Terrorism DA

– Domestic surveillance successfully checks terror incidents now. Prefer longitudinal

studies.

Boot ‘13
Max Boot is a Senior Fellow in National Security Studies at the Council on Foreign Relations. In 2004, he was named by the
World Affairs Councils of America as one of "the 500 most influential people in the United States in the field of foreign policy."
In 2007, he won the Eric Breindel Award for Excellence in Opinion Journalism. From 1992 to 1994 he was an editor and writer
at the Christian Science Monitor. Boot holds a bachelor's degree in history, with high honors, from the University of California,
Berkeley and a master's degree in history from Yale University. Boot has served as an adviser to U.S. commanders in Iraq and
Afghanistan. He is the published author of Invisible Armies: An Epic History of Guerrilla Warfare from Ancient Times to the
Present. From the article: “Stay calm and let the NSA carry on” - LA Times – June 9 th -
http://articles.latimes.com/2013/jun/09/opinion/la-oe-boot-nsa-surveillance-20130609

After 9/11, there was a widespread expectation of many more terrorist attacks on the United States. So far that hasn't
happened. We haven't escaped entirely unscathed (see Boston Marathon, bombing of), but on the whole we have been a lot safer than most security
experts, including me, expected. In light of the current controversy over the National Security Agency's monitoring of telephone calls and emails, it is
worthwhile to ask: Why is that? It is certainly not due to any change of heart among our enemies. Radical Islamists
still want to kill American infidels. But the vast majority of the time, they fail. The Heritage Foundation estimated last year that 50 terrorist attacks on the American homeland

had been foiled since 2001. Some, admittedly, failed through sheer incompetence on the part of the would-be terrorists. For instance, Faisal Shahzad, a Pakistani American jihadist, planted a car bomb
in Times Square in 2010 that started smoking before exploding, thereby alerting two New Yorkers who in turn called police, who were able to defuse it. But it would be naive to adduce all of our security success to pure serendipity.

Surely more attacks would have succeeded absent the ramped-up counter-terror ism efforts undertaken by the
U.S. intelligence community, the military and law enforcement. And a large element of the intelligence community's success lies in its use of special
intelligence — that is, communications intercepts. The CIA is notoriously deficient in human intelligence — infiltrating spies into terrorist organizations is hard to do, especially when we have so few

spooks who speak Urdu, Arabic, Persian and other relevant languages. But the NSA is the best in the world at intercepting communications. That is the most important technical

advantage we have in the battle against fanatical foes who will not hesitate to sacrifice their lives to take
ours. Which brings us to the current kerfuffle over two NSA monitoring programs that have been exposed by the Guardian and the Washington Post. One program apparently
collects metadata on all telephone calls made in the United States. Another program provides access to all the emails, videos and other data

found on the servers of major Internet firms such as Google , Apple and Microsoft. At first blush these intelligence-gathering
activities raise the specter of Big Brother snooping on ordinary American citizens who might be cheating on their spouses or bad-mouthing the president. In
fact, there are considerable safeguards built in to both programs to ensure that doesn't happen. The phone-
monitoring program does not allow the NSA to listen in on conversations without a court order. All that it
can do is to collect information on the time, date and destination of phone calls. It should go without saying that it would be pretty useful
to know if someone in the U.S. is calling a number in Pakistan or Yemen that is used by a terrorist organizer. As for the Internet-monitoring program, reportedly known as PRISM, it is apparently limited to "non-U.S. persons" who are
abroad and thereby enjoy no constitutional protections. These are hardly rogue operations. Both programs were initiated by President George W. Bush and continued by President Obama with the full knowledge and support of

It's
Congress and continuing oversight from the federal judiciary. That's why the leaders of both the House and Senate intelligence committees, Republicans and Democrats alike, have come to the defense of these activities.

possible that, like all government programs, these could be abused — see, for example, the IRS making life tough on tea partiers. But there is no
evidence of abuse so far and plenty of evidence — in the lack of successful terrorist attacks — that these programs have been
effective in disrupting terrorist plots. Granted there is something inherently creepy about Uncle Sam scooping up so much information about us. But Google, Facebook, Amazon, Twitter,
Citibank and other companies know at least as much about us, because they use very similar data-mining programs to track our online movements. They gather that information in order to sell us products, and no one seems to be
overly alarmed. The NSA is gathering that information to keep us safe from terrorist attackers. Yet somehow its actions have become a "scandal," to use a term now loosely being tossed around. The real scandal here is that the
Guardian and Washington Post are compromising our national security by telling our enemies about our intelligence-gathering capabilities. Their news stories reveal, for example, that only nine Internet companies share information

with the NSA. This is a virtual invitation to terrorists to use other Internet outlets for searches, email, apps and all the rest. No intelligence effort can ever keep us 100% safe, butto stop or scale back the
NSA's special intelligence efforts would amount to unilateral disarmament in a war against terrorism that is far from over.
Link – curtailing surveillance boosts terror risks. That risk’s serious and
underestimated.
Lewis ‘14
James Andrew Lewis is a senior fellow and director of the Strategic Technologies Program at the Center for Strategic and
International Studies in Washington, D.C., where he writes on technology, security, and the international economy. Before
joining CSIS, he worked at the US Departments of State and Commerce as a Foreign Service officer and as a member of the
Senior Executive Service. His diplomatic experience included negotiations on military basing in Asia, the Cambodia peace
process, and the five-power talks on arms transfer restraint. Lewis received his Ph.D. from the University of Chicago.
“Underestimating Risk in the Surveillance Debate” - CENTER FOR STRATEGIC & INTERNATIONAL STUDIES -
STRATEGIC TECHNOLOGIES PROGRAM – December - http://csis.org/publication/underestimating-risk-surveillance-debate

Americans are reluctant to accept terrorism is part of their daily lives , but attacks have been planned or
attempted against American targets (usually airliners or urban areas) almost every year since 9/11. Europe faces even greater
risk, given the thousands of European Union citizens who will return hardened and radicalized from fighting in Syria and Iraq. The threat of attack is
easy to exaggerate, but that does not mean it is nonexistent. Australia’s then-attorney general said in August 2013 that
communications surveillance had stopped four “mass casualty events” since 2008. The constant planning and preparation for attack by terrorist groups is not apparent
to the public. The dilemma in assessing risk is that it is discontinuous. There can be long periods with no
noticeable activity, only to have the apparent calm explode. The debate over how to reform communications
surveillance has discounted this risk. Communications surveillance is an essential law enforcement and intelligence
tool. There is no replacement for it. Some suggestions for alternative approaches to surveillance, such as the
idea that the National Security Agency (NSA) only track known or suspected terrorists , reflect wishful thinking, as it is the
unknown terrorist who will inflict the greatest harm.

Vigilance link - Strong intel gathering’s key to discourages initiation of BW attacks.

Pittenger ‘14
US Rep. Robert Pittenger, chair of Congressional Task Force on Terrorism, “Bipartisan bill on NSA data collection protects both
privacy and national security” - Washington Examiner, 6/9/14, http://washingtonexaminer.com/rep.-robert-pittenger-bipartisan-
bill-on-nsa-data-collection-protects-both-privacy-and-national-security/article/2549456?
custom_click=rss&utm_campaign=Weekly+Standard+Story+Box&utm_source=weeklystandard.com&utm_medium=referral

This February, I took that question to a meeting of European Ambassadors at the Organization for Security and Cooperation in
Europe. During the conference, I asked three questions: 1. What is the current worldwide terrorist threat? 2. What is America’s role in addressing and mitigating this
threat? 3. What role does intelligence data collection play in this process, given the multiple platforms for attack
including physical assets, cyber, chemical, biological, nuclear and the electric grid? Each ambassador
acknowledged the threat was greater today than before 9/11, with al Qaeda and other extreme Islamist terrorists
stronger, more sophisticated, and having a dozen or more training camps throughout the Middle East and Africa.
As to the role of the United States, they felt our efforts were primary and essential for peace and security
around the world. Regarding the intelligence-gathering, their consensus was, “We want privacy, but we must
have your intelligence.” As a European foreign minister stated to me, “Without U.S. intelligence, we are blind.” We cannot yield to those
loud but misguided voices who view the world as void of the deadly and destructive intentions of unrelenting
terrorists. The number of terrorism-related deaths worldwide doubled between 2012 and 2013, jumping from 10,000 to 20,000
in just one year. Now is not the time to stand down. Those who embrace an altruistic worldview should
remember that vigilance and strength have deterred our enemies in the past. That same commitment is
required today to defeat those who seek to destroy us and our way of life. We must make careful, prudent use of all
available technology to counter their sophisticated operations if we are to maintain our freedom and liberties.
 Terrorism Links

