agreements should
include the goal of fostering the free flow of information and data across national borders while protecting intellectual property and
developing an inter-operable global regulatory framework for respecting the privacy rights of individuals. Trade agreements in the past have
addressed the free flow of goods, piracy and human rights. The trade agreements of the future should be no different, and some already
address this issue. For example, the US-Korea Free Trade Agreement calls on the two countries to "refrain from imposing or maintaining
unnecessary barriers to electronic information flows across borders". The US has trade agreements with most countries in the world, and
these agreements provide an opportunity to promote our values. To further promote digital trade: The Trans-Pacific Partnership, the USEuropean trade negotiations and future bilateral agreements should guarantee the free flow of information across borders. The US, along
with its trading partners, should create a digital due process for requests on content removal and user data that is consistent across nations.
This could prevent countries like Singapore, which has announced that news websites that report on the country must be licensed and could
be fined if they do not remove any story deemed objectionable by the government, from independently enacting due process for content
removal requests. The US and others should make transfer of data between governments more transparent and efficient by improving the
Mutual Legal Assistance Treaty, or MLAT system. The US already has more than 60 MLAT agreements in place. With its Japanese and
European counterparts, the US trade representative should coordinate pressure on India and Brazil to lift procurement regulations, location
requirements and other non-tariff barriers to trade. The US should protect intellectual property, while preserving the rights of users to
access lawful content. The US Congress debated this issue during negotiations over the Stop Online Piracy Act and the Protect Intellectual
Property Act (respectively, SOPA and PIPA). The bills, stalled for now, will be reintroduced in some shape, way or form. The US should help
US companies
and universities remain at the technological cutting edge, and the US continues to be an
important role model . The US can exert a great deal of influence as a positive
model , and US technology companies have already taken the lead. Google, Twitter, LinkedIn Microsoft and other companies now
create an environment in which the Internet economy flourishes. This is beneficial for the US and the entire world.
issue transparency reports that detail the number of requests they receive from government law enforcement for data on users around the
world. Previous
can set high standards in hopes that the rest of the world will follow. The open, global
Internet is unlikely to continue to flourish without deliberate action to
promote and defend it . Political, economic and technological forces are seeking to splinter the Internet into something
that looks more like national networks, with each government controlling its own domestic sphere as well as the flow of data and
information among countries. A
Domestic Key
Domestic surveillance is the cause of decline US democracy
LMW 13 - Legal Monitor Worldwide. (Disintegration of democratic values threatens future of US, Lexis Nexis, 6/21/2013)
STRYKER
raises a number of difficult issues for the US. The case impacts on
decline of US democracy is now sharply
in focus . Snowden's dramatic flight to Hong Kong raises the issue of US-China relations. The complexities of Hong Kong law could
lead to Snowden residing there for an extended time while matters move through the courts. It is ironic that just before the recent summit
between Chinese President Xi Jinping and US President Barack Obama, the White House undiplomatically pointed an accusing finger in
public at China for alleged cyber warfare. Such clumsy, abrasive, and unnecessary tactics blew up in Washington's face with the Snowden
affair. While spy cases often spark lurid headlines and a stir when made public, state-to-state relations are not destabilized. As governments
well know, espionage is part and parcel of the game of nations. High-profile cases involving political dissenters, while prickly, do not
destabilize fundamental state-to-state relations. Snowden positioned himself as a political dissenter who knowingly took an extreme step in
violation of the law to make his political point. The US and China have an appropriate official mechanism for consultation on cyber war
issues within the important US-China Strategic and Economic Dialogue process. The Snowden affair seems to be an appropriate agenda
item for the upcoming July meeting, an opportunity for Washington to provide a full explanation. Americans
naturally want
military and other capabilities to defend their country, but we do not want such
capabilities turned on ourselves in violation of the US constitution . Since the 9/11 attacks, however,
the Bush administration and the Obama administration engaged in internal surveillance activities which are controversial if not
unconstitutional. The
Russia and Iceland have indicated they would consider an asylum request by Snowden. It would be understandable if China would do the
same at some point. The
were outraged by what they saw as White House lying about possibly
illegal domestic surveillance activities . There was further outrage over the recent congressional testimony
of the head of the NSA and the head of the US Intelligence Community. Critics said these two men committed perjury by lying to the US
Congress, which is a high crime. In
Hezbollahs Legions and Their Endless War Against Israel. (Meet the international revolutionary geek squad,
http://www.bostonglobe.com/ideas/2013/06/22/meet-international-revolutionary-geek-squad/HP4iljWroxdBods6d9kD5I/story.html
6/23/2013) STRYKER
But there are new wrinkles. Some
of the safest channels for dissidents have been Skype and Gmail
two services to which the US government has apparently unfettered access . Its virtually
impossible for a government like Irans to break the powerful encryption used by these companies. Alex, the trainer who worked with
Syrians, says that a doctor in Aleppo doesnt need to worry about the NSA listening to Skype calls, but an activist doing battle with a US
corporation might. Officially,
without government surveillance, when Americans cannot be sure that they are
free to do the same ? For activists grappling with real-time emergencies in places like Syria or long-term repression in
China, Russia, and elsewhere, the latest news doesnt change their basic strategybut it may make the outlook for Internet freedom darker.
These
social issues, public opinion, and demographic trends shaping the United States and the world. (Global Opposition to U.S. Surveillance and
Drones, but Limited Harm to Americas Image, http://www.pewglobal.org/2014/07/14/global-opposition-to-u-s-surveillance-and-dronesbut-limited-harm-to-americas-image/ 7/14/2014) STRYKER
The Snowden Effect Disclosures
social issues, public opinion, and demographic trends shaping the United States and the world. (Global Opposition to U.S. Surveillance and
Drones, but Limited Harm to Americas Image, http://www.pewglobal.org/2014/07/14/global-opposition-to-u-s-surveillance-and-dronesbut-limited-harm-to-americas-image/ 7/14/2014) STRYKER
The Snowden Effect The
to export democracy by coercive means have not served to enhance the quality
of democracy at home. To the contrary, it has seemed to many outside observers that previous
standards of human rights observance and rule of law guarantees may have been
compromised by the tensions associated with external belligerence and counterterrorism. The western leaders most vocal about the need to export regime change to other countries have not been the most
conscientious about displaying their accountability to their home electorates. Media pluralism and the tolerance of
dissent have been shown in a poor light. Practices of domestic surveillance and
heightened powers for security forces may have been necessary, but they have not
added to the international appeal of the western democratic model . Respect for
international law. the sovereignty of other nations. and pluralism of political alternatives could all be regarded as integral components of
what makes western democracy so widely attractive. If so. strategies of democracy promotion that jeopardize these assets are clearly
counter-productive.
about the NSA's surveillance activities within the United States, the NSA's electronic surveil-lance targeting foreign nationals outside the
United States, U.S. cyber espionage against other government, U.S. offensive cyber operations, and NSA activities perceived to threaten
global cyber security. Fidler argues the
those polled viewed the U.S. positively. China draws a favorable opinion from 55 percent of respondents.
Global opinion about the U.S.'s protection of individual rights is a key reason America wins the popularity contest. A
median of 63 percent of survey respondents heralds America's personal freedoms, while only 34 percent say China
respects its citizens' individual rights. The gap between the two countries would have been even larger in the U.S.'s favor,
except the American score on this issue was degraded in the 2015 Pew survey thanks to an unlikely source: Western
Europeans. "Across the Western European nations polled, ratings for the U.S. on (individual
rights) declined
http://www.baltimoresun.com/news/opinion/oped/bs-ed-nsa-europe-20141123story.html)//kjz
No single issue has caused greater damage to the trust between the United States and its
allies than the sweeping revelations of the National Security Agency's global surveillance
programs. This story continues to fuel the perception that we no longer care to uphold
our values at home or abroad. Our credibility has suffered by failing to sufficiently justify
our actions even to ourselves. It is finally time to undo the damage. Recent presidential and
congressional measures concerning espionage and data privacy have the potential to
bolster our credibility, counter these misperceptions and restore trust with our allies.
Congress failed to vote on the USA Freedom Act last week, but the bill itself demonstrates our resolve to
protect the privacy of all U.S. citizens and end bulk data collection. The NSA is also taking
unprecedented steps to protect the rights of those at home and abroad. It is imperative that we explain and advance these
evolving norms, particularly with our allies across the Atlantic. Since the revelations last year by Edward Snowden, a
debate has raged in Europe about why the United States had collected information about leaders and citizens abroad. The
firestorm of ill-informed opinion about U.S. intentions and capabilities has led to the perception that our allies must
protect themselves from the United States. The consequences of this are evident in the slow pace of negotiations over the
Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership, implementation of countermeasures against U.S. intelligence activities
and even discussion of lawsuits against the United States before the International Criminal Court. The U.S. government
has struggled to respond to the outrage in Europe. President Barack Obama outlined the new parameters for foreign
intelligence collection (Presidential Policy Directive 28) in a speech last January that was met with skepticism. This slowly
led to a "statement of principles" delivered quietly by his chief of staff to his German counterpart this past July. Congress
has been too distracted and too divided to lend much support to these attempts at public diplomacy. The time is ripe for a
renewed exchange to diffuse tensions caused by the NSA revelations. Senior congressional leaders such as Senate
Judiciary Committee Chairman Patrick Leahy, a Vermont Democrat, and Rep. Jim Sensenbrenner, a Wisconsin
Republican, should describe the privacy protections outlined in the USA Freedom Act to their counterparts in the
European Parliament and German Bundestag. The bill ends the bulk collection of Americans' private metadata and
enhances democratic control over the NSA's activities. While a final vote was delayed until 2015, the bill is a powerful
declaration that the United States can align the tools we use to secure our country with
our basic rights and freedoms. The NSA's guidelines on foreign intelligence collection released this October are
also a unique expression of democratic constraint. They outline how the agency will ensure that privacy is an "integral
consideration" in collection operations and that all people are treated "with dignity and respect regardless of their
nationality or place of residence." Outgoing Attorney General Eric Holder and former NSA Director Mike McConnell are
credible, high-level actors to communicate this message of restraint to European audiences in Brussels and Berlin.
America benefits when its allies spend their time and resources on emerging threats elsewhere in the world and stop
worrying about the United States. U.S. business leaders should also join this effort. Many are threatened by the possibility
of being locked out of European government contracts and are being targeted by strict privacy laws that may prove
significant obstacles in the negotiations on TTIP. They have an important opportunity to show how their products actually
enhance privacy and why it is important to preserve the benefits of the open Internet. It is has become the norm in
Washington to cynically dismiss Europe's uproar over the NSA: Europe should "get over it" because all European
countries engage in espionage. The U.S. government shouldn't have to explain how it protects both Americans and
Europeans from terrorism and other transnational threats. U.S. tech firms provide goods that all Europeans enjoy and
should not have to put up with strict privacy laws and regulations. So why care? The United States and Europe share core,
democratic values that undergird our vision of the international order. By strengthening our commitment to
shared values liberty, democracy, human dignity and economic freedom we reap
benefits far beyond our ability to project power in the worl d. There is no zero-sum tradeoff between
privacy and security. We will enhance both when the United States and Europe restore confidence and trust.