Bulk collection is vital to reduce terrorism risk – terrorists will use the plan’s
privacy protection to hide communications
Lewis 5/28 – Director and Senior Fellow, Strategic Technologies Program (James Lewis, “What
Happens on June 1?”, CSIS Strategic Technologies Program,
http://www.csistech.org/blog/2015/5/28/what-happens-on-june-1, 5/28/2015)//MBB

After a week or so, potential attackers will probably look for ways they can exploit newly unsurveilled
space for operational advantage. Risk will increase steadily once they get over their shock, and then
plateau two or three months out (when they've presumably adjusted their operations to reduced
surveillance). How much risk increases will depend on whether the USG can compensate for the lost
collection and whether attackers find ways to gain advantage.
All the propaganda about how this kind of collection "never stopped an attack" is divorced from reality.
It is the the totality of collection that reduced risk. Reduce collection and risk increases. How much is
unclear, and Americans may be willing to trade a small increase in risk for less government surveillance.
215 is probably the least valuable program, and ending it creates the least risk, but ending it is not risk
free.
Adding some privacy advocates to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court will also increase risk. We
don't do this for any other kind of warrant process, and it will add delays. One of the problems with FISC
that led to the 9/11 success (for the other side) was the slowness of its processes. Adding privacy
advocates will return us to the bad old days of FISA. It's also insulting to the judges.

Attempting to preclude NSA ‘domestic’ surveillance guts their ability to do bulk

collection – they lack the technological ability to distinguish
Donohue, 15 - Professor of Law, Georgetown University Law Center (Laura, “SECTION 702 AND THE
COLLECTION OF INTERNATIONAL TELEPHONE AND INTERNET CONTENT” 38 Harv. J.L. &
Pub. Pol'y 117, Winter, lexis)

In its October 2011 memorandum opinion, the court confronted two areas: first, targeting procedures as
applied to the acquisition of communications other than Internet transactions -- that is, "discrete
communications between or among the users of telephone and Internet communications facilities that are
to or from a facility tasked for collection." n290 As in the past, the court found the targeting procedures
with regard to non-Internet transactions to be sufficient. Second, the court considered de novo the
sufficiency of the government's targeting procedures in relation to Internet transactions [*192]
transactions. n291 Despite the acknowledgement by the government that it knowingly collected tens of
thousands of messages of a purely domestic nature, FISC found the procedures consistent with the
statutory language that prohibited the intentional acquisition of domestic communications. n292
The court's analysis of the targeting procedures focused on upstream collection. n293 At the time of
acquisition, the collection devices lacked the ability to distinguish "between transactions containing only
a single discrete communication to, from, or about a tasked selector and transactions containing multiple
discrete communications, not all of which may be to, from, or about a tasked selector." n294 The court
continued: "As a practical matter, this means that NSA's upstream collection devices acquire any Internet
transaction transiting the device if the transaction contains a targeted selector anywhere within it." n295
Because of the enormous volume of communications intercepted, it was impossible to know either how
many wholly domestic communications were thus acquired or the number of non-target or U.S. persons'
communications thereby intercepted. n296 The number of purely domestic communications alone was in
the tens of thousands. n297
Despite this finding, FISC determined that the targeting procedures were consistent with the statutory
requirements that they be "reasonably designed" to (1) "ensure that any acquisition authorized under [the
certifications] is limited to targeting persons reasonably believed to be located outside the United States"
and (2) "prevent the intentional acquisition of any communication as to which the sender and all intended
recipients are known at the time of the acquisition to be located in the United States." n298
To reach this conclusion, the court read the statute as applying, in any particular instance, to
communications of individuals "known at the time of acquisition to be located in the United [*193]
States." n299 As the equipment did not have the ability to distinguish between purely domestic
communications and international communications, the NSA could not technically know, at the time
of collection, where the communicants were located. From this, the court was "inexorably led to the
conclusion that the targeting procedures are 'reasonably designed' to prevent the intentional acquisition of
any communication as to which the sender and all intended recipients are known at the time of the
acquisition to be located in the United States." n300 This was true despite the fact that the NSA was fully
aware that it was collecting, in the process, tens of thousands of domestic communications. n301 As far as
the targeting procedures were concerned, at least with regard to MCTs, the NSA had circumvented "the
spirit" but not the letter of the law. n302
The court's reading led to an extraordinary result. The statute bans the knowing interception of entirely
domestic conversations. The NSA said that it knowingly intercepts entirely domestic conversations. Yet
the court found its actions consistent with the statute.
A few points here deserve notice. First, it is not immediately clear why the NSA is unable to determine
location at the moment of intercept and yet can ascertain the same at a later point. Second, in focusing on
the technical capabilities of any discrete intercept, the court encouraged a form of willful blindness--that
is, an effort to avoid criminal or civil liability for an illegal act by intentionally placing oneself into a
position to be unaware of facts that would otherwise create liability. n303 In light of the court's
interpretation, [*194] the NSA has a diminished interest in determining at the point of intercept whether
intercepted communications are domestic in nature. Its ability to collect more information would be
hampered. So there is a perverse incentive structure in place, even though Congress intended the
provision to protect individual privacy.
Restrictions on collection of data aid terrorism – protections against misuse of data
solve better
Posner, 6 - judge on the United States Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit in Chicago and a Senior
Lecturer at the University of Chicago Law School (Richard, Not a Suicide Pact: The Constitution in Time
of National Emergency, p. 143-144)

Privacy is the terrorist’s best friend, and the terrorist’s privacy has been enhanced by the same
technological developments that have both made data mining feasible and elicited vast quantities of
personal information from innocents: anonymity combined with the secure encryption of digitized data
makes the Internet a powerful tool of conspiracy. The government has a compelling need to exploit
digitization in defense of national security. But if this is permitted, intelligence officers are going to be
scrutinizing a mass of personal information about U.S. citizens. And we know that people don’t like even
complete strangers poring over the details of their private lives. But the fewer of these strangers who have
access to those details and the more professional their interest in them, the less the affront to privacy. One
reason people don’t much mind having their bodies examined by doctors is that they know that doctors’
interest in bodies is professional rather than prurient; we can hope that the same is true of intelligence
professionals.
The primary danger of such data mining is leaks by intelligence personnel to persons inside or outside the
government who might use the leaked data for improper purposes. Information collected by a national
security data-mining program would have to be sharable within the national security community, which
would include in appropriate cases foreign intelligence services, but not beyond. Severe sanctions and
other security measures (encryption, restricted access, etc.) could and should be imposed in order to
prevent—realistically, to minimize—the leakage of such information outside the community. My
suggestion in the last chapter that the principle of the Pentagon Papers case be relaxed to permit measures
to prevent the media from publishing properly classified information would reinforce protection of the
privacy of information obtained by national security data mining.
I have said both that people value their informational privacy and that they surrender it at the drop of a
hat. The paradox is resolved by noting that as long as people don’t expect that the details of their health,
love life, or finances will be used to harm them in their interactions with other people, they are content to
reveal those details to strangers when they derive benefits from the revelation. As long as intelligence
personnel can be trusted to use their knowledge of such details only for the defense of the nation, the
public will be compensated for the costs of diminished privacy in increased security from terrorist attacks.

– advance surveillance is necessary to generate enough information to target

terrorists
Sales, 14 - Associate Professor of Law, Syracuse University College of Law (Nathan, I/S: A Journal of
Law and Policy for the Information Society, “Domesticating Programmatic Surveillance: Some Thoughts
on the NSA Controversy” 10 ISJLP 523, Summer, lexis)

Programmatic surveillance thus can help remedy some of the difficulties that arise when monitoring
covert adversaries like international terrorists. FISA and other particularized surveillance tools are useful
when authorities want to monitor targets whose identities are already known. But they are less useful
when authorities are trying to identify unknown targets. The problem arises because, in order to obtain a
wiretap order from the FISA court, the government usually must demonstrate probable cause to believe
that the target is a foreign power or agent of a foreign power. n39 This is a fairly straightforward task
when the target's identity is already known--e.g., a diplomat at the Soviet embassy in Washington, DC.
But the task is considerably more difficult when the government's reason for surveillance is to detect
targets who are presently unknown--e.g., al-Qaeda members who operate in the shadows. How can you
convince the FISA court that Smith is an agent of a foreign power when you know nothing about Smith--
his name, nationality, date of birth, location, or even whether he is a single person or several dozen? The
government typically won't know those things unless it has collected some information about Smith--such
as by surveilling him. And there's the rub. Programmatic monitoring helps avoid the crippling Catch-22
that can arise under particularized surveillance regimes like FISA: officials can't surveil unless they show
that the target is a spy or terrorist, but sometimes they can't show that an unknown target is a spy or
terrorist unless they have surveilled him.

the government needs the widest possible net, including domestic surveillance
Posner, 6 - judge on the United States Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit in Chicago and a Senior
Lecturer at the University of Chicago Law School (Richard, Not a Suicide Pact: The Constitution in Time
of National Emergency, p. 94-96

According to the administration, these are just interceptions of communications to and from the United
States in which one of the parties is suspected of terrorist connections, though the suspicion does not rise
to the probable-cause level that would be required for obtaining a warrant. There may be more to the
program, however. Most likely the next terrorist attack on the United States will, like the last one, be
mounted from within the country but be orchestrated by leaders safely ensconced somewhere abroad. If a
phone number in the United States is discovered to have been called by a known or suspected terrorist
abroad, or if the number is found in the possession of a suspected terrorist or in a terrorist hideout, it
would be prudent to intercept all calls, domestic as well as international, to or from that U.S. phone
number and scrutinize them for suspicious content. But the mere fact that a suspected or even known
terrorist has had a phone conversation with someone in the United States or has someone’s U.S. phone
number in his possession doesn’t create probable cause to believe that the other person is also a terrorist;
probably most phone conversations of terrorists are with people who are not themselves terrorists. The
government can’t get a FISA warrant just to find out whether someone is a terrorist; it has to already have
a reason to believe he’s one. Nor can it conduct surveillance of terrorist suspects who are not believed to
have any foreign connections, because such surveillance would not yield foreign intelligence information.
FISA has yet another gap. A terrorist who wants to send a message can type it in his laptop and place it,
unsent, in an e-mail account, which the intended recipient of the message can access by knowing the
account name. The message itself is not communicated. Rather, it’s as if the recipient had visited the
sender and searched his laptop. The government, if it intercepted the e-mail from the intended recipient to
the account of the “sender,” could not get a FISA warrant to intercept (by e-mailing the same account) the
“communication” consisting of the message residing in the sender’s computer, because that message had
never left the computer.
These examples suggest that surveillance outside the narrow bounds of FISA might significantly
enhance national security. At a minimum, such surveillance might cause our foreign terrorist enemies to
abandon or greatly curtail their use of telephone, e-mail, and other means of communicating
electronically with people in the United States who may be members of terrorist sleeper cells. Civil
libertarians believe that this is bound to be the effect of electronic surveillance, and argue that therefore
such surveillance is futile. There is no “therefore.” If the effect of electronic surveillance is to close down
the enemy’s electronic communications, that is a boon to us because it is far more difficult for terrorist
leaders to orchestrate an attack on the United States by sending messages into the country by means of
couriers. But what is far more likely is that some terrorists will continue communicating electronically,
either through carelessness— the Madrid and London bombers were prolific users of electronic
communications, and think of all the drug gangsters who are nailed by wiretaps—or in the mistaken belief
that by using code words or electronic encryption they can thwart the NSA. (If they can, the program is a
flop and will be abandoned.) There are careless people in every organization. If al-Qaeda is the exception,
civil libertarians clearly are underestimating the terrorist menace! In all our previous wars, beginning with
the Civil War, when telegraphic communications were intercepted, our enemies have known that we
might intercept their communications, yet they have gone on communicating and we have gone on
intercepting. As for surveillance of purely domestic communications, it would either isolate members of
terrorist cells (which might, as I said, have no foreign links at all) from each other or yield potentially
valuable information about the cells.
FISA’s limitations are borrowed from law enforcement. When a crime is committed, the authorities
usually have a lot of information right off the bat—time, place, victims, maybe suspects—and this
permits a focused investigation that has a high probability of eventuating in an arrest. Not so with national
security intelligence, where the investigator has no time, place, or victim and may have scant idea of the
enemy’s identity and location; hence the need for the wider, finer-meshed investigative net . It is no
surprise that there have been leaks from inside the FBI expressing skepticism about the NSA program.
This skepticism reflects the Bureau’s emphasis on criminal investigations, which are narrowly focused
and usually fruitful, whereas intelligence is a search for the needle in the haystack. FBI agents don’t like
being asked to chase down clues gleaned from the NSA’s interceptions; 999 out of 1,000 turn out to lead
nowhere. They don’t realize that often the most that counterterrorist intelligence can hope to achieve is to
impose costs on enemies of the nation (as by catching and “turning” some, or forcing them to use less
efficient means of communication) in the hope of disrupting their plans. It is mistaken to think electronic
surveillance a failure if it doesn’t intercept a message giving the time and place of the next attack.

Section 702 needed for pattern analysis that can identify future terrorist threats
Sales, 14 - Associate Professor of Law, Syracuse University College of Law (Nathan, I/S: A Journal of
Law and Policy for the Information Society, “Domesticating Programmatic Surveillance: Some Thoughts
on the NSA Controversy” 10 ISJLP 523, Summer, lexis)

Programmatic surveillance initiatives like these differ in simple yet fundamental ways from the traditional
forms of monitoring with which many people are familiar--i.e., individualized or particularized
surveillance. Individualized surveillance takes place when authorities have some reason to think that a
specific, known person is breaking the law. Investigators will then obtain a court order authorizing them
to collect information about the target, with the goal of assembling evidence that can be used to establish
guilt in subsequent criminal proceedings. Individualized surveillance is common in the world of law
enforcement, as under Title III of the Omnibus Crime Control and Safe Streets Act of 1968. n23 It is also
used in national security investigations. FISA allows authorities to obtain a court order to engage in
wiretapping if they demonstrate, among other things, probable cause to believe that the target is "a foreign
power or an agent of a foreign power." n24
By contrast, programmatic surveillance has very different objectives and is conducted in a very different
manner. It usually involves the government collecting bulk data and then examining it to identify
previously unknown terrorists, spies, and other national security threats. A good example of the practice
is link analysis, in [*528] which authorities compile large amounts of information, use it to map the
social networks of known terrorists--has anyone else used the same credit card as Mohamed Atta?--and
thus identify associates with whom they may be conspiring. n25 (It is also possible, at least in theory, to
subject these large databases to pattern analysis, in which automated systems search for patterns of
behavior that are thought to be indicative of terrorist activity, but it's not clear that the NSA is doing so
here.) Suspects who have been so identified can then be subjected to further forms of monitoring to
determine their intentions and capabilities, such as wiretaps under FISA or other authorities. In a sense,
programmatic surveillance is the mirror image of individualized surveillance. With individualized
monitoring, authorities begin by identifying a suspect and go on to collect information; with
programmatic monitoring, authorities begin by collecting information and go on to identify a suspect.
Programmatic surveillance is a potentially powerful counterterrorism tool. The Ra'ed al-Banna incident
is a useful illustration of how the technique, when coupled with old-fashioned police work, can identify
possible threats who otherwise might escape detection. Another example comes from a 2002 Markle
Foundation study, which found that authorities could have identified the ties among all 19 of the 9/11
hijackers if they had assembled a large database of airline reservation information and subjected it to link
analysis. n26 In particular, two of the terrorists--Nawaf al-Hamzi and Khalid al-Mihdhar--were on a
government watchlist after attending a January 2000 al-Qaeda summit in Malaysia. So they could have
been flagged when they bought their tickets. Querying the database to see if any other passengers had
used the pair's mailing addresses would have led investigators to three more hijackers, including
Mohamed Atta, the plot's operational leader. Six others could have been found by searching for
passengers who used the same frequent-flyer and telephone numbers as these suspects. And so on. Again,
the Markle study concerns airline reservation data, not the communications data that are the NSA's focus.
But it is still a useful illustration of the technique's potential.
The government claims that programmatic surveillance has been responsible for concrete and actual
counterterrorism benefits, not just hypothetical ones. Officials report that PRISM has helped detect and
[*529] disrupt about 50 terrorist plots worldwide, including ten in the United States. n27 Those numbers
include Najibullah Zazi, who attempted to bomb New York City's subway system in 2009, and Khalid
Ouazzani, who plotted to blow up the New York Stock Exchange. n28 Authorities further report that
PRISM played an important role in tracking down David Headley, an American who aided the 2008
terrorist atrocities in Bombay, and later planned to attack the offices of a Danish newspaper that printed
cartoons of Mohamed. n29 The government also claims at least one success from the telephony metadata
program, though it has been coy about the specifics: "The NSA, using the business record FISA, tipped
[the FBI] off that [an] individual had indirect contacts with a known terrorist overseas. . . . We were able
to reopen this investigation, identify additional individuals through a legal process and were able to
disrupt this terrorist activity." n30 Quite apart from foiling attacks, the government also argues that the
NSA programs can conserve scarce investigative resources by helping officials quickly spot or rule out
any foreign involvement in a domestic plot, as after the 2013 Boston Marathon bombing. n31
These claims have to be taken with a few grains of salt. Some observers believe that the government
could have discovered the plots using standard investigative techniques, and without resorting to
extraordinary methods like programmatic surveillance. n32 The metadata program has elicited special
skepticism: The President's Review Group on Intelligence and Communications Technologies bluntly
concluded that "the information contributed to terrorist investigations by the use of section 215 telephony
meta-data was not essential to preventing attacks and could readily have been obtained [*530] in a
timely manner using conventional section 215 orders." n33 The Privacy and Civil Liberties Oversight
Board reached the same conclusion. n34 (Judicial opinion is split on the program's value. One judge has
expressed "serious doubts" about its utility, n35 while another has concluded that its effectiveness "cannot
be seriously disputed.") n36 Furthermore, we should always be cautious when evaluating the merits of
classified intelligence initiatives on the basis of selective and piecemeal revelations, as officials might
tailor the information they release in a bid to shape public opinion. n37 But even if specific claimed
successes remain contested, programmatic surveillance in general can still be a useful counterterrorism
technique.
As these examples imply, effective programmatic surveillance often requires huge troves of information--
e.g., large databases of airline reservations, compilations of metadata concerning telephonic and internet
communications, and so on. This is why it typically will not be feasible to limit bulk collection to
particular, known individuals who are already suspected of being terrorists or spies. Some officials have
defended the NSA programs by pointing out that, "[i]f you're looking for the needle in a haystack, you
have to have the haystack." n38 That metaphor doesn't strike me as terribly helpful; rummaging around in
a pile of hay is, after all, a paradigmatic image of futility. But, the idea can be expressed in a more
compelling way. Programmatic surveillance cannot be done in a particularized manner. The whole point
of the technique is to identify unknown threats to the national security; by definition, it cannot be
restricted to threats that have already been identified. We can't limit programmatic [*531] surveillance to
the next Mohamed Atta when we have no idea who the next Mohamed Atta is--and when the goal of the
exercise is indeed to identify the next Mohamed Atta.