Another high-profile aspect of Americas recent national security strategy is also widely
unpopular: drones. In 39 of 44 countries surveyed, majorities or pluralities oppose U.S. drone strikes
targeting extremists in countries such as Pakistan, Yemen and Somalia . Moreover, opposition to
drone attacks has increased in many nations since last year. Israel, Kenya and the U.S. are the only nations polled where at least half of the
Allies spy on each other . Back in 2004, the FBI investigated an Israeli worker in the
Pentagon, who was reportedly an analyst in an undersecretary's office and who may have
been attempting to influence U.S. policy towards Iran and Iraq . The Israeli spy had developed ties to
then-Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz, who, according to an article in Harpers was the primary author of the Bush Doctrine and a
staunch advocate of war with Iraq. Allies
was present when his diplomatic "functionary" Rafael Quintero Curiel stole White House BlackBerry's from a table right outside the room
where Calderon and our President Bush were meeting. I wrote about that last week, in NSA and Mexico: missing facts, reporters are
puppets on Snowden's string . So, yes, everyone
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/sarabrynn-hudgins/us-surveillanceunsettles_b_3610941.html)//kjz
French President Hollande insisted that NSA surveillance programs "stop immediately "
and demanded a US explanation, while German Chancellor Angela Merkel stated her intention to
question Obama on the "possible impairment of German citizen s." Media speculates that
European ire may inspire the European Parliament (EP) to veto the passage of the wide-ranging Trans-Atlantic
Trade Deal. The Parliament did, after all, term the surveillance programs a "serious violation" and
call for an investigation whose findings could threaten transatlantic cooperation. These
fears are overblown. Any recommendations to come from the EP will require passage not only by
Parliamentarians, but also EU member states, before becoming law, in a labyrinthine process that is unlikely to occur.
Also far-fetched is the notion that EU states will make a principled stand against the trade deal to their own financial
detriment, or that they would suspend collaboration on security measures like the Terrorist Finance Tracking Programme.
Brazil, whose President called US surveillance of the Brazilian military an affront to Brazilian sovereignty and human
rights, may
pose the most serious state challenge to US surveillance. Yet, considering that
the NSA's PRISM program had 117,675 active foreign surveillance targets by April 2013,
these reactions are rather tame. State indignation (especially in Europe) may be muted, as some
allege, because most web-savvy countries, including France, Great Britain, and the
Netherlands, conduct their own sweeping surveillance programs. These black pots are
loathe to disparage the US kettle, no matter how dark . The German government's outcry,
the loudest in Europe, has been derided as largely "a flurry of activity apparently
designed to reassure German electors." Le Monde ascribes France's "weak signs of
protest" to "two excellent reasons: Paris already knew. And it does the same thing." The
song and dance of recrimination will continue mainly because governments want to appease "public pressure to respond
assertively." US officials understand that they need not worry about real intergovernmental
assumption that unobserved factors do not matteris very strong, and likely to be often
false in cross-national research. (Przeworski 2007:161) Likewise, in their study of US Fulbright scholars,
Sunal and Sunal (1991:98) noted that although a lot of information was available about US
sponsored exchanges it did not provide much help, however, in generalizing about the
possible effects of the overseas experience on the individuals involved or in determining
relationships between important variables in the Fulbright experience.
With so many economic, political, and social problems facing us today, there is little point in focusing
attention on something that is not one. The false fear of which I speak is the chance of US
debt default. There is no need to speculate on what that likelihood is, I can give you the exact number: there is 0%
chance that the US will be forced to default on the debt . We could choose to do so, just as a
person trapped in a warehouse full of food could choose to starve, but we could never be forced to. This is not a theory or
conjecture, it is cold, hard fact. The reason the US could never be forced to default is that
every single bit of the debt is owed in the currency that we and only we can issue: dollars .
Unlike Greece, we dont have to try to earn foreign exchange via exports or beg for better terms. There is simply no level of
debt we could not repay with a keystroke. Dont take my word for it. Here are just a few folks from across the
political spectrum and in different walks of life saying the same thing: The United States can pay any debt it has
because we can always print money to do that. So there is zero probability of default.
Alan Greenspan In the case of United States, default is absolutely impossible . All U.S.
government debt is denominated in U.S. dollar assets. Peter Zeihan, Vice President of Analysis for
STRATFOR In the case of governments boasting monetary sovereignty and debt denominated in its own currency, like the United
States (but also Japan and the UK), it is technically impossible to fall into debt default. Erwan
Mahe, European asset allocation and options strategies adviser There is never a risk of
default for a sovereign nation that issues its own free-floating currency and where its debts are
denominated in that currency. Mike Norman, Chief Economist for John Thomas Financial There is
no inherent limit on federal expenses and therefore on federal spending When the U.S.
government decides to spend fiat money, it adds to its banking reserve system and when it taxes or borrows (issues Treasury securities) it
Monty
Agarwal , managing partner and chief investment officer of MA Managed Futures Fund
As the sole manufacturer of dollars , whose debt is denominated in dollars, the U.S. government can
never become insolvent, i.e., unable to pay its bills. In this sense, the government is not dependent on credit markets to
remain operational. Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis
drains reserves from its banking system. These reserve operations are done solely to maintain the target Federal Funds rate.
Impact
Few findings in political science have received as much attention as the "democratic
peace," the discovery that democracies almost never fight other democracies (Doyle 1986;
Russett 1993). To some, the absence of military conflict among democracies is so consistent
that it approaches the status of an " empirical law " (Levy 1988). Some authors have
attempted to explain the democratic peace by highlighting the role of public opinion . They
observe that democratic leaders are beholden to voters and claim that voters oppose war
because of its human and financial costs. This argument, which dates to Immanuel Kant, predicts that
democracies will behave peacefully in general--avoiding war not only against democracies but also against
autocracies. History shows, however, that democracies frequently fight autocracies. A different possibility is that
democratic publics are primarily averse to war against other democracies. If leaders are
responsive to voters and voters are more reluctant to fight democracies than otherwise
equivalent autocracies, then public opinion could play an important role in the dyadic democratic
peace. To date, however, surprisingly few studies have investigated whether democratic publics are more reluctant to attack democracies
than autocracies. 1Moreover, the small body of existing work has not accounted for variables that could confound the relationship between
shared democracy and public support for war, nor has it investigated the mechanisms by which the regime type of the adversary affects the
public mood. Despite decades of research on the democratic peace, we still lack convincing evidence about whether and how public opinion
contributes to the absence of war among democracies. We
shared democracy
pacifies the public primarily by changing perceptions of threat and morality , not by raising
techniques for causal mediation analysis (Imai et al. 2011; Imai, Keele, and Yamamoto 2010), we find that
expectations of costs or failure. Individuals who faced democratic rather than autocratic countries were less fearful of the country's nuclear
program and harbored greater moral reservations about attacking. Those
would result in substantially higher costs or a lower likelihood of success than attacking an autocracy. Thus, our data help arbitrate between
competing mechanisms, while also identifying morality as an important but understudied source of peace among democracies.
conflict resolution such as rule of law inherent in democratic states lead these
societies to avoid dyadic conflict with their counterpart s. It is through this concept of shared
culture, norms, and ideals that war is made unthinkable. Second, the
structural/institutional model suggests that checks and balances, a dispersion of
power, and a need for public debate and majority support makes it more difficult for
democratic states to escalate disagreements to a point in which peaceful resolution is
impossible. The dissolution of the Soviet Union in the early 1990s seemed to indicate to liberal intellectuals, such as
Russett and others within American academia, that the superiority of the Western system had prevented the Cold War
from escalating to the point of no return. In a twist of Karl Marxs historical determinism, Francis Fukuyama preemptively dubbed this era the end of history, arguing that the world had moved to a stage in which liberal democracy
was seen as the only legitimate form of government. What we may be witnessing is not just the end of the Cold War, or
the passing of a particular period of post-war history, but the end of history as such: that is, the end point of mankinds
ideological evolution and the universalization of Western liberal democracy as the final form of human government. This
Wilsonian pronouncement has been used as a foreign policy doctrine for successive post-Cold War American leaders, such
as Bill Clinton, who stated in his 1994 State of the Union address that, Ultimately, the best strategy to ensure
our security and to build a durable peace is to support the advance of democracy
elsewhere. Democracies dont attack each other.
creates an
opportunity for Western countries to solidify cooperation with Arab countries ,
because their fundamental interests dovetail with those of the bulk of the population
across the region. Ultimately, Arab citizens who are convinced of Western countries'
benign intentions will be more reliable allies than dictators concerned only with their
own survival and enrichment. The Subpart also argues that concern for Israel's security should not dilute Western
enthusiasm for Arab democratization. These four likely benefits - greater internal stability, less
interstate conflict, less transnational terrorism, and stronger and more reliable longterm alliances - together constitute a strong case that democratization in Arab countries
will serve Western countries' interests as well as their values .
Middle East war goes nuclear
Stirling 11 (The Earl of Stirling 11, hereditary Governor & Lord Lieutenant of Canada, Lord High Admiral of Nova Scotia, & B.Sc. in
Pol. Sc. & History; M.A. in European Studies, General Middle East War Nears - Syrian events more dangerous than even nuclear nightmare
in Japan, http://europebusines.blogspot.com/2011/03/general-middle-east-war-nears-syrian.html)
Any Third Lebanon War/General Middle East War is apt to involve WMD on both side quickly
as both sides know the stakes and that the Israelis are determined to end , once and for all,
any Iranian opposition to a 'Greater Israel' domination of the entire Middle East. It will
be a case of 'use your WMD or lose them' to enemy strikes . Any massive WMD usage
against Israel will result in the usage of Israeli thermonuclear warheads against Arab and
Persian populations centers in large parts of the Middle East, with the resulting spread of
radioactive fallout over large parts of the Northern Hemisphere . However, the first use of nukes is
apt to be lower yield warheads directed against Iranian underground facilities including both nuclear sites and
governmental command and control and leadership bunkers, with some limited strikes also likely early-on in Syrian
territory. The Iranians are well prepared to launch a global A dvanced Biological Warfare
terrorism based strike against not only Israel and American and allied forces in the
Middle East but also against the American, Canadian, British, French, German, Italian,
etc., homelands. This will utilize DNA recombination based genetically engineered 'super killer
viruses' that are designed to spread themselves throughout the world using humans as
vectors. There are very few defenses against such warfare, other than total quarantine of the
population until all of the different man-made viruses (and there could be dozens or even over a hundred different viruses
released at the same time) have 'burned themselves out'. This could kill a third of the world's total
population. Such a result from an Israeli triggered war would almost certainly cause a
Russian-Chinese response that would eventually finish off what is left of Israel and begin
a truly global war/WWIII with multiple war theaters around the world . It is highly
unlikely that a Third World War, fought with 21st Century weaponry will be anything but
the Biblical Armageddon.
are also dangers in trying to stymie such processes." n108 On balance, "pressing
ahead with genuine democratization, not just limited reforms, may stem extremism over time," and
"serious attention to liberalization measures in this region ... can serve U.S. interests over the long
term ." n109 The West's own agency provides an additional reason for optimism that Arab states can remain stable if they democratize:
Western countries can take action to help maintain basic stability during these
transitions. Unlike many democratizing countries whose experiences affect the results of the statistical studies
discussed above, those in the Arab world are considered strategically vital by the most powerful
states in the world. In the event of serious unrest in a democratizing Arab country, it would clearly be
worthwhile for the United States and other Western countries - perhaps assisted by China and other non-Western powers
- to ensure that the country was not destabilized .