Section 702 has empirically been used to stop terrorist attacks

Young 14– President and General Counsel of Ronin Analytics, LLC. and former NSA senior leader
(Mark, “National Insecurity: The Impacts of Illegal Disclosures of Classified Information”, I/S: A Journal
of Law and Policy for the Information Society, 2014,
http://moritzlaw.osu.edu/students/groups/is/files/2013/11/Young-Article.pdf)//DBI
The Deputy Attorney General has noted that the Federal Bureau of Investigation benefited from NSA’s
Section 702 collection in the fall of 2009. Using Section 702 collection and “while monitoring the
activities of Al Qaeda terrorists in Pakistan, the National Security Agency (NSA) noted contact from an
individual in the U.S. that the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) subsequently identified as Colorado-
based Najibulla Zazi. The U.S. Intelligence Community, including the FBI and NSA, worked in concert
to determine his relationship with Al Qaeda, as well as identify any foreign or domestic terrorist links.”44
“The FBI tracked Zazi as he traveled to New York to meet with co-conspirators, where they were
planning to conduct a terrorist attack. Zazi and his co-conspirators were subsequently arrested. Zazi, upon
indictment, pled guilty to conspiring to bomb the NYC subway system. Compelled collection (authorized
under Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, FISA, Section 702) against foreign terrorists was critical to
the discovery and disruption of this threat against the U.S.”45 Regardless of the accuracy of the
information released by Snowden, the types of programs described by the material contribute to national
security and its release, regardless of its validity, will negatively impact US security.
Removing section 702 means probable cause requirements would be applied to
foreign investigations
Cordero, 15 - Director of National Security Studies, Georgetown University Law Center, Adjunct
Professor of Law (Carrie, “The Brennan Center Report on the FISA Court and Proposals for FISA
Reform” 4/2, Lawfare, http://www.lawfareblog.com/brennan-center-report-fisa-court-and-proposals-fisa-
reform

Which brings us to the second question I posed above—what are the alternatives if Section 702 authority,
were, as the Brennan Center recommends, repealed? One option is to revert to the pre-2008 practice:
obtaining Court approval based on probable cause for non-U.S. persons located outside the United States.
The operational result would be to forego collection on legitimate targets of foreign intelligence
collection, thereby potentially losing insight on important national security threats. Given the challenging
and complex national security picture the United States faces today, I would think that most responsible
leaders and policymakers would say, “no thanks” to that option.
A second option would be to conduct the acquisition, but without FISC supervision. This would be a
perverse outcome of the surveillance debate. It is also, probably, in the current environment, not possible
as a practical matter, because an additional reason 702 was needed was to be able to serve lawful process,
under a statutory framework, on communications service providers, in order to effectuate the collection.
In light of these options: collect less information pertaining to important foreign intelligence targets, or,
collect it without statutory grounding (including Congressional oversight requirements) and judicial
supervision, the collection framework established under 702 looks pretty good.
 Link – transparency

Increasing transparency alerts terrorists of NSA tactics – increases the risk of cyberterrorism
De 14 - General Counsel, National Security Agency (Rajesh, “The NSA and Accountability in an Era of
Big Data”, JOURNAL OF NATIONAL SECURITY LAW & POLICY, 2014,p.4//DM)

Perhaps the most alarming trend is that the digital communications infrastructure is increasingly also
becoming the domain for foreign threat activity. In other words, it is no longer just a question of
“collecting” or even “connecting” the dots in order to assess foreign threats amidst more and more digital
noise, it is also a question of determining which of the so-called “dots” may constitute the threat itself. As
President Obama has recognized, “the cyber threat to our nation is one of the most serious economic and
national security challenges we face.”
Many of us read in the papers every day about cyber attacks on commercial entities. Hackers come in all
shapes and sizes, from foreign government actors, to criminal syndicates, to lone individuals. But as
former Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta warned a few months ago, “the greater danger facing us in
cyberspace goes beyond crime and it goes beyond harassment. A cyber attack perpetrated by nation states
or violent extremist groups could be as destructive as the terrorist attack on 9/11.” And as the President
warned in his recent State of the Union address, we know that our enemies are “seeking the ability to
sabotage our power grid, our financial institutions, our air-traffic control systems.” We also have seen a
disturbing trend in the evolution of the cyber threat around the world. As General Keith Alexander, the
Director of NSA, describes it, the trend is one from “exploitation” to “disruption” to “destruction.” In
fundamental terms, the cyber threat has evolved far beyond simply stealing – the stealing of personal or
proprietary information, for example-to include more disruptive activity, such as distributed denial of
service attacks that may temporarily degrade websites; and more alarmingly, we now see an evolution
toward truly destructive activity. Secretary Panetta, for example, recently discussed what he described as
“probably the most destructive attack the private sector has seen to date” – a computer virus used to infect
computers in the Saudi Arabian State Oil Company Aramco in mid-2012, which virtually destroyed
30,000 computers.
***
Within this context, big data presents opportunities and challenges for the government and the private
sector. Improving our ability to gain insights from large and complex collections of data holds the
promise of accelerating progress across a range of fields from health care to earth science to biomedical
research. But perhaps nowhere are the challenges and opportunities of big data as stark as in the national
security field, where the stakes are so high – both in terms of the threats we seek to defeat, and of the
liberties we simultaneously seek to preserve. This reality is readily apparent in the evolving and dynamic
cyber environment, and perhaps no more so than for an agency at the crossroads of the intelligence and
the defense communities, like NSA.
Of course, NSA must necessarily operate in a manner that protects its sources and methods from public
view. If a person being investigated by the FBI learns that his home phone is subject to a wiretap,
common sense tells us that he will not use that telephone any longer. The same is true for NSA. If our
adversaries know what NSA is doing and how it is doing it – or even what NSA is not doing and why it is
not doing it – they could well find ways to evade surveillance, to obscure themselves and their activities,
or to manipulate anticipated action or inaction by the U.S. government. In sum, they could more readily
use the ocean of big data to their advantage.
 Link - PRISM
PRISM collects vast amount of data—prevents terrorism
Kelly et al, 2014 – Project director for Freedom on the Net, author and editor (“Freedom on the Net”,
Freedom House, no date,
https://freedomhouse.org/sites/default/files/FOTN_2014_Full_Report_compressedv2_0.pdf)//TT
Leaked documents indicated that the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court (FISA Court) had
interpreted Section 215 of the PATRIOT Act to permit the FBI to obtain orders that compel the largest
telephone carriers in the United States (Verizon, AT&T, Sprint, and presumably others) to provide the
NSA with records of all phone calls made to, from, and within the country on an ongoing basis. These
billions of call records include numbers dialed, length of call, and other “metadata.”81 Data are gathered
in bulk, without any particularized suspicion about an individual, phone number, or device. Without
approval from the FISA Court or any other judicial officer, NSA analysts conduct queries on this data,
generating contact chains that show the web of connections emanating from a single phone number
suspected of being associated with terrorism.82
Leaks also revealed new details about programs authorized by Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence
Surveillance Act. Section 702 allows the NSA to conduct surveillance of people who are not U.S. citizens
and who are reasonably believed to be located outside the United States in order to collect “foreign
intelligence information.”83 Under a program called “PRISM,” the NSA has been compelling at least
nine large U.S. companies, including Google, Facebook, Microsoft and Apple, to disclose content and
metadata relating to emails, web chats, videos, images, and documents.84 Also under Section 702, the
NSA taps into the internet backbone for “collection of communications on fiber cables and infrastructure
as data flows past.”85 Although these programs are targeted at persons abroad, the NSA is able to retain
and use information “incidentally” collected about U.S. persons.