Democracy creates peacespecifically true in the Arab world
O'Connell 12 - Jamie O'Connell is a Senior Fellow of the Honorable G. William and Ariadna Miller Institute for Global Challenges
and the Law at the University of California, Berkeley, School of Law, as well as a Lecturer in Residence. He teaches and writes on political
and legal development, and has particular expertise in law and development, transitional justice, democratization, post-conflict
reconstruction, and business and human rights. (Common Interests, Closer Allies: How Democracy in Arab States Can Benefit the West,
Stanford Journal of International Law, Lexis Nexis, Summer, 2012) STRYKER
B. Promoting International Peace Immanuel Kant's
for policymakers of scholars' lack of consensus. 1. The Democratic Peace Finding That
democratization in the Arab world would reduce the risk of interstate conflict in the
region more quickly, because each newly democratic Arab state would be likely to behave
more peacefully than it had before. Statistical evidence and theory suggest that the democratic peace is only dyadic,
however, so the pacifying effect of democratization in the region is likely to appear only between pairs of democracies. n124
United States' National Strategy for Counterterrorism adopts this logic. "Promoting democracy" was the sole "long-term" component of the
strategy President George W. Bush officially promulgated in 2006. n163 "Transnational terrorists are recruited from populations with no
voice in their own government and see no legitimate way to promote change in their own country. Without a stake in the existing order, they
are vulnerable to manipulation by those who advocate a perverse political vision based on violence and destruction." n164 President Obama
has maintained democratization as a central component of his official counterterrorism strategy: Promoting
representative,
responsive governance is a core tenet of U.S. foreign policy and directly
contributes to our [ counterterrorism ] goals. Governments that place the will of their people first and encourage
peaceful change directly contradict the al-Qa'ida ideology. Governments that are responsive to the needs of their citizens diminish the
discontent of their people and the associated drivers and grievances that al-Qa'ida actively attempts to exploit. Effective governance reduces
the traction and [*378] space for al-Qa'ida, reducing its resonance and contributing to what it fears most - irrelevance. n165
Today, as is often observed, democracy in many places must battle unfriendly circumstances
while experiencing a global slippage . In line with this trend, democracy in Africa has
been on the retreat. As Freedom House has charted in its annual Freedom in the World reports, swings in civilliberties and political-rights scores have been more pronounced in sub-Saharan
Africa than in any other world region. Two years ago, I noted that media accounts presented Africas story as a
hopeful tale accompanied by impressive economic-growth statistics. There has also been a disaster narrative of corruption, bogus elections,
rights abuses, epidemics, and violent conflicts. Readers have been left to resolve the antinomies.1 I suggested a third account called
prismatic because, just as a [End Page 61] prism separates the various colors that comprise a beam of light, this account explores the
complex interplay of local, regional, and global factors that affect Africa.2 Security is now high on the African agenda, and so are accelerated
growth and development as well as democracy. Discoveries of major oil, natural gas, and coal deposits are making the continent more
significant in meeting global energy needs. Abundant and underused land will steadily contribute to global food supplies. And expanding
economies will continue to provide increased opportunities for investors. It is the physical-security side of the African ledger, however, that
poses the greatest challenge, as dramatized recently by violent insurgencies and disease outbreaks in West Africa. How this challenge is
tackled will greatly affect progress in other spheres. The
offered in these pages almost a quarter-century ago regarding the original democratic abertura, are provisional.3 Now as then, events are
moving swiftly and on a broad front. The stalling of democratization globally is taking place amid other major developments, especially
terrorism, warfare, and the rise of a phenomenon referred to as authoritarian modernization. Authoritarian modernization is curious
because, scarcely two decades ago, the very term would have seemed an oxymoron. Commenting on the revolutions of 1989, Marc Plattner
recently wrote that a key reason for the resurgence of democracy undoubtedly lay in the increasingly manifest failings of its autocratic
rivals.4 Today, that assessment is often reversed. The
It
The US is key
Gyimah-Boadi 15 - E. Gyimah-Boadi is executive director of both the Ghana Center for Democratic Development and the
Afrobarometer, and professor of political science at the University of Ghana, Legon. (Africas Waning Democratic Commitment, Journal
of Democracy, Volume 26, Number 1, p. 100-111, Project Muse, January 2015) STRYKER
Finally, the
illiberal acts of the United States and other Western democratic nations in the post-9/11
global war on terror have given Africas elected autocrats easy justification for their
own retreat from the principles and practices of democratic accountability. African
political elites opportunistically cite U.S. actions such as the rendition or waterboarding of suspected terrorists
as examples to
Disorder
in many African states, for example, should not be viewed merely as a state of failure or
neglect, but should also be seen as a condition that offers opportunities for those who
know how to play the system. The failure of the state to be emancipated from society may
have limited the scope for good government and sustainable economic
growth , but the weakness and inefficiency of the state has nevertheless been profitable to
political elites and probably even more so to European and North American economic actors. The clientelist networks within
communities seek to instrumentals the resources that they command within the context of political and economic disorder.
the formal political apparatus have allowed the elite to raise the resources necessary for providing their constituencies with protection and
services in exchange for the recognition of their political and social status. The
holders of state power pursue a genuine national interest in the Weberian sense or they completely succumb to the structures of private,
sectarian interests. Such is not the case. Rather, we argue that every state, weak or strong, has both Weberian and patrimonial structures.
This, too, is a continuum and the balance between the two types of structure 13 should be understood as a variable, not a constant. Neither
enlightened leadership nor popular pressure from below should be underestimated. Many weak states have made considerable moves
towards greater legitimacy. In addition, when
The Rabid Tiger Project believes that a nuclear war is most likely to start in Africa . Civil wars in the Congo (the
country formerly known as Zaire), Rwanda, Somalia and Sierra Leone, and domestic instability in Zimbabwe, Sudan and other countries, as
well as occasional brushfire and other wars (thanks in part to "national" borders that cut across tribal ones) turn into a really nasty stew.
We've got all too many rabid tigers and potential rabid tigers, who are willing to push the button rather than risk being seen as wishy-washy
in the face of a mortal threat and overthrown. Geopolitically speaking, Africa is open range. Very
In the early 1990s, a wave of democratization (and, in some cases, redemocratization) began to unfold
in sub-Saharan Africa. In the years since, a majority of the continents citizens have come
to view democracy as the ideal political regime, and many African countries made considerable strides up
through the mid-2000s in liberalizing their political systems and establishing democratic institutions. But for nearly a decade
now, that progress has slowed and in some places reversed . Foremost among the
obstacles to democracy on the continent is the waning commitment to the
democratic project on the part of political elites. Moreover, the supply of democratic
goodsin particular, government responsiveness and accountabilityhas become
increasingly scarce. Even in Ghana, a country held up as one of Africas star
democratizers, there has been a recent spate of corruption scandals and , despite strong
whistleblower protections, subsequent government reprisals against those who expose
wrongdoing. While popular aspirations for democratic governance have gone largely unmet, citizens desire for democracy is
deepening. What is causing democratic progress to falter on the continent, and what are the prospects for democratic development in the
future? Over the past several decades, most African countries have seen the development of four major democratic trends: the embrace of
elections; the acceptance of constitutional norms; the emergence of free media and an active civil society; and the establishment of regional
prodemocratic conventions and protocols. To begin with, the ballot box has replaced the military coup as the chief instrument for changing
governments and electing political leaders. The holding of regularly scheduled and increasingly competitive elections has become the norm
in most of Africa. [End Page 101] The number of multiparty elections for the executive has risen significantly over the past two decades,
from an average of slightly less than one a year (196089) to around seven per year (19902012), and just over a fifth of these contests have
led to a change in leadership.1 Indeed, the number of electoral democracies in sub-Saharan Africa has risen from just a handful in the
early 1990s to 19 of the regions 49 countries, according to the Freedom House rankings for 2013.2 Most
African countries
are now governed by constitutions that areat least on papermore or less democratic .
Many of these charters mandate some degree of separation of powers and include a bill of rights that anchors independent judiciaries,
ombudsmen, human-rights and anticorruption commissions, and election-management bodies. The imposition of presidential term limits
in a number of countries (ranging from two four-year terms, as in Ghana, to two seven-year terms, as in Senegal) may be the most
important indicator of how entrenched constitutionalism has become in the new era on a continent notorious for its de jure and de facto
presidents-for-life. Moreover, parliaments have been flourishing, making at least some legislative oversight of the executive increasingly
common in sub-Saharan Africa today (at least in the minimalist terms of approving the annual budget and public accounts, presidential
nominations to ministerial positions, and legislation initiated by the executive). Since
the mid-1990s, an everexpanding network of private FM radio, free-to-air and cable television, newspapers,
and magazines has reduced states monopoly over print and electronic media. Most
African governments have relaxed official censorship, making possible the practice of
real investigative journalism and the occasional discovery and exposure of
government malfeasance by local media. Associational freedoms have been expanding as well. As a result, civil
society organizations have multiplied and are now undertaking (often with financial, technical, and moral support from the international
community) a vast array of activitiesincluding the promotion of social, economic, and political inclusion as well as human rights, equity,
clean elections, and governmental transparency and accountabilityto countervail state power. Yet another measure of the embrace of
democratic norms in the region, even if largely symbolic, may be found in the raft of prodemocracy agreements adopted by the African
Union (AU) and the various subregional organizations.3 In the early postindependence period, military despots were common figures at
African summit meetings. The AU, by contrast, denies official recognition to governments and leaders who ascend to power through
unconstitutional means.4 In accordance with prodemocracy conventions and protocols, both the AU and the Economic Community of
West African States (ECOWAS) denied official recognition and suspended the memberships of Togo in 2005, Mauritania in 20052007 and
20082009, Guinea in 20082009, Niger [End Page 102] in 20092011, Cte dIvoire in 20102011, and Mali in 2012. Beyond these
symbolic gestures, the AU now routinely deploys teams to monitor elections in member states and, through the African Peer Review
Mechanism (APRM), assesses members progress and performance on democratic governance. Shortcomings and Deficiencies The
progress of democracy chronicled above describes the general trend during the first
decade and a half of the democratization process in the region .5 Hardcore authoritarian
rule gave way to electoral democracy in many countries, and African citizens began to enjoy much greater
voice than at any time in the postindependence era. While there have been instances of democratic
backsliding , there has not yet been a case of permanent reversal to the status
quo ante of robust authoritarianism. With the benefit of hindsight, however, these achievements can be seen to
represent the harvest of African democratizations low-hanging fruit. The march of democratic progress in Africa
that received such fanfare seems to have been succeeded by a long phase of
stagnation . Democracy has substantively improved in only a minority of sub-Saharan
countries so that barely one in five qualified as Free in Freedom Houses 2014 rankings .6
little sustained discussion of the costs of the NSA programs beyond their impact on
privacy and liberty, and in particular, how they affect the U.S. economy , American foreign
policy, and the security of the Internet as a whole. This paper attempts to quantify and categorize the costs
of the NSA surveillance programs since the initial leaks were reported in June 2013. Our findings indicate
that the NSAs actions have already begun to, and will continue to, cause
significant damage to the interests of the United States and the global
Internet community . Specifically, we have observed the costs of NSA surveillance in the following four areas:
Direct Economic Costs to U.S. Businesses: American companies have reported declining sales
overseas and lost business opportunities, especially as foreign companies turn claims of
products that can protect users from NSA spying into a competitive advantage . The cloud
computing industry is particularly vulnerable and could lose billions of dollars in the next three to five years as a result of
NSA surveillance. Potential Costs to U.S. Businesses and to the Openness of the Internet from the Rise of Data
Localization and Data Protection Proposals: New proposals from foreign governments looking to implement data
localization requirements or much stronger data protection laws could compound economic losses in the long term. These
proposals could also force changes to the architecture of the global network itself, threatening free expression and privacy
if they are implemented. Costs to U.S. Foreign Policy: Loss of credibility for the U.S. Internet Freedom
agenda, as well as damage to broader bilateral and multilateral relations, threaten U.S.
foreign policy interests. Revelations about the extent of NSA surveillance have already
colored a number of critical interactions with nations such as Germany and Brazil in the
past year. Costs to Cybersecurity: The NSA has done serious damage to Internet security
through its weakening of key encryption standards, insertion of surveillance backdoors
into widely-used hardware and software products, stockpiling rather than responsibly
disclosing information about software security vulnerabilities, and a variety of offensive
hacking operations undermining the overall security of the global Internet. The U.S.
government has already taken some limited steps to mitigate this damage and begin the slow, difficult process of
rebuilding trust in the United States as a responsible steward of the Internet . But the
reform efforts to date have been relatively narrow, focusing primarily on the surveillance programs
impact on the rights of U.S. citizens. Based on our findings, we recommend that the U.S. government take the following
steps to address the broader concern that the NSAs programs are impacting our economy, our foreign relations, and our
cybersecurity: Strengthen privacy protections for both Americans and non-Americans, within the United States and
extraterritorially. Provide for increased transparency around government surveillance, both from the government and
companies. Recommit to the Internet Freedom agenda in a way that directly addresses
National Institute of Standards and Technology. Ensure that the U.S. government does not undermine cybersecurity by
inserting surveillance backdoors into hardware or software products. Help to eliminate security vulnerabilities in software,
rather than stockpile them. Develop clear policies about whether, when, and under what legal standards it is permissible
for the government to secretly install malware on a computer or in a network. Separate the offensive and defensive
functions of the NSA in order to minimize conflicts of interest.
The Internet is a key area for economic progress and social change
Peralta, 14, (Adriana, PanAm Post reporter, Censors Close In on Global Internet
Freedom Four Years Running, PanAm, DECEMBER 8, 2014,
http://panampost.com/adriana-peralta/2014/12/08/censors-close-in-on-globalinternet-freedom-four-years-running/)//erg
During the presentation of the report, its findings were analyzed by six representatives from various think tanks in favor of
internet freedom. Among them were the director of the study, Sanja Kelly, and the founder of Yahoos human-rights
new laws to enhance his governments Internet surveillance powers, too . One law requires website
owners and operators ranging from Facebook to local Russian blogs to archive all data from all users of their
websites for six months, provide it to the government , and inform Russian security services every time a new
user starts using their site or exchange[s] information. Taken literally, this law would place crippling compliance burdens on websites
located in Russia and abroad (the law specifically states the foreign websites with Russian users are covered) while threatening
hefty monetary penalties for violations. A second law limits online money transfers in Russia, which are the lifeblood
of many businesses in addition to civic movements and campaigns. Russia also directs pro-Kremlin groups to engage in Distributed Denial
of Service (DDoS) attacks against websites, pays commentators to post propagandistic content, and hijack blog ratings. It uses other forms
And authorities
routinely abuse surveillance platforms to access users email and data for political
purposes (the state has direct access to phone-company and ISP servers through local control centers). These attacks on an
open Internet not only undermine Russian democracy but also the countrys economy . A
newly-released Dalberg study highlights five ways that a free and open Internet one in which users can freely choose
which platforms and services to use and what content to create, share, and access stimulates economic growth.
First, it is easier for users to access the Internet if it is open, which promotes Internet
businesses. Second, a free Internet correlates with larger volumes of e-commerce, especially online
of pressure, such as commitment to psychiatric facilities, to silence online critics and drive them out of Russia.
banking, which often represents new economic activity instead of mere replacement of in-person transactions. Third,
Internet freedom. Moscow should take note of this trend because Russias economy will increasingly rely
on its youth to generate growth as the countrys population ages. As emerging markets
grapple with important decisions about how and whether to regulate the Internet, Russia
can ill afford to deprive itself of this vital engine of economic growth . Many countries are wisely
embracing the transformative nature of the open Internet without which global e-commerce and cloud computing are not
possible. Russia risks being left behind if it continues its attacks on Internet freedom, which pose an even greater long
term risk to the Russian economy than Moscows ill-advised military foray in Ukraine.
Now is a key time to re-focus to global Internet freedomits the key factor
in economic growth
GENACHOWSKI and GOLDSTEIN, 14, (Julius, Chairman, Federal
Communications Commission and Gordon M. 'Global' Internet Governance Invites
Censorship, Wall Street Journal, April 3, 2014,
http://www.wsj.com/articles/SB10001424052702303978304579471670854356630)//e
rg
The Commerce Department announced last month that the U.S. government intends to transition its authority overseeing
the Internet's Domain Name System, which is run through a nonprofit organization called Icann (the Internet Corporation
for Assigned Names and Numbers), under a contract that expires in late 2015. This announcement comes at a time when
global Internet freedom has never been more important or under greater
threat . Governments around the world are considering measures to squelch free speech
or free enterprise on the Internet, including efforts to suppress Twitter, YouTube and Facebook, and
restrictions on cloud computing and other Internet data services. Multilateral organizations have already taken disturbing
steps. At the 2013 International Telecommunication Union treaty conference in Dubai, a majority of countries joined
Russia, Iran and China in supporting a measure calling on the ITU, a United Nations agency, to play an enlarged role in
"international Internet governance." The ITU has historically had authority over certain international telephone rates and
global spectrum allocations. At its next conference in South Korea in October, the ITU's 193 member states will likely
consider extending the agency's authority to the Internet. The U.S. can influence this and other
multilateral gatherings, working to convince countries on the fence that a free and open
innovation. Third, any transfer must guarantee the reliability, stability and resilience of the
Internet, complying with official U.S. policy since the Bush administration. Finally, any transfer of authority over Icann
must be subjected to "stress tests," hypothetical scenarios designed to expose potential vulnerabilities of any new oversight
mechanism. America's relationship with Icann has been used as an argument to grant governing authority to a United
Nations agency like the ITU or to otherwise Balkanize the Internet through increased restrictions by individual countries.
Not coincidently, the argument has spread since the Arab Spring demonstrated that widely available Internet connectivity
threatens nondemocratic governments. More recently, and without irony, some governments have cited the Snowden
matter to advance international governmental involvement, despite the fact that American oversight of Icann is wholly
21% of GDP growth during the past five years in the world's 13 leading developed nations, according to a 2011 study by the
McKinsey Global Institute.
wide, saving lives and creating economic opportunity for millions. Innovators in Africa have led
the way on mobile health initiatives, such as texting services that send health reminders and tips to pregnant women and
young mothers. Innovators in Asia are using the Internet and technology to expand literacy
and basic skills. South Korea, for example, has pledged to replace all paper textbooks with digital learning by 2015.
A censored Internet will choke these opportunities. A flourishing and free Internet, on the other hand,
will expand them. A January Boston Consulting Group study of 65 countries found that reducing limitations on online
activity, through enhanced broadband connectivity and access, can increase a country's GDP by as much as 2.5%. A
Smith, would prohibit or require reporting of the sale of Internet technologies and provision of Internet services to Internet-restricting
countries (as determined by the State Department). That legislation mirrors opinions of some who believe that the U.S. technology
industry should be doing more to ensure that its products are not used for repressive purposes. Others believe that technology can offer a
complementary (and, in some cases, better) solution to prevent government censorship than mandates imposed on companies. Hardware,
software, and Internet services, in and of themselves, are neutral elements of the Internet; it is how they are implemented by various
countries that makes them repressive. For example, software is needed by Internet service providers (ISPs) to provide that service.
However, software features intended for day-to-day Internet traffic management, such as filtering programs that catch spam or viruses, can
be misused. Repressive
technology representatives note that it is not currently feasible to completely remove these programs, even when sold to countries that use
those features to repress political speech, without risking significant network disruptions.1
extremist materials and/or content harmful to children without a court order . That law
has since been abused to block local news websites, religious websites, blogs
on LiveJournal, and other publications that run afoul of the Kremlin.
power can affect its hard power. If you take the example of Turkey a year ago, the Americans wanted
to persuade the Turkish government to send the Fourth Infantry Division across Turkey
to enter Iraq from the north. The Turkish government might have been willing to concede, but the Turkish
parliament said, No, because the United States had become so unpopular, its policies
perceived as so illegitimate, that they were not willing to allow this transfer of troops
across the country. The net effect was that the Fourth Infantry Division had to go down through the Canal, up
through the Gulf, and arrived late to the war, which made a difference in the number of troops on the ground in areas like
the Sunni Triangle. Neglect of soft power had a definite negative effect on hard power. The
question is sometimes further rebutted by the skeptics who say: Yes, that may all be well and good, and it may also be
true that the Americans and the West used soft power to prevail in the Cold War, but it has nothing to do with the current
situation of terrorism. Terrorists are a new type of threat and are not attractable. The idea that we will defeat bin Laden or
al Qaeda by attracting them is sticking your head in the sand. To some extent that is true. If you ask, Are we going to
attract bin Laden or people like Mohamed Atta, who flew into the World Trade Towers? No. You do need hard power to
defeat these people who are irreconcilable. But the important role for soft power is to be found in the larger context. If you
think of the war on terrorism as a clash between Islam and the West -- Huntingtons clash of civilizations -- you
are mischaracterizing the situation. Its a
sense of dignity. The key question is: how do you prevent those extremists from prevailing as they try to radicalize the
majority, the moderates? Soft power is essential to be able to attract the majorities to the values that
I just described -- not necessarily to being Americans, but in a diverse and pluralistic world to
better
opportunities, education, health care, and a sense of dignity. We can appeal to these values and try
to inoculate them against the appeal of the extremists. We will not prevail in this struggle against
terrorism unless the majority wins, unless the moderates win. And we will not prevail
against extremists unless we are able to attract that majority, those moderates . That is
the role of soft power. In addition, even when you need to use hard power against the hardcore terrorist, you will need cooperation from other governments in a civilian matter . You
will not solve this by bombs alone. You will need close civilian cooperation -- intelligence sharing, policy
work across borders, tracing financial flows. To some extent other governments will share information to deal with
terrorists out of their self-interest, but the degree of sharing you get depends upon the degree to which you are attractive
to other countries. For example, if being pro-American or sympathetic to the Americans or being seen to cooperate with
the Americans is the kiss of death in domestic politics, you will get less cooperation from those governments -- witness the
Turkish example I just gave. So for both reasons, both to attract the moderate majority and to reach a context or setting in
which governments can cooperate more fully with us to deal with the hard core, soft power is key to being able to wage this
struggle against terrorism. How are we doing? Not well. We are not doing well for several reasons. One is the style and
substance of our policies. Soft power grows out of a countrys culture; it grows out of our values -- democracy and human
rights, when we live up to them; it grows out of our policies. When our policies are formulated in ways
which are consultative, which involve the views and interests of others, we are far more
likely to be seen as legitimate and to attract others. And certainly the style of the new unilateralists in
the Bush Administration has decreased the legitimacy of American policy. So to restore our soft power, we need to change
both the substance and style of our foreign policy. We also need to find better ways to present this policy. This country, the
leader in the information age, supposedly the greatest communicating country in the world, is being out-communicated by
people in caves. This is a bizarre situation. With the end of the Cold War in the 1990s, we wanted a peace dividend not
only in military expenditures but also in our public diplomacy, and so we cut back dramatically. The U.S. Information
Agency had half the number of people that it had at the height of the Cold War when it was folded into the State
Department, itself a big mistake. International exchange programs were cut by a third. Look at how poorly we do in
broadcasting -- for example if you take Urdu, the lingua franca of Pakistan, the Voice of America broadcasts two hours a
day in Urdu, and yet Pakistan is allegedly a frontline country in this struggle against terrorism. Ambassador Djerejian,
who chaired a bipartisan panel on Public Diplomacy in the Islamic World, argued that the United States spent $150
million on public diplomacy for the whole Islamic world last year, and that is about the equal of two hours of the defense
budget, an extraordinary imbalance. The United States spends 400 times more on its hard power than on its soft power, if
you take all the exchange programs and broadcasting programs and lump them together as a measure of soft power. If we
were to spend just 1 percent of the military budget on soft power, it would mean quadrupling our public diplomacy
programs. There is something wrong with our approach. In short, the challenge that we face in dealing with this new
threat of terrorism, particularly the danger of their obtaining weapons of mass destruction, is a challenge which is very
new and real in American foreign policy. But beyond the United States, it is a challenge for all of modern urban
civilization. If this spreads, and we find that people will no longer live in cities because of fear, we will live in a very
different and less favorable world. At the same time, our approach to the problem has relied much too heavily on one
dimension of a three-dimensional world, one instrument between hard and soft power. The answer is not to pretend that
hard power doesnt matter -- it does and we will need to continue to use it -- but realise that to use hard power without
combining it with soft power, which has all too often been the practice in the last few years, is a serious mistake. The good
news is that in the past the United States has, as in the Cold War, combined hard and soft power. The bad news is that we
are not doing it yet. But since we have done it once, presumably we can do it again. When we learn how to better combine
hard and soft power, then we will be what I call a smart power.