PRISM is Essential to U.S. Security in War Against Terrorism –DA Links!

Carafano ‘13 (James, Vice President for the Kathryn and Shelby Cullom Davis Institute for
National Security and Foreign Policy, and the E. W. Richardson Fellow, “PRISM is Essential to U.S.
Security in War Against Terrorism”, August 6th, 2013,
http://www.heritage.org/research/commentary/2013/8/prism-is-essential-to-us-security-in-war-against-
terrorism)
Our intelligence
professionals must be able to find out who the terrorists are talking to, what they are
saying, and what they're planning," said the president. "The lives of countless Americans depend on our ability to
monitor these communications." He added that he would cancel his planned trip to Africa unless assured Congress would support the
counterterrorism surveillance program. The president was not Barack Obama. It was George W. Bush, in 2008, pressing Congress to extend and
update reforms to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA). He was speaking directly to the American public, in an address broadcast live
from the Oval Office. How times have changed. Back then, the President of the United States willingly led the fight for the programs he thought
necessary to keep the nation safe. Now, our president sends underlings to make the case. In distancing himself from the debate over PRISM (the
foreign intelligence surveillance program made famous by the world-travelling leaker Edward Snowden), President Obama followed the
precedent he established in May at the National Defense University. There, he spoke disdainfully of drone strikes, the authorization to use
military force against terrorists, and the detention facilities at Guantanamo Bay. All three are essential components of his counterterrorism
strategy. In distancing himself from his own strategy, Obama hoped to leave the impression that he is somehow above it all. He has dealt with the
Snowden case the same way. When asked while traveling in Africa if he would take a role in going after the leaker, the president replied "I
shouldn't have to." The White House's above-it-all attitude sends seriously mixed messages to the American people, who are trying to figure if the
government's surveillance programs are legal and appropriate. Congress has not been much better. The authority for PRISM is in
FISA Section 702. Congress debated these authorities in 2007 and again when the program was reauthorized in 2008. Senate Majority
Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., surely remembers the controversy. He wrote President Bush: "There is no crisis that should lead you to cancel your
trip to Africa. But whether or not you cancel your trip, Democrats stand ready to negotiate a final bill, and we remain willing to extend existing
law for as short a time or as long a time as is needed to complete work on such a bill." Evidently, Reid must have felt the authorities granted
under Section 702 received a full and sufficient hearing. Most current members of Congress were seated under the dome during the 2008 debates.
They had every opportunity not just to read the law, but to be briefed on the program by intelligence officials before voting on the bill. For them
to act shocked at the scope of the program today rings about as hollow as Obama's expressed disdain for the operations he oversees. The reality is
that Congress and the administration share responsibility for these programs. If they want to change or modify them, who's stopping them? If
changes are made, however, they should to be made for the right reason. Leaders must never compromise our security for political expediency.
At least 60 Islamist-inspired terrorist plots have been aimed at the U.S. since the 9/11 attacks . The
overwhelming majority have been thwarted thanks to timely, operational intelligence about the threats. Congress
should not go back to a pre-/11 set of rules just to appeal to populist sentiment. Congress and the White House have an obligation to protect our
liberties and to safeguard our security -- in equal measure. Meeting that mission is more important than winning popularity polls.

PRISM helped stop terrorism in US and 20-plus countries.

Mattise ‘13 (Nathan, New Orleans-based Staff Editor at Ars Technica, “PRISM helped stop terrorism
in US and 20-plus countries”, June 16th 2013, http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2013/06/prism-helped-
stop-terrorism-in-us-and-20-plus-countries-nsa-document-argues/)
US intelligence officials sent Congress a new declassified document on Saturday, which the Senate Intelligence Committee
then made public. Outlets such as CNN and the Associated Press received the document and revealed a number of interesting
statistics related to the government's use of the NSA's controversial PRISM program. However, this document has not
yet been published on the Senate Intelligence Committee's website (and does not seem to be easily obtained through basic Internet search). The
new document is part of an intelligence official's effort to "show Americans the value of the program," according to the AP. The report's primary
supporting stat? Intelligence officials said that information gleaned from these NSA initiatives helped prevent
terrorist plots in the US and more than 20 other countries . Additionally, the release stated that phone metadata
was searched for less than 300 times within the secretive database last year. The document also added details to the public's
growing picture of the PRISM program. CNN reported that the NSA must delete these records after five years . The AP wrote
that the NSA programs are reviewed every 90 days by a secret court authorized by the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act
(FISA), and that the metadata records (which includes a call's time and length) can only be inspected for "suspected
connections to terrorism." Despite all the public attention, the Obama Administration continues to insist that no privacy violations took
place. According to White House Chief of Staff Denis McDonough (speaking Sunday on Face The Nation), the president plans to further clarify
this "in the days ahead." On Friday, TechDirt also published a set of two documents described as "talking points about scooping up business
records (i.e., all data on all phone calls) and on the Internet program known as PRISM." One of the talking points' main arguments is that Section
702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act authorizes actions similar to those described above. This is despite the fact that no member of the
public has ever been able to see the FISA court's ruling of the government's interpretation.

PRISM stopped 50 terrorist attacks, including assaults on the New York Stock
Exchange and New York City subways.
Gerstein ‘13
(Josh, White House reporter for POLITICO, specializing in legal and national
security issues, “PRISM stopped NYSE attack”, June 18th 2013,
http://www.politico.com/story/2013/06/nsa-leak-keith-alexander-92971.html )

Recently leaked communication surveillance programs have helped thwart more than 50 “potential terrorist
events” around the world since the Sept. 11 attacks, National Security Agency Director Keith Alexander said Tuesday. Alexander said
at least 10 of the attacks were set to take place in the United States, suggesting that most of the terrorism disrupted by the program had
been set to occur abroad. The NSA also disclosed that counterterrorism officials targetedfewer than 300 phone
numbers or other “identifiers” last year in the massive call-tracking database secretly assembled by the U.S.
government. Alexander said the programs were subject to “extraordinary oversight.” ”This isn’t some rogue operation that a group
of guys up at NSA are running,” the spy agency’s chief added. The data on use of the call-tracking data came in a fact sheet released to
reporters in connection with a public House Intelligence Committee hearing exploring the recently leaked telephone data mining
program and another surveillance effort focused on Web traffic generated by foreigners. (POLITICO Junkies: NSA leaks cause flood of
political problems) Alexander said 90
percent of the potential terrorist incidents were disrupted by the Web traffic
program known as PRISM. He was less clear about how many incidents the call-tracking effort had helped to avert. Deputy
FBI
Director Sean Joyce said the Web traffic program had contributed to arrests averting a plot to bomb the New
York Stock Exchange that resulted in criminal charges in 2008. Joyce also indicated that the PRISM program was essential
to disrupting a plot to bomb the New York City subways in 2009. “Without the [Section] 702 tool, we would not have
identified Najibullah Zazi,” Joyce said. However, President Barack Obama acknowledged in an interview aired Monday that it is
impossible to know whether the subway plot might have been foiled by other methods. ”We might have caught him some other way. We
might have disrupted it because a New York cop saw he was suspicious. Maybe he turned out to be incompetent and the bomb didn’t go
off. But at the margins we are increasing our chances of preventing a catastrophe like that through these programs,” Obama told Charlie
Rose on PBS. At the hearing, Alexander detailed the scope and safeguards of the programs, while Deputy Attorney General James Cole
laid out the legal basis for the surveillance. “This is not a program that’s off the books, that’s been hidden away,” Cole said of the call-
tracking program, which was classified “top secret” prior to recent leaks. He noted that the Patriot Act provision found to authorize it
has been twice reauthorized by Congress. “All of us in the national security [community] are constantly trying to balance protecting
public safety with protecting people’s civil liberties,” Cole said. NSA Deputy Director Chris Inglis said a very limited number of
individuals are authorized to access the call-tracking database.
 Terrorism Links
Encrypted data makes it harder to catch terrorists