Soft power fosters more positive opinions of the UShelps deter suicide
bombings
Chiozza 14 (Giacomo, associate professor of political science at Vanderbilt University,
Does U.S. Soft Power Have Consequences for U.S. Security? Evidence from Popular
Support for Suicide Bombing, The Korean Journal of International Studies, 9/3/14,
http://www.kjis.org/journal/view.html?uid=154&&vmd=Full)//kjz
In Figure 4, I present four CART models, a pooled model for all the three coun- tries, and three disaggregate models for
each country. The major finding at the aggregate level, in the upper left panel of Figure 4, is that, positive
attitudes towards the United States was the most discriminating factor accounting for
opposition to suicide bombing. The probability that someone who had a good opinion of
the United States would support suicide attacks was between 4.3% and 9.1%, a large drop
over the unconditional probability of support which ranged from 41.5% to 46.2%. As a first
result, therefore, the analysis in Figure 4 indicates 11
Theprobabilitythatagivenindividualwouldsupportsuicidebombing()canbemodeledasa binomial distribution where n is
the number of subjects in the sample and x is the number of subjects who hold such a belief. I use a non-informative
reference prior distribution to derive the posterior dis- tribution and, from that, the probability that the parameter of
interest lies in an interval with 95% probability. I use Jeffreys reference prior distribution, which has the property of
being invariant to scale transformations. In the case of binomial likelihood functions, Jeffreys prior takes the form of a
Beta distribution, ~ Beta(1/2,1/2). 12 I report the logistic regression models in the on-line Appendix. 77). I use a
validation set approach, by split- The Korean Journal of International Studies 13-1 222 that U.S. soft power
provided a disabling environment, as Nye (2011)s soft power theory predicts. LEGEND: AMERICANS
PRO.AL.QAEDA PRO.FRANCE PRO.US RELIGION.VERY.IMPORTANT SAFER.SADDAM.CONE THREATS.TO.ISLAM
Dslk=Respondent dislikes the American people; Like=Repondent likes the American people Does respondent have any
confidence, or no confidence at all, in Usama bin Laden? Does respondent have a favorable opinion of France? Does
respondent have a favorable opinion of the United States? Is religion very important in respondents life? Does respondent
believe that the world is safer anfter the removal of Saddam Hussein from power? Does respondent believe that there are
serious threats to Islam? Figure 4. Attitudinal Profile of the Support for Suicide Bombing against Americans and
Westerners Note: Data analysis is based on the 2005 wave of the Pew Global Attitudes Survey. The labels below the final
branches indicate the most common response: No indicates that the most common response was disap- proval of suicide
bombing; Yes indicates that the most common response was approval suicide bombing. The numbers underneath
measure the 95% Bayesian confidence intervals around the conditional probability of approval of suicide bombing. CI
stands for Confidence Interval. After that, the model splits the sample separating Turkey, on the one hand, and Jordan
and Lebanon, on the other. This split indicates that the patterns in Turkey Does U.S. Soft Power Have Consequences for
U.S. Security? 223 differed from those found in Jordan and Lebanon not just quantitatively, as illus- trated in Figures 2
and 3, but also qualitatively. The second substantive factor accounting for patterns of opinion towards suicide attacks was
another soft power indicator, i.e. attitudes towards the American people. For the Jordanians and the
Lebanese who disliked the United States, a negative view of the American people
increased the probability of approval of suicide attacks against Americans and
Westerners to a range between 74.5% and 81%. For the Jordanians and Lebanese who
disliked the United States and liked the Americans, the probability of support for suicide
attacks dropped substantially, but not enough to clear the baseline confidence interval. The country-by-country
analysis further validates the aggregate findings. In both the Jordanian and the Lebanese cases, U.S.
soft power emerges as the strongest predictor of support for suicide bombing against
Americans and Westerners. Overwhelmingly, the Jordanians who had a positive opinion of
Americans did not find suicide bombing against them legitima te; the probability interval for the
support of suicide attacks ranges from 5.4% to 12.6%. Among the Lebanese, no one among those who liked the United
States was also willing to jus- tify suicide attacks against them, which yields a probability of support between 0% and 2%.
With such a discriminating power, U.S. soft power emerged as a key factor in structuring opinion
towards suicide bombing. Importantly for the theory of soft power, however, its policy component i.e., the
endorsement that foreign publics might give to specific U.S. policies, such as the U.S.-led war on terror does not emerge
as a relevant explanatory parameter. For the people of Jordan, Lebanon, and Turkey, it was the (lack of) normative and
personal standing of the United States and its people that would mostly shape their views on anti-American vio- lence.
Soft power is the ability to obtain preferred outcomes through attraction rather than
coercion or payments. Public opinion polls show a serious decline in American
attractiveness in Europe, Latin America and, most dramatically, across the entire
Muslim world. The resources that produce soft power for a country include its culture (where it is attractive to
others), its values (where they are attractive and not undercut by inconsistent practices) and policies (where they are seen
as inclusive and legitimate in the eyes of others). When poll respondents are asked why they report a
decline in American soft power, they cite American policies more than American culture
or values. Since it is easier for a country to change its policies than its culture, this implies that President
Barack Obama will be able to choose policies that could help to recover some of Americas
soft power. Of course, soft power is not the solution to all problems. Even though North Korean dictator Kim Jong
Il likes to watch Hollywood movies, that is unlikely to affect his nuclear weapons program. And soft power got nowhere in
attracting the Taliban government away from its support for al-Qaida in the 1990s. It took hard military power in 2001 to
end that. But other goalssuch as the promotion of democracy and human rightsare better
to transmit ideas about democratization, and ideas about the best practices for bringing
down authoritarian regimes could significantly impact the outcome. In recent years, the United
States has devoted a disproportionate amount of its democracy promotion attention to the postcommunist region. The
proportion of countries receiving USAID democracy assistance, and the duration of time over which the countries receive
assistance, are higher in the postcommunist region than in other world regions. A survey of USAID funding from 1990
2003 reveals that the postcommunist region stands out as a clear priority for USAID with respect to democracy
assistance.73 Other U.S. government-funded democracy promotion organizations such as the National Endowment for
Democracy have similarly concentrated their resources on the postcommunist region. The U.S.s soft power
strategies aimed at promoting democracy in the postcommunist world since the end of
the Cold War have met with notable success. The rate of electoral revolutions in this region has been
staggering. According to a recent study, pivotal elections that have either enhanced or introduced
democracy have taken place in eight countries, or 40 percent of the twenty
postcommunist countries that remained eligible for such revolutions.74 The well-publicized
color
revolutions swept through Georgia (The Rose Revolution, 2003), Ukraine (The Orange
Revolution, 2004), and Kyrgyzstan (The Tulip Revolution, 2005). Downloaded by [Georgetown University] at 11:08
23 June 2015 Taking Soft Power Seriously 423
The problem of leadership in such a world is how to get everyone into the act and
still get action. And the American role in galvanizing institutions and organizing
informal networks remains crucial to answering that puzzle. As we saw earlier, there has often been
self-serving exaggeration about the American provision of public goods in the past, but a case can be made for Goliath. As Michael
Mandelbaum describes the American role, other countries will criticize it, but they will
miss it when it is gone .11 More important, it is not yet gone. Even in issues where its pre-eminence in
resources has diminished, American leadership often remains critical to global
collective action . Take trade and non-proliferation of nuclear weapons as two
examples of important economic and security issues where American dominance is not
what it once was. In trade, the United States was by far the largest trading nation when
the GATT (General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade) was created in 1947, and the United States deliberately
accepted trade discrimination by Europe and Japan as part of its Cold War strategy. After those countries recovered, they
joined the United States in a club of like-minded nations within the GATT.12 In the 1990s, as other states shares of global trade increased,
the United States supported the expansion of GATT into the World Trade Organization
Arabic, and Cyrillic scripts, with more alphabets expected. And in 2014, the United States announced that it would relax the Commerce
Departments supervision of the internets address book, the International Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN). Some
observers worried that this would open the way for authoritarian states to try to exert control and censor the addresses of opponents. Such
fears seem exaggerated both on technical grounds and in their underlying premises. Not only would such censorship be difficult, but there
are self-interested grounds for states to avoid such fragmentation of the internet. In addition, the descriptions in the decline in American
power in the cyber issue are overstated. Not only does the United States remain the second largest user of the internet, but it is the home of
eight of the ten largest global information companies.14 Moreover, when one looks at the composition of important non-state voluntary
communities (like the Internet Engineering Task Force), one sees a disproportionate number of Americans participating because of their
expertise. The loosening of US government influence over ICANN could be seen as a strategy for strengthening the institution and
reinforcing the American multistakeholder philosophy rather than as a sign of defeat.15 Some
greatest threat posed by the spread of nuclear weapons is nuclear war . The
more states in possession of nuclear weapons, the greater the probability that somewhere, someday, there is a catastrophic nuclear war. A
nuclear exchange between the two superpowers during the Cold War could have
arguably resulted in human extinction and a nuclear exchange between states with smaller nuclear arsenals,
such as India and Pakistan, could still result in millions of deaths and casualties, billions of dollars of economic devastation, environmental
degradation, and a parade of other horrors. To date, nuclear weapons have only been used in warfare once. In 1945, the United States used
one nuclear weapon each on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, bringing World War II to a close. Many analysts point to sixty-five-plus-year
tradition of nuclear non-use as evidence that nuclear weapons are unusable, but it would be nave to think that nuclear weapons will never
be used again. After all, analysts in the 1990s argued that worldwide economic downturns like the Great Depression were a thing of the past,
only to be surprised by the dot-com bubble bursting in the later 1990s and the Great Recession of the late Naughts.[53] This author, for one,
would be surprised if nuclear weapons are not used in my lifetime. Before
second-strike capability. Even though it is believed to have a large arsenal, given its small size and lack of strategic depth, Israel might not
be confident that it could absorb a nuclear strike and respond with a devastating counterstrike. Similarly, Iran might eventually be able to
build a large and survivable nuclear arsenal, but, when it first crosses the nuclear threshold, Tehran will have a small and vulnerable nuclear
force. In these pre-MAD situations, there are at least three ways that nuclear war could occur. First, the
the
state with a small and vulnerable nuclear arsenal, in this case Iran, might feel use em
or loose em pressures . That is, if Tehran believes that Israel might launch a preemptive strike, Iran might decide to
strike first rather than risk having its entire nuclear arsenal destroyed. Third, as Thomas Schelling has argued, nuclear war could
result due to the reciprocal fear of surprise attack. If there are advantages to striking
first, one state might start a nuclear war in the belief that war is inevitable and that it
would be better to go first than to go second. In a future Israeli-Iranian crisis, for example, Israel and Iran might
both prefer to avoid a nuclear war, but decide to strike first rather than suffer a devastating first attack from an opponent. Even in a
world of MAD , there is a risk of nuclear war. Rational deterrence theory assumes
nuclear-armed states are governed by rational leaders that would not intentionally
launch a suicidal nuclear war. This assumption appears to have applied to past and current nuclear
powers, but there is no guarantee that it will continue to hold in the future. For example, Irans
Indeed, this incentive might be further increased by Israels aggressive strategic culture that emphasizes preemptive action. Second,
theocratic government, despite its inflammatory rhetoric, has followed a fairly pragmatic foreign policy since 1979, but it contains leaders
who genuinely hold millenarian religious worldviews who could one day ascend to power and have their finger on the nuclear trigger. We
cannot rule out the possibility that, as nuclear weapons continue to spread, one
nuclear-armed states still have conflicts of interest and leaders still seek to coerce
nuclear-armed adversaries. This leads to the credibility problem that is at the heart of modern
deterrence theory: how can you threaten to launch a suicidal nuclear war? Deterrence theorists
have devised at least two answers to this question. First, as stated above, leaders can choose to launch
a limited nuclear war. This strategy might be especially attractive to states in a position of conventional military inferiority that
might have an incentive to escalate a crisis quickly. During the Cold War, the United States was willing to use nuclear weapons first to stop a
Soviet invasion of Western Europe given NATOs conventional inferiority in continental Europe. As Russias conventional military power
has deteriorated since the end of the Cold War, Moscow has come to rely more heavily on nuclear use in its strategic doctrine. Indeed,
Russian strategy calls for the use of nuclear weapons early in a conflict (something that most Western strategists would consider to be
escalatory) as a way to de-escalate a crisis. Similarly, Pakistans military plans for nuclear use in the event of an invasion from
conventionally stronger India. And finally, Chinese generals openly talk about the possibility of nuclear use against a U.S. superpower in a
possible East Asia contingency. Second, as was also discussed above, leaders
including the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis, have come close. And scholars have documented historical incidents when accidents could have led
to war.[57] When we think about future nuclear crisis dyads, such as India and Pakistan and Iran and Israel, there are fewer sources of
stability that existed during the Cold War, meaning that there is a very real risk that a future Middle East crisis could result in a devastating
nuclear exchange.