Raf Sanchez, September 25, 2014, Daily Telegraph, Tech giants slammed by FBI over encrypted
smartphones;
Apple and Google's policy to encrypt their smartphones will make it more difficult to rescue kidnapping
victims and foil terror plots, US says, http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/nor DOA: 3-21-15

The FBI has warned that decisions by Apple and Google to encrypt their smartphones will make it
more difficult to rescue kidnapping victims and foil terror plots. The two Silicon Valley giants have
both decided to add new encryption systems in the face of privacy concerns sparked by Edward
Snowden's disclosure of mass government surveillance. Both Apple and Google were criticised for
allegedly handing over reams of customer data over to the National Security Agency (NSA). Now, the
companies are offering encryption software as a default on smartphones, claiming it would make it
impossible for them comply with US government searches. "It's not technically feasible for us to
respond to government warrants for the extraction of this data from devices," an Apple statement
said. The announcement has alarmed American law enforcement and on Thursday, James Comey, the
director of the FBI, added his voice to the criticism. Mr Comey cited child kidnapping and terrorism
cases as two examples of situations where quick access by authorities to phone data can save lives. He
told reporters at FBI headquarters that US officials are in talks with the two companies and accused the
companies of letting people put themselves beyond the law's reach. Law enforcement could still intercept
telephone conversations if they had a wiretap warrant from a court. However, the new encryption
systems would block access to call data, contacts, photos and email stored on the phone. Ronald Hosko,
a former assistant director of the FBI Criminal Investigative Division, said the encryption would
"protect many thousands of criminals who seek to do us great harm, physically or financially".

Encryption undermines snooping needed to stop terrorist attacks

New York Times, December 24, 2014, Why Democracy is Failing,

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/12/27/opinion/why-democracy-is-failing.html?_r=0 DOA: 3-21-15
Re ''War on surveillance'' (Turning Points, Dec. 6): Julian Assange's article on the Orwellian side of the
Internet is provocative. But the remedy for electronic tyranny -- encryption -- fails to take into account
modern terrorism. The encryption that would justifiably limit official snooping would equally frustrate
the equally justifiable attempt to short-circuit terrorist plots. One could argue about the relative
importance of the two imperatives, but not about the two-faced character of all aspects of Internet
surveillance.

Encryption makes information needed to prevent and prosecute crimes unavailable

Bloomberg, October 2, 2014, Apple's encryption will slow not stop snooping by cops and spies,
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2014-10-02/apple-s-encryption-will-slow-not-stop-cops-and-
spies DOA: 3-20-15
The companies announced in recent weeks that their new phones will automatically scramble data so that
a digital key kept by the owner is needed to unlock it, making it harder for detectives to examine the
content of suspects' phones without their knowledge or cooperation. Previously, such encryption was an
option that required users to endure a time-consuming process to activate. "This is going to have a very
big impact on law enforcement," said Stewart Baker, a former general counsel for the NSA and now a
partner at the law firm Steptoe and Johnson in Washington. "There will be crimes that people get away
with because this information is not available."

Encryption decimates effective law enforcement. The impact is rampant terrorism

and crime.
Glasser 14 — Ellen Glasser, President of the Society of Former Special Agents of the Federal Bureau
of Investigation, Adjunct Professor in the Criminology & Criminal Justice Department at the University
of North Florida, served as an FBI Agent for 24 years, 2014 (“Tech companies are making it harder for
the nation's law enforcement,” The Baltimore Sun, November 6th, Available Online at
http://www.baltimoresun.com/news/opinion/oped/bs-ed-fbi-apple-20141106-story.html, Accessed 07-05-
2015)
FBI Director Comey has been on the job for just over a year and is working to change perceptions. In
addressing the myriad challenges that face our nation, he brings a positive, reasoned approach to the
public discussion of privacy versus safety. While appreciating the public's concern over privacy, he has
been very clear that the marketing of these new devices will seriously impede law enforcement's ability to
protect Americans. Put simply, legal access to unencrypted mobile device information is needed to keep
our citizens and our country safer.
Here is some FBI reality. We live in an apocalyptic, post-9/11 world, where the FBI is confronted with a
dizzying array of threats from terrorist bombings to beheadings of innocent victims. Over the years,
the FBI has also responded to anthrax attacks, shoe and underwear bombers, White House fence
jumpers, child molesters, school shootings, human trafficking, kidnappings and massive fraud
schemes. The FBI investigates these matters within the scope of the law and with great, abiding
respect for the right of individuals to privacy.
Let me bring this close to home. What if your child was abducted, and the FBI developed mobile device
information and had a court order, but FBI agents were unable to access the critical, time-sensitive,
unencrypted information that was necessary to save your child's life? Thankfully, most people will never
be in a life-or-death situation like this, but it does happen. When it does — any FBI agent can tell you
from experience — people want help. Let's start by helping them now.
Public perception needs to change so the focus is on handcuffing the bad guys, not tying the hands of
the good guys. Please contact your elected representatives to tell them that corrective legislation is
necessary to require companies like Apple and Google to work with law enforcement and find a solution
to this problem.
Law enforcement can’t break strong encryption. ISIS loves this.
Wittes 15 — Benjamin Wittes, Senior Fellow in Governance Studies at the Brookings Institution,
Editor in Chief of Lawfare, Member of the Task Force on National Security and Law at the Hoover
Institution, 2015 (“Thoughts on Encryption and Going Dark: Part I,” Lawfare—a national security blog
curated by the Brookings Institution, July 9th, Available Online at http://www.lawfareblog.com/thoughts-
encryption-and-going-dark-part-i, Accessed 07-13-2015)
FBI Director James Comey has been on a public offensive of late, arguing against end-to-end encryption
that prevents law enforcement access to communications even when authorities have appropriate legal
process to capture those communications. The offensive began with a speech at Brookings some months
ago. More recently, Comey made these comments on CNN, these comments in a private conversation
with me, and wrote this piece for Lawfare.
Yesterday, he was on Capitol Hill, testifying both before the Senate Judiciary Committee (video at this
link, prepared statement here) and before the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence (video below):
[Video Omitted]
Comey made some news yesterday. For one thing, he stated very clearly to the Judiciary Committee—and
with evident reluctance—that some of the encryption the bureau is now facing is beyond its capacity to
crack:
[I]f we intercept data in motion between two encrypted devices or across an encrypted mobile
messaging app and it's strongly encrypted, we can't break it.
Now, this is sometimes—I hate that I'm here saying this, but I actually think the problem is severe
enough that I need to let the bad guys know that. That's the risk in what we're talking about here.
The bad—I'm just confirming something for the bad guys.
Sometimes people watch TV and think, "Well, the FBI must have some way to break that strong
encryption." We do not, which is why this is such an important issue.
At another point, he stated that while some companies have designed systems that they lack the capacity
to decrypt, in other instances, some companies have simply declined to assist investigators in decrypting
signal even where decryption was possible—a matter on which at least one senator fought further
information. (See Comey's comments at 1:17:00 and his subsequent exchange with Senator Sheldon
Whitehouse at 1:20:00 of the Judiciary Committee hearing.)
All in all, Comey's reception on the Hill was significantly warmer than I expected. The Bureau has clearly
done a lot of quiet behind-the-scenes work with members to familiarize them with the problem as the FBI
sees it, and many members yesterday seemed to require little persuasion.
But Comey has a very heavy lift ahead of him if he is to make progress on the "Going Dark" problem. For
one thing, it's not entirely clear what constitutes progress from the Bureau's perspective. The
administration is, at this stage, not asking for legislation, after all. It's merely describing an emergent
problem.
But this is a bit of a feint. The core of that emergent problem, at least as Comey's joint statement with
Deputy Attorney General Sally Yates frames it, is that CALEA—which mandates that
telecommunications providers retain the capacity for law enforcement to get access to signal for lawful
wiretapping—does not reach internet companies. So even if Apple and Google were to voluntarily retain
encryption keys, some other actor would very likely not do so. Absent a legal requirement that companies
refrain from making true end-to-end encrypted services available without a CALEA-like stop-gap, some
entity will see a market hole and provide those services. And it's fair to assume that ISIS and the most
sophisticated bad actors will gravitate in the direction of that service provider.
In other words, I think Comey and Yates inevitably are asking for legislation, at least in the longer term.
The administration has decided not to seek it now, so the conversation is taking place at a somewhat
higher level of abstraction than it would if there were a specific legislative proposal on the table. But the
current discussion should be understood as an effort to begin building a legislative coalition for some sort
of mandate that internet platform companies retain (or build) the ability to permit, with appropriate legal
process, the capture and delivery to law enforcement and intelligence authorities of decrypted versions of
the signals they carry.

The plan risks catastrophic terrorism.

Weissmann 14 — Andrew Weissmann, Senior Fellow at the Center for Law and Security and the
Center on the Administration of Criminal Law at New York University, former General Counsel for the
Federal Bureau of Investigation, holds a J.D. from Columbia Law School, 2014 (“Apple, Boyd, and
Going Dark,” Just Security, October 20th, Available Online at http://justsecurity.org/16592/apple-boyd-
dark/, Accessed 07-05-2015)
To my mind – although, as in many areas of the law, there is no perfect solution — the cost of a system
where we may be more at risk to illegal hacking is outweighed by the vital role lawful electronic
interception plays in thwarting crime – including devastating terrorist attacks. Law enforcement and
intelligence officials, including most recently FBI Director James Comey, have noted that we all –
including criminals — increasingly use non-telephonic means to communicate. The ability to monitor
electronic communications is decreasing with every new encryption tool on such communication
systems. Law enforcement authorities in the US and overseas rightfully note how such data is critical to
solving everyday crimes, such as kidnapping, fraud, child pornography and exploitation, among
many others. And at least as important, preventing terrorist attacks requires such ability, as intelligence
agencies note (although due to the Snowden leaks, resulting in the public perception that the intelligence
community has too much, not too little, access to information, the ramifications from encryption on
traditional law enforcement is likely to be relied on by the government in the public debate on this issue).
This is a judgment Congress needs to make, and soon. In weighing the interests, however, it is no answer
to say that the government should revert to means other than lawful intercepts obtained through court
orders based on probable cause to prevent crimes. The reality of electronic communications is here to
stay and plays a vital role in how crimes are perpetrated by allowing people to communicate with
conspirators and to carry out their nefarious plans. In this regard, the government and privacy advocates
both need to be consistent in their arguments: it is the latter who usually remind us that the advent of
smartphones and “big data” makes traditional Fourth Amendment line-drawing obsolete. And they have a
point, as the Supreme Court is starting to recognize. But by the same token, it is increasingly important
to have an ability to monitor such communications, after meeting the necessary Fourth Amendment
standard upon a showing to an independent Article III court.
The plan substantially increases the risk of catastrophic crime and terrorism.
Rubin 14 — Jennifer Rubin, Columnist and Blogger for the Washington Post, holds a J.D. from the
University of California-Berkeley, 2014 (“Silicon Valley enables terrorists and criminals,” Right Turn—a
Washington Post blog, October 19th, Available Online at http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/right-
turn/wp/2014/10/19/silicon-valley-enables-terrorists-and-criminals/, Accessed 07-05-2015)
Google chairman Eric Schmidt likes to brag that his company is “on the right side of history.” He pats
himself on the back for pulling out of China because of that country’s censoring practices. His company
even has a slogan, “Don’t be evil,” meant to remind Google employees that they aspire to the highest
ethical standards. But, to be blunt, Google is violating its own “don’t be evil” rule by insisting on
encryption technology which locks out anti-terrorist and law enforcement agencies . That gives
terrorists and common criminals alike huge protection and puts their fellow Americans at risk.
Benjamin Wittes of the Brookings Institution explains this is not about “encryption,” as some reports
characterize it. No one is talking about eliminating encryption, he explains, “Without it, you couldn’t
have electronic commerce. Nobody wants to get rid of encryption.” He explains, “The only question is
whether there should be government access with lawful process — or not.”
In a scantly covered speech this week, FBI Director James Comey explained:
The issue is whether companies not currently subject to the Communications Assistance for Law
Enforcement Act should be required to build lawful intercept capabilities for law enforcement.
We aren’t seeking to expand our authority to intercept communications. We are struggling to
keep up with changing technology and to maintain our ability to actually collect the
communications we are authorized to intercept.
And if the challenges of real-time interception threaten to leave us in the dark, encryption
threatens to lead all of us to a very dark place.
Encryption is nothing new. But the challenge to law enforcement and national security officials is
markedly worse, with recent default encryption settings and encrypted devices and networks—all
designed to increase security and privacy.
With Apple’s new operating system, the information stored on many iPhones and other Apple
devices will be encrypted by default. Shortly after Apple’s announcement, Google announced
plans to follow suit with its Android operating system. This means the companies themselves
won’t be able to unlock phones, laptops, and tablets to reveal photos, documents, e-mail, and
recordings stored within.
That is a problem that is not solved, as Apple claims, by providing access to the cloud. “But uploading to
the cloud doesn’t include all of the stored data on a bad guy’s phone, which has the potential to create a
black hole for law enforcement,” Comey said. “And if the bad guys don’t back up their phones routinely,
or if they opt out of uploading to the cloud, the data will only be found on the encrypted devices
themselves. And it is people most worried about what’s on the phone who will be most likely to avoid the
cloud and to make sure that law enforcement cannot access incriminating data.”
In fact, the blocked phones are simply part of a marketing pitch to cater to young people who are
misinformed and paranoid about what information the government has access to. Comey observed that “it
will have very serious consequences for law enforcement and national security agencies at all levels.
Sophisticated criminals will come to count on these means of evading detection. It’s the equivalent of a
closet that can’t be opened. A safe that can’t be cracked. And my question is, at what cost?”
Well, some terrorists will use it to plan and execute murderous schemes, organized crime will use it to
hide from law enforcement and the American people will be less safe and less secure.
Maybe the president (whose party benefits from liberal high-tech donors) should call these people in for a
chat and explain why they should stop this. Alternatively, Congress should hold open hearings and have
these execs explain why they want to give terrorists an e-hideout. Then again, maybe concerned
Americans who want to combat terrorists should simply not use these products. (Hang onto your old
phone until they drop the “locked safe,” for example.) What President Obama, Congress and the
American people should not do is sit idly by while they put us at risk for pecuniary gain.
Comey went out of his way to be nice to these companies: “Both companies are run by good people,
responding to what they perceive is a market demand.” Too nice, in my mind. Instead he should have just
told them flat out, “Don’t be evil.”

Especially true of ISIS.

AP 15 — Associated Press, 2015 (“US Officials: Encryption Hinders Monitoring Extremists,” Byline
Eric Tucker, June 4th, Available Online at http://www.forensicmag.com/news/2015/06/us-officials-
encryption-hinders-monitoring-extremists, Accessed 07-06-2015)
The growing use of encrypted communications and private messaging by supporters of the Islamic State
group is complicating efforts to monitor terror suspects and extremists , U.S. law enforcement officials
said Wednesday.
Appearing before the House Homeland Security Committee, the officials said that even as thousands of
Islamic State group followers around the world share public communications on Twitter, some are
exploiting social media platforms that allow them to shield their messages from law enforcement .
"There are 200-plus social media companies. Some of these companies build their business model around
end-to-end encryption," said Michael Steinbach, head of the FBI's counterterrorism division. "There is no
ability currently for us to see that" communication, he said.

Encryption helps terrorists — Zazi proves.