Exts. Peace
Soft power resolves a laundry list of impactsreestablishing values is
specifically key to projection
Lagon 11 Mark P. Lagon is the International Relations and Security Chair at
Georgetown University's Master of Science in Foreign Service Program and adjunct
senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations. He is the former US Ambassador-atLarge to Combat Trafficking in Persons at the US Department of State. The Value of
Values: Soft Power Under Obama, SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER 2011,
http://www.worldaffairsjournal.org/article/value-values-soft-power-under-obama
What he hasnt accomplished to any great degree is what most observers assumed would be the hallmark of his approach to foreign affairs
a full assertion of the soft power that makes hard power more effective. His 2008 campaign centered
on a critique of President Bushs overreliance on hard power. Obama suggested he would rehabilitate the damaged image of America
created by these excesses and show that the United States was not a cowboy nation. Upon taking office, he made fresh-start statements,
such as his June 2009 remarks in Cairo, and embraced political means like dialogue, respectful multilateralism, and the use of new media,
suggesting that he felt the soft power to change minds, build legitimacy, and advance interests was the key element missing from the recent
US approach to the worldand that he would quickly remedy that defect. Yet President Obamas
conception of soft
power has curiously lacked the very quality that has made it most efficacious in the past
the values dimension . This may seem odd for a leader who is seen worldwide as an icon of morality, known for the motto
the audacity of hope and his deployment of soaring rhetoric. Yet his governance has virtually ignored the values dimension of soft power,
which goes beyond the tradecraft of diplomacy and multilateral consultation to aggressively assert the ideals of freedom in practical
initiatives. The excision of this values dimension renders soft power a hollow concept . Related
Essay Boxed In? The Women of Libyas Revolution Ann Marlowe | ESSAY Libyas leading women are eager to join in forming a new, postQaddafi government, but thus far they have been given seats on the sidelines. The Obama presidency has regularly avoided asserting
meaningful soft power, particularly in its relations with three countriesIran, Russia, and Egyptwhere it might have made a difference
not only for those countries but for American interests as well. His reaction to the challenges these countries have posed to the US suggest
that it is not soft power itself that Obama doubts, but Americas moral standing to project it. Perhaps the most striking example of a lost
opportunity to use moral soft power was in Iran. In March 2009, President Obama made an appeal in a video to Iran for a new beginning
of diplomatic engagement. In April 2009, he said in an address in Prague that in trying to stem Irans nuclear arms efforts, his
administration would seek engagement with Iran based on mutual interests and mutual respect. Two months later questions arose about
President Ahmadinejad claiming victory over Mir Hussein Moussavi in the presidential election on June 12th. Within three days, there were
large demonstrations in Tehran, Rasht, Orumiyeh, Zahedan, and Tabriz. As Iranians took to the streets, Obama had to choose whether to
associate the US with the protestors or preserve what he appeared to believe was a possible channel of dialogue with Ahmadinejad on Irans
nuclear program. For several days, the American president deliberately refused to embrace the Green Movement swelling in Irans streets to
protest a stolen electionreaching up to three million in Tehran alone. Temporizing, he said, It is up to Iranians to make decisions about
who Irans leaders will be. We respect Iranian sovereignty and want to avoid the United States being the issue inside of Iran. But it was
inevitable that the US would be scapegoated by Iranian leaders for meddling, even if it chose moral inaction. As Council on Foreign
Relations President Richard Haass wrote in Newsweek seven months later: I am a card-carrying realist on the grounds that ousting
regimes and replacing them with something better is easier said than done. . . . Critics will say promoting regime change will encourage
Iranian authorities to tar the opposition as pawns of the West. But the regime is already doing so. Outsiders should act to strengthen the
opposition and to deepen rifts among the rulers. This process is underway . . . . Even a realist should recognize that its an opportunity not
to be missed. Eventually, probably as a result of the influence of Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, whose opposition to Irans leadership
she established as a senator, administration policy became more forthright. A year after the protests began, the president signed into law
targeted sanctions on the Revolutionary Guard. Yet failing to clearly side with Ahmadinejads opponents in 2009 represented a serious loss
of US credibility. It also failed to encourage the moral change that Obama had appeared to invoke during his campaign. Soft power and its
ability to strengthen the protest movement was squandered. Early and active US backing for a more unified opposition might have buoyed
and strengthened the Green opposition and helped it to better take advantage of subsequent divisions in the regime: parliamentarians
petitioning to investigate payoffs to millions of people to vote for Ahmadinejad, friction between Ahmadinejad and supreme leader
Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, and efforts by the Revolutionary Guard to assert prevalence over politics. By supporting the opposition in Iran
through soft power, the administration would not only have associated the US with the aspirations of the people in the streets of Tehran but
also advanced the objective of dislodging a potentially nuclear rogue state. I t is particularly ironic that Obama policy toward Russia should
have eschewed the projection of soft power given that the NSCs senior director for Russia and Eurasia, Michael McFaul, is the
administration official most closely identified in his career with the cause of democracy promotion. In Advancing Democracy Abroad ,
published just last year, he writes, The
world fighting for human rights and democratic change. . . . American diplomats must not check their values at the door. In the book,
McFaul offers an ambitious vision linking values to stability for Russia and Eurasia: In Eurasia, a democratic Russia could become a force
for regional stability . . . not unlike the role that Russia played in the beginning of the 1990s. A democratic Russia seeking once again to
integrate into Western institutions also would cooperate more closely with the United States and Europe on international security issues.
But in its haste to hit the reset button on bilateral relations, the Obama White House ignored McFauls counsel. Instead of approaching
the Russians with a set of firm moral expectations, the administration has courted President Medvedev as a counterweight to Putinism
(missing the fact that rather than a countervailing force, Medvedev was, as noted in a US diplomatic cable released by WikiLeaks, Robin to
Putins Batman). As events would show, Medvedev offered no real obstacle to Putins resumption of the presidency after a hiatus as prime
minister to satisfy term limit laws. Nor, for that matter, is there any significant difference in policy between the Medvedev era and that
which preceded it in terms of issues such as the occupation of Georgian territory, internal corruption, or silencing remaining independent
media or business figures. Instead of establishing a foundation of clear principles in his reset of relations with the Putin regime, President
Obama has seen relations with Russia in terms of a larger picture of strategic arms control. He believes proliferators like Iran and North
Korea can be restrained if the major nuclear powers reduce their stockpiles, in fealty to the premises of the 1968 Nuclear Non-Proliferation
Treaty. Hence, the New START Treaty was his singular focus with Russia and the grounds for his appeasement of Putinism. He seems never
to have considered asserting a soft power that would have signaled to Russian opposition figures like Boris Nemtsovbadly beaten in
December 2010 after flying home from speaking in the USthat the US places little trust in bargains with leaders shredding the rule of law
in their daily governance. The Russian security state has chosen to cooperate with the US in a few areas it has concluded are in its own
interest. It allowed passage of a watered-down UN Security Council resolution 1929, imposing sanctions on Iran for its nuclear program,
and cancelled plans to sell the S-300 air defense system to the Ahmadinejad regime. It has also cooperated on counterterrorism and US
military access to Afghanistan. Yet would the United States have been unable to secure this discrete cooperation without checking our
values at the door, in Michael McFauls phrase? The United States has achieved no cooperation from Russian leaders on issues such as the
rule of law and an end to systematic intimidation and the arrests of opposition, press, and business figures, and indeed threats to American
businesses private property rights and safety. Leaders of the Solidarity opposition movement continue to be detained, environmental
nonprofits continue to be raided for trumped-up tax and software piracy irregularities, lawyer Sergei Magnitsky died in detention, and
journalist Oleg Kashin was, like Boris Nemtsov, beaten. There is no evidence of concerted bilateral pressure by the Obama administration to
protest Russian unwillingness to protect freedoms for its citizens. The lack of linkage between realist hard-power issues (such as
nonproliferation) and domestic values (such as the rule of law) has limited rather than increased US influence with Russia. The Carnegie
Endowments Matthew Rojansky and James Collins rightly conclude: If the United States erects an impenetrable wall between bilateral
cooperation and Russias domestic politics, the Kremlin will simply conclude Washington is willing to give ground on transparency,
democracy, and rule of law in order to gain Russian cooperation on nonproliferation, Afghanistan, and other challenges. Indeed, in June
2011, the undeterred Russian regime barred Nemtsovs Peoples Freedom Party from running in the December 2011 parliamentary
elections. President Obama has selected Michael McFaul to be his ambassador to Russia. Sadly, dispatching the first non-diplomat in that
role in three decades, not to mention a man whose vision of a just Russian policy for the US is at odds with the administrations own
practice, is unlikely to dislodge this values-free approach. The underwriting of Hosni Mubarak long predates the Obama administration.
The unconditional gift of massive annual aid for the 1979 Camp David Accords lasted thirty-one years, spanning the administrations of six
US presidents. It left Mubarak to squash democracy initiatives at home and force a binary choice on American policymakers between the
Egyptian ruler and Muslim Brotherhood Islamists. Yet both before and after Egyptians took to the streets early this year to call for
Mubaraks ouster, President Obama lost chances to exercise soft power in a way that might have conditioned the eventual outcome in Egypt.
The United States would have been much better poised to shape a transition and assist non-Islamist democrats in 2011 if the Obama
administration had not cut democracy and governance aid in Egypt from $50 million in 2008 to $20 million in 2009 (to which Congress
later restored $5 million). The outgoing Bush administration had cut economic aid for Egypt in the 2009 budget, but sustained democracy
and governance programs. Urged by US ambassador to Egypt Margaret Scobey, the Obama administration cut those programs too. Cuts for
civil society and NGOs were sharpest, from $32 million to $7 million in 2009. These steps made a mockery of Obamas June 2009 Cairo
speech offering to turn a page in US-Muslim engagement. When the Egyptian people took to the streets to reject their leader as Tunisians
just had, President Obama picked former ambassador to Egypt Frank Wisner as special crisis envoy. Reflecting what was actually the
presidents position at the outset, Wisner said to an annual conference in Munich, We need to get a national consensus around the preconditions for the next step forward. The president [Mubarak] must stay in office to steer those changes. He also opined, I believe
President Mubaraks continued leadership is criticalits his chance to write his own legacy. This legacy was not a pretty thing as the
Mubarak regime tried to resist the will of the Egyptian public with lethal force. Echoing his response nineteen months earlier in Iran,
President Obama asserted only that the United States was determined not to be central to the Egyptian story, however it evolved. When he
saw which way the truth was blowing on the streets of Cairo, the president recalibrated. Watching these developments, which had far more
to do with image than policy, Financial Times correspondent Daniel Dombey surmised: So when the demonstrations began, the White
House struggled to catch up, changing its message day by day until it eventually sided with the protesters against the government of Hosni
Mubarak . . . Now, US officials suggest, the president has finally embraced his inner Obama . . . The White House has also indulged in a
little spinning, depicting the president as a decisive leader who broke with the status quo view of state department Arabists. In the March
2011 referendum on amendments to the Egyptian Constitution, forty-one percent of the Egyptian public turned out and backed the
amendments by a seventy-seven percent tally. The leaders of the anti-Mubarak protests and leading presidential candidates Mohamed
ElBaradei and Amr Moussa had urged Egyptians to turn out and reject the amendments, drafted by lawyers and judges picked by Egypts
military rulers, in favor of a whole new constitution limiting expansive presidential powers. The Muslim Brotherhood backed the
amendments, perhaps hoping to benefit from winning strong executive power. The inner Obama failed to place America squarely behind
the relatively weak non-Islamist forces in Egyptian civil society when it would have counted. Despite
large economic
challenges, two protracted military expeditions, and the rise of China, India, Brazil, and
other new players on the international scene, the United States still has an unrivaled
ability to confront terrorism, nuclear proliferation, financial instability,
pandemic disease, mass atrocity, or tyranny . Although far from omnipotent, the United
States is still, as former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright called it, the indispensible nation. Soft
power is crucial to sustaining and best leveraging this role as catalyst. That
President Obama should have excluded it from his vision of Americas foreign policy
assetsparticularly in the key cases of Iran, Russia, and Egyptsuggests that he feels the
country has so declined, not only in real power but in the power of example, that it lacks
the moral authority to project soft power. In the 1970s, many also considered the US in decline as it grappled with
counterinsurgency in faraway lands, a crisis due to economic stagnation, and reliance on foreign oil. Like Obama, Henry Kissinger tried to
In the
1980s, however, soft power played a crucial part in a turnaround for US foreign policy . Applying
manage decline in what he saw as a multipolar world, dressing up prescriptions for policy as descriptions of immutable reality.
it, President Reagan sought to transcend a nuclear balance of terror with defensive technologies, pushed allies in the Cold War (e.g., El
Salvador, Chile, Taiwan, South Korea, and the Philippines) to liberalize for their own good, backed labor movements opposed to
Communists in Poland and Central America, and called for the Berlin Wall to be torn downover Foggy Bottom objections. This symbolism
not only boosted the perception and the reality of US influence, but also hastened the demise of the USSR and the Warsaw Pact. For Barack
Obama, this was the path not taken. Even the Arab Spring has not cured his acute allergy to soft power. His May 20, 2011, speech on the
Middle East and Northern Africa came four months after the Jasmine Revolution emerged. His emphasis on 1967 borders as the basis for
Israeli-Palestinian peace managed to eclipse even his broad words (vice deeds) on democracy in the Middle East. Further, those words
failed to explain his deeds in continuing to support some Arab autocracies (e.g., Bahrains, backed by Saudi forces) even as he gives tardy
rhetorical support for popular forces casting aside other ones. To use soft power without hard power is to be Sweden. To use hard power
without soft power is to be China. Even
with France combining hard and soft power better than the United States, something is
seriously amiss .
US soft power maintains peace and stability
Williams 14 (Trevor, editor of Global Atlanta, U.S. Soft Power key to Global Stability,
Global Atlanta, 9/29/14, http://www.globalatlanta.com/article/27191/isakson-us-softpower-key-to-global-security/)//kjz
America still has an unrivaled level of influence in the world, but the key to achieving long-term peace is marrying military
strength with moves to boost education, health and economic development in conflict areas, U.S. Sen. Johnny Isakson, RGa., said Monday. While he sees peace through strength as a valid doctrine, American soft power
portrayed through trade and humanitarian outreach globally will help solidify stability
won through power. Strength will get you the peace originally but its good soft power that keeps the peace,
Mr. Isakson said at the Grand Hyatt in Buckhead during a speech on foreign aid hosted by the U.S. Global Leadership
Coalition. Focusing heavily on Africa, Mr. Isakson sought to debunk the idea that American influence in the world is
waning, using travel tales to support the idea that the American reputation is alive and well thanks to
the work of the U.S. government as well as corporations and nonprofits around the globe .
Its about telling Americas story to the American people themselves. I know sometimes we forget, the senator said. U.S.
Visa Glitch Leaves Travelers in LimboMetro Atlanta Chamber Supports 'Open Innovation' as Key to Regional GrowthCan
Technology Fix the Air Travel Experience? Popeyes Plans More International GrowthAfter Dispute, Atlanta Loses Nobel
Summit From Coca-Colas clean water work in Ghana to MANAs nutritional paste made from Georgia peanuts saving
lives in Somalia to the decision to hand out U.S.-backed micro loans to Iraqi merchants after the invasion, America is
still invested in using its strength for the good of the world , he said, mentioning multiple times the
PEPFAR program, which provides antiretroviral drugs to help stem mother-to-child transmission of HIV in Africa.
Formerly the ranking member on the Senate Foreign Relations Committees sub-committee on Africa, he contrasted the
U.S. approach in Africa to that of China, framing one of the U.S.s largest trade partners as a competitor" on the continent
that exploits African resources and builds infrastructure but not capacity. He was also unequivocal in labeling the air
strikes aimed at debilitating and destroying ISIS in Iraq constituted a dangerous war, the ultimate war between good and
evil. When the U.S.-led coalition has won, it will have to provide those affected by the war the same type of
redevelopment assistance it gave Germany, Korea and Japan after emerging victorious in conflicts with those nations.
America doesnt bomb and leave; America stays and builds, and thats the difference in
AT//Counterterrorism is Immoral
Democracy promotion eliminates the impetus for conservatives to torture
adversaries
O'Connell 12 - Jamie O'Connell is a Senior Fellow of the Honorable G. William and Ariadna Miller Institute for Global Challenges
and the Law at the University of California, Berkeley, School of Law, as well as a Lecturer in Residence. He teaches and writes on political
and legal development, and has particular expertise in law and development, transitional justice, democratization, post-conflict
reconstruction, and business and human rights. (Common Interests, Closer Allies: How Democracy in Arab States Can Benefit the West,
Stanford Journal of International Law, Lexis Nexis, Summer, 2012) STRYKER
Western policymakers should not be concerned that democratization
Fundamental moral principles dovetail with this practical argument. The most basic
principles of humanity forbid torture : It can cause permanent, even fundamental,
damage to its victims. n176 Torture violates bedrock international human rights law and the
domestic laws of most or all Western countries, and should never be used under any circumstances. These reasons may
explain why the National Strategy for Counterterrorism concludes that in fighting
terrorism the United States "partners best with nations that share our common values [and] have
similar democratic institutions ." n177
A small minority of scholars argue that the democratic peace is not, in fact, caused by
democracy. While accepting the descriptive finding that the countries that have been democracies have seldom fought each other,
they argue that this peace was caused by factors that had nothing to do with those
countries' systems of government. They argue and present statistical evidence that other factors such as economic development, integration of capital markets, unspecified shared
interests, or U.S. hegemony during the Cold War - fully explain the lack of conflict. n146 Other
scholars dispute the evidence supporting each alternative explanation , however.
n147 [*374] The dominant view remains that one or more aspects of democratic political
structures, values, or processes contribute substantially to peace.
Gartzke and Weisiger to evaluate their theoretical contribution is based on a multivariate model. They include
alliances and major power status as control variables. (So does Mousseau.) Their discussion
suggests that joint democracy may make alliances and major party status more likely ,1
which would mean that both variables intervene in the process leading from regime type
to interstate conflict. They cite Ray (2005) in their rationale for this multivariate model. But Ray (2005) agrees with
King, Keohane, and Verba (1994:173) that including controls for intervening variables produces
misleading results .2 (That is, such control variables can wipe out the relationship between the treatment and outcome
variables, creating the impression that the treatment variable has no impact.)
where he directed the International Affairs and the Peace Studies. (War on Democratic Peace, International Studies Quarterly, Volume
57, Issue 1, p. 198200, Wiley Online Library, March 2013) STRYKER
So, in conclusion, I
would suggest that Gartzke and Weisiger in future research should first
acknowledge that democracys pacifying force may not be as fragile as their paper
suggests. Their argument implies that democratic states avoid war primarily because
they like one another (to oversimplify somewhat). But some strands of democratic peace thought
emphasize the extent to which democratic states are able to avoid war with each other
because of their superior ability to make credible commitments , or because they
are leery about military conflict against democratic states with impressive war-fighting capabilities. They
might also investigate another possible impact of an increase in the predominance of
democratic states in the global system, having to do with the possible tendency of
democratic states to behave more assertively against autocratic states . (Military initiatives by the
United States since the demise of the Soviet Union, on occasion assisted by democratic allies, to depose autocratic regimes in Panama,
Haiti, Bosnia, Serbia, Iraq, Afghanistan, and Libya might be examples of this tendency.)5 To
AT//Mousseau
Mousseaus argument is incomplete and actually supports democratic peace
Ray 13 - James Lee Ray is a professor of political science at Vanderbilt University. He previously taught at Florida State University,
where he directed the International Affairs and the Peace Studies. (War on Democratic Peace, International Studies Quarterly, Volume
57, Issue 1, p. 198200, Wiley Online Library, March 2013) STRYKER
possible to establish for them without additional data on contract intensity before 1960 the timing of their respective transitions to
democracy and contract intensity. Of the remaining 19 states, 13 were, according to data provided by Mousseau and Polity IV, democratic
support his view that it is economic factors (such as contract intensity) that determine or shape political structures or processes. However,
in fact, what
North et al. (2009:3) say is whether there is a causal link between democracy and
economic development, and if so, which way the link runs, has remained an open
question .4 So, perhaps the fairest verdict is that democracy and contract intensity are
reciprocally related . To the extent that democracy tends to lead to contract intensity
(rather than vice versa), Mousseaus claim that contract intensity confounds the relationship
between democracy and peace loses some credibility.
Solvency
Lawmakers in the U.S. House of Representatives claim they have addressed the problems of the National
Security Agencys (NSA) notorious bulk collection of data, made so famous last year by whistleblower
Edward Snowden. But the legislation adopted to end this controversial practice
contains huge loopholes that could allow the NSA to keep vacuuming up large
amounts of Americans communications records, all with the blessing of the Obama administration. Dubbed
the USA Freedom Act, the bill overwhelmingly approved by the House (303 to 121) was criticized
for not going far enough to keep data out of the hands of government. This socalled reform bill wont restore the trust of Internet users in the U.S. and around the world, Cynthia Wong, senior
Internet researcher at Human Rights Watch (HRW), said. Until Congress passes
real reform , U.S. credibility and leadership on Internet freedom will continue to
fade. Julian Sanchez, a researcher at the Cato Institute, a libertarian think tank, warned that the changes could mean the continuation
of bulk collection of phone records by another name. The core problem is that this only ends bulk
collection in the sense the intelligence community uses that term, Sanchez told Wired. As long
as theres some kind of target , they dont call that bulk collection, even if youre still
collecting millions of recordsIf they say give us the record of everyone who visited these
thousand websites, thats not bulk collection, because they have a list of targets. HRW
says the bill, which now goes to the Senate for consideration, contains ambiguous definitions about what can and
cannot be collected by the agency. For instance, an earlier version more clearly defined the scope of
what the NSA could grab under Section 215 of the Patriot Act, which has formed the legal basis for gathering the metadata of
phone calls. Under an earlier version of the USA Freedom Act, the government would
have been required to base any demand for phone metadata or other records on a
specific selection term that uniquely describe[s] a person, entity, or account. Under the
House version, this definition was broadened to mean a discrete term, such as a term specifically
identifying a person, entity, account, address, or device, used by the government to limit the scope of information sought, according to
Human Rights Watch. This
interpretation by intelligence agencies that has been used to justify overbroad collection practices in the past, the
group claims. The New America Foundations Open Technology Institute is similarly disappointed in the final House bill. Taken together,
the Institute wrote, the
changes to this definition may still allow for massive collection of millions
of Americans private information based on very broad selection terms such as a zip
code, an area code , the physical address of a particular email provider or financial
institution , or the IP address of a web hosting service that hosts thousands of
web sites.
The US can alter global practices that threaten internet freedom but only
when US image is seen as less hypocritical.
Wong 13
Cynthia M. Wong is the senior researcher on the Internet and human rights for Human Rights Watch. Before joining Human Rights Watch,
Wong worked as an attorney at the Center for Democracy & Technology (CDT) and as director of their Project on Global Internet Freedom.
She conducted much of the organizations work promoting global Internet freedom, with a particular focus on international free expression
and privacy. She also served as co-chair of the Policy & Learning Committee of the Global Network Initiative (GNI), a multi-stakeholder
organization that advances corporate responsibility and human rights in the technology sector. Prior to joining CDT, Wong was the Robert
L. Bernstein International Human Rights Fellow at Human Rights in China (HRIC). There, she contributed to the organizations work in the
areas of business and human rights and freedom of expression online. Wong earned her law degree from New York University School of
Law Surveillance and the Corrosion of Internet Freedom - July 30, 2013 - Published in: The Huffington Post and also available at the
HRW website at this address: http://www.hrw.org/news/2013/07/30/surveillance-and-corrosion-internet-freedom
long recognized that metadata can reveal incredibly sensitive information, especially if it is collected at large scale over long periods of time,
since digitized data can be easily combined and analyzed. The
is reason to worry about the broader precedent the US has set. Just months before the NSA
began rolling out a centralized system to monitor all phone and Internet
communications in the country, without much clarity on safeguards to protect rights. This
scandal broke, India
development is chilling, considering the governments problematic use of sedition and Internet laws in recent arrests. Over the last few
weeks, Turkish
officials have condemned social media as a key tool for Gezi Park protesters. Twitter has drawn
the government is preparing new regulations that would make it easier to
get data from Internet companies and identify individual users online. The Obama administration and US companies
could have been in a strong position to push back in India and Turkey. Instead, the US
has provided these governments with a roadmap for conducting secret, mass surveillance and
conscripting the help of the private sector.
particular ire. Now
would weaken transparency and oversight provisions in an earlier draft of the USA Freedom Act that could have improved supervision of
surveillance practices.
PRISM Affirmative
PRISM unpopular and undermines support from allies
Arkedis 13 (Jim, a senior fellow at the Progressive Policy Institute and the co-author of
Political Mercenaries, PRISM Is Bad for American Soft Power, The Atlantic, 6/19/13,
http://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2013/06/prism-is-bad-foramerican-soft-power/277015/)//kjz
Which brings us to PRISM, the NSA program that collects meta-data from Americans'
telephone and online communications. I am a former Department of Defense intelligence analyst. I have
never used PRISM, and do not know if it existed during my tenure. However, I have used NSA databases, and became
aware of two ironclad truths about the agency: First, its data is a critical intelligence tool; and second, that access to
databases by non-NSA intelligence analysts is highly controlled. It's like buying drugs (so I'm told): you need "a guy" on
the inside who passes you the goods in the shadows, then disavows any connection to you. In addition to being useful and
tightly controlled, PRISM is, of course, legal by the letter of the law. Its existence is primarily justified by the
"business records" clause in the PATRIOT Act, and President Obama has argued that the legislation has been authorized
by "bipartisan majorities repeatedly," and that "it's important to understand your duly elected representatives have been
consistently informed on exactly what we're doing." Salvation from excessive government snooping would seem to lie at
the ballot box. Fair enough. But in the immediate wake of September 11, Americans questioned
little of what their government would do to keep them safe. Just four months after the attacks in
January 2002, Gallup reported that fully half of Americans would support anti-terrorism measures even if they violated
civil liberties. Times have changed. As soon as August 2003, Gallup found just 29 percent of Americans were
willing to sacrifice civil liberties for security. By
were against the government collecting phone records. Not a total reversal, but certainly trending in
one direction. This shift has existed in a vacuum of public debate. Prior to the PRISM leaks, the last time domestic
government surveillance made headlines was in very late 2005 and early 2006, following revelations that the Bush
administration was wiretapping Americans without a warrant. Despite the scandal, the PATRIOT Act was quickly
reauthorized by March 2006. The Bush administration did announce the end of warrantless wiretapping in 2007, and he
moved the program under jurisdiction of the FISA court , a panel of Supreme Court-appointed judges who approve
domestic surveillance requests. To call the FISA court a rubber stamp is an understatement. This year, it has rejected a
grand total of 11 warrant requests out of--wait for it--33,996 applications since the Carter administration. The PATRIOT
Act's reauthorization wouldn't come up again until 2009. By then, public uproar over warrantless wiretapping had long
since receded, and the year's debate played out as a relatively quite inside-baseball scuffle between civil liberties groups
and the Hill. When the law came up for its next presidential signature in 2011, it was done quietly by autopen--a device
that imitates Obama's John Hancock--from France. Shifting attitudes and quiet reauthorization flies in the face of the
standard the president has set for himself. In a 2009 speech at the National Archives, Obama emphasized the importance
of the consent of the governed in security affairs, "I believe with every fiber of my being that in the long run we cannot
keep this country safe unless we enlist the power of our most fundamental values... My administration will make all
information available to the American people so that they can make informed judgments and hold us accountable." The
president's inability to live up to this ideal is particularly jarring as he defends PRISM. Following the leaks, he's said he is
pushing the intelligence community to release what it can, and rightly insists that the NSA is not listening in on
Americans' phone calls. Those are helpful steps, but should have been raised during the National Archives speech just
months into his administration, not six months into his second term. Director of National Intelligence James Clapper
continues to argue that disclosure of collection methods will give America's enemies a "'playbook' to avoid detection."
That's thin gruel. First, America's enemies are already aware of the NSA's extensive electronic surveillance capabilities.
That's why Osama Bin Laden and deceased al Qaeda in Iraq leader Abu Musab al Zarqawi used a complex network of
couriers rather than electronic communications. It's typical operational security of truly dangerous operatives. Second,
Obama stated as recently as late May that the threat from al Qaeda's core operatives has decreased significantly, shifting to
less deadly cells scattered throughout the Middle East and North Africa. The lack of public debate, shifting
attitudes towards civil liberties, insufficient disclosure, and a decreasing terrorist threat
demands that collecting Americans' phone and Internet records must meet the absolute
highest bar of public consent. It's a test the Obama administration is failing. This brings us back to Harry
Truman and Jim Crow. Even though PRISM is technically legal, the lack of recent public debate and
support for aggressive domestic collection is hurting America's soft power. The evidence is
rolling in. The China Daily, an English-language mouthpiece for the Communist Party, is having a field day,
pointing out America's hypocrisy as the Soviet Union did with Jim Crow . Chinese dissident
artist Ai
Wei Wei made the link explicitly, saying "In the Soviet Union before, in China today, and even in the U.S.,
lesson that people should learn from history is
the need to limit state power." Even America's allies are uneasy, at best. German Chancellor
Angela Merkel grew up in the East German police state and expressed diplomatic "surprise" at the
NSA's activities. She vowed to raise the issue with Obama at this week's G8 meetings. The Italian data
protection commissioner said the program would "not be legal" in his country . British
Foreign Minister William Hague came under fire in Parliament for his government's
participation. If Americans supported these programs, our adversaries and allies would have no argument. As it is,
officials always think what they do is necessary... but the
the next time the United States asks others for help in tracking terrorists, it's more likely than not that they will question
Washington's motives. It's not too late. The PATRIOT Act is up for reauthorization in 2015. In the context of a diminished
threat, the White House still has time to push the public debate on still-hidden, controversial intelligence strategies (while
safeguarding specific sources and methods). Further, the administration should seek to empower the FISA court. Rather
that defer to the Supreme Court to appoint its panel of judges, it would be better to have Senate-confirmable justices
serving limited terms. President Obama has said Americans can't have 100 percent security and 100 percent privacy. But
you can have an honest public debate about that allows Americans to legitimately decide where to strike that balance. It's
both the right thing to do and American foreign policy demands it.
Other
When the Guardian started reporting on the largest disclosure of secret NSA files in the
history of the agency in June, it was only a question of time before the information spill
reached America's allies overseas. That's because the NSA's prime duty is to monitor and collect global signals
intelligence. The agency is by law prohibited from conducting electronic surveillance on Americans except under special circumstances. In
the Guardian's first story on how the NSA was collecting the metadata of phone calls from Verizon, a major US carrier, it was clear that data
of European citizens would be involved, since the NSA's secret court order included all calls made from and to the US. But it was the second
scoop on the NSA's PRISM program that really blew the story wide open. It revealed that the agency was siphoning off personal data like
email, chats and photos from the world's biggest Internet companies including Google, Microsoft, Apple and Yahoo. Everyone affected
This revelation did not simply show that everyone using these services was affected by
NSA surveillance. It also made it impossible to ignore politically on both sides of the
Atlantic. But official reactions in the US were characterized by a strong focus on the leaker
Edward Snowden and the alleged damage by his revelations to US national security .
European officials meanwhile tried to downplay the relevance of the Snowden disclosures culminating in Chancellor Merkel's chief of staff
stating in August that the so-called NSA scandal was now over. Two
perceiving the United States as a big bully with technology using its
technology to do whatever it wants. And that's a perception, once held, that's very difficult to
eradicate." Revamped relationship Overcoming the transatlantic rift will require to rebuild trust
and confidence between both partners again. A success in the current US-EU trade negotiations (TTIP)
would be the best symbol of restored trust, argues Klaus Larres, a transatlantic relations scholar at the University of
North Carolina: "If the EU and the US can really get their act together and perhaps include
some privacy laws into these trade negotiations than that would really demonstrate that transatlantic relations haven't been
damaged for good." His colleague Suri is not convinced that this will suffice. The US intelligence
services need to become more transparent , he says, so Americans and people around the
world know what they are doing . "This is supposed to be an open society and we have
in the last 15 years moved away from openness on many of these issues. We need to
build credibility and trust by being open not just by apologizing and by saying
we won't do this again." Whether that will happen is all but certain. Since taking office Obama has
instead
Innovators in Asia are using the Internet and technology to expand literacy and basic
skills. South Korea, for example, has pledged to replace all paper textbooks with digital learning by 2015. A
censored Internet will choke these opportunities. A flourishing and free Internet, on the other hand, will
expand them. A January Boston Consulting Group study of 65 countries found that reducing limitations on online activity,
through enhanced broadband connectivity and access, can increase a country's GDP by as much as 2.5%. A