Crovitz 14 — L. Gordon Crovitz, Columnist and Former Publisher of The Wall Street Journal, former
Executive Vice-President of Dow Jones, 2014 (“Terrorists Get a Phone Upgrade,” Wall Street Journal,
November 23rd, Available Online at http://www.wsj.com/articles/gordon-crovitz-terrorists-get-a-phone-
upgrade-1416780266, Accessed 07-20-2015)
It’s a good thing Najibullah Zazi didn’t have access to a modern iPhone or Android device a few years
ago when he plotted to blow up New York City subway stations. He was caught because his email was
tapped by intelligence agencies—a practice that Silicon Valley firms recently decided the U.S.
government is no longer permitted.
Apple, Google, Facebook and others are playing with fire, or in the case of Zazi with a plot to blow up
subway stations under Grand Central and Times Square on Sept. 11, 2009. An Afghanistan native living
in the U.S., Zazi became a suspect when he used his unencrypted Yahoo email account to double-check
with his al Qaeda handler in Pakistan about the precise chemical mix to complete his bombs. Zazi and his
collaborators, identified through phone records, were arrested shortly after he sent an email announcing
the imminent attacks: “The marriage is ready.”
The Zazi example (he pleaded guilty to conspiracy charges and awaits sentencing) highlights the risks
that Silicon Valley firms are taking with their reputations by making it impossible for intelligence
agencies or law enforcement to gain access to these communications. In September, marketers from
Apple bragged of changes to its operating system so that it will not comply with judicial orders in
national-security or criminal investigations.
“Unlike our competitors,” Apple announced, “it’s not technically feasible for us to respond to government
warrants.” This encryption was quickly matched by Google and the WhatsApp messaging service owned
by Facebook.
In a private meeting last month, Deputy Attorney General James Cole asked the general counsel of Apple
why the company would want to market to criminals. As the Journal reported last week, Mr. Cole gave
the hypothetical of the police announcing that they would have been able to rescue a murdered child if
only they could have had access to the killer’s mobile device. Apple’s response was that the U.S. can
always pass a law requiring companies to provide a way to gain access to communications under court
orders.
Since then, U.S. and British officials have made numerous trips to Silicon Valley to explain the dangers.
FBI Director James Comey gave a speech citing the case of a sex offender who lured a 12-year-old boy in
Louisiana in 2010 using text messages, which were later obtained to get a murder conviction. “There
should be no one in the U.S. above the law,” Mr. Comey said, “and also no places within the U.S. that are
beyond the law.”
Robert Hannigan, the head of Britain’s electronic-intelligence agency, Government Communications
Headquarters, warned in a Financial Times op-ed earlier this month: “However much they may dislike it,”
Silicon Valley firms “have become the command-and-control networks of choice for terrorists and
criminals.”
Even without terrorism attacks that could have been prevented, Mr. Hannigan said, he thought Internet
users may be “ahead” of Silicon Valley: “They do not want the media platforms they use with their
friends and families to facilitate murder or child abuse.”
It looks like Silicon Valley has misread public opinion. The initial media frenzy caused by the Edward
Snowden leaks has been replaced by recognition that the National Security Agency is among the most
lawyered agencies in the government. Contrary to initial media reports, the NSA does not listen willy-
nilly to phone and email communications.
Last week, the Senate killed a bill once considered a sure thing. The bill would have created new barriers
to the NSA obtaining phone metadata to connect the dots to identify terrorists and prevent their attacks.
Phone companies, not the NSA, would have retained these records. There would have been greater risks
of leaks of individual records. An unconstitutional privacy advocate would have been inserted into
Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court proceedings.
The lesson of the Snowden accusations is that citizens in a democracy make reasonable trade-offs
between privacy and security once they have all the facts. As people realized that the rules-bound NSA
poses little to no risk to their privacy, there was no reason to hamstring its operations. Likewise, law-
abiding people know that there is little to no risk to their privacy when communications companies
comply with U.S. court orders.
Finding no willingness by Silicon Valley to rethink its approach without being required by law, FBI
Director Comey recently asked Congress to update the Communications Assistance for Law Enforcement
Act of 1994. This requires traditional phone companies to comply with court orders to provide access to
records. He wants the law updated to cover Apple, Google and other digital companies.
Silicon Valley firms should find ways to comply with U.S. court orders or expect Congress to order them
to do so. They also shouldn’t be surprised if their customers think less of companies that go out of their
way to market technical solutions to terrorists and criminals.

Strong encryption greatly increases chance of successful terror attack

RT 15 (RT, “Apple, Google helping terrorists with encryption- Manhattan DA” 04/21/15,
http://www.rt.com/usa/251469-apple-google-encryption-terrorists/)
Allowing users to take advantage of advanced
encryption in order to keep their messages and mobile communication
out of the government’s hands will only help terrorists plot future attacks, a top New York law enforcement official
said. The new encryption services offered by Apple and Google will make it harder to protect New Yorkers, Manhattan District Attorney Cyrus
Vance Jr. told local AM970 radio host John Cats. He mentioned built-in encryption – which Apple claims its own engineers cannot break
– means that federal and local law enforcement bodies won’t be able to intercept communications between
potential criminals and terrorists, even if they acquire a warrant. When Cats suggested, “terrorists are running out to buy
iPhones,” Vance responded by saying, he was “absolutely right.” “If individuals who are seeking to do serious harm to our
citizenry know they have a device that they can use with impunity and that the contents of their messages
and images on their phones cannot be accessed by law enforcement that's going to be the terrorists’
community device of choice,” he added, according to the Daily Dot. In addition to Apple, Google is also incorporating encryption into
its mobile devices. The two tech giants’ smartphones comprise 96 percent of the global market, the New York Post mentions. “Apple has
created a phone that is dark, that cannot be accessed by law enforcement even when a court has
authorized us to look at its contents,” Vance said.In response, Vance wants police departments around the country to register their
opposition with politicians and for hearings on the issue to take place. On its website, Apple says that encryption is enabled “end-to-end” on its
devices and that it has “no way to decrypt iMessage and FaceTime data when it’s in transit between devices.” Additionally, the company states,
“We wouldn’t be able to comply with a wiretap order even if we wanted to .” Other features such as iCloud and Mail
also offer some encryption protections. READ MORE: FBI director lashes out at Apple, Google for encrypting smartphones Vance isn’t the only
law enforcement official to come out against widespread encryption. In October, New York Police Department Commissioner Bill Bratton
heavily criticized Apple and Google for the move, and FBI Director James Comey also blasted the development. "There will come a day
-- well it comes every day in this business -- when
it will matter a great, great deal to the lives of people of all kinds
that we be able to with judicial authorization gain access to a kidnapper's or a terrorist or a criminal's
device,” Comey said. “I just want to make sure we have a good conversation in this country before that day comes.” In a blog post at the Wall
Street Journal, Amy Hess of the FBI clarified the bureau’s position on the issue, which has seen a surge in support since former government
contractor Edward Snowden revealed a massive domestic and international surveillance operation. She said law
enforcement officials
will need “some degree of access” to encrypted messages in order to stop criminal and violent plots in the
future. “No one in this country should be beyond the law,” she wrote. “The notion that electronic devices and
communications could never be unlocked or unencrypted – even when a judge has decided that the public interest requires accessing this data to
find evidence — is troubling. It may be time to ask: Is that a cost we, as a society, are prepared to pay?”

Encryption decks counter-terror effectiveness

Hess 15 (Amy Hess, Executive Assistant Director Federal Bureau of Investigation,
Before the Subcommittee on Information Technology Oversight and Government
Reform U.S. House of Representatives Concerning Encryption and Cybersecurity
for Mobile Electronic Communication Devices, page 6-7, April 29, 2015.)\\mwang
Examples

The more we as a society rely on electronic devices to communicate and store information, the more likely it is that
evidence that was once found in filing cabinets, letters, and photo albums will now be available only in
electronic storage. We have seen case after case – from homicides and kidnappings, to drug
trafficking, financial fraud, and child exploitation – where critical evidence came from smart phones,
computers, and online communications. Each of the following examples demonstrates how important information
stored on electronic devices can be to prosecuting criminals and stopping crime . As encryption solutions
become increasingly inaccessible for law enforcement , it is cases like these that could go unsolved, and
criminals like these that could go free. Another investigation in Clark County, Nevada, centered on allegations
that a woman and her boyfriend conspired together to kill the woman’s father who died after being stabbed
approximately 30 times. Text messages which had been deleted from the phone and recovered by investigators
revealed the couple’s plans in detail, clearly showing premeditation . Additionally, the communications
around the time of the killing proved that both of them were involved throughout the process and during the
entire event, resulting in both being charged with murder and conspiracy to commit murder. Following a joint investigation
conducted by the FBI and Indiana State Police, a pastor pleaded guilty in Federal court to transporting a
minor across state lines with intent to engage in illicit sexual conduct in connection with his sexual relationship with
an underage girl who was a student at the church’s high school. During this investigation, information recovered from the
pastor’s smart phone proved to be crucial in showing the actions taken by the pastor in the commission of his crimes. Using
forensic software, investigators identified Wi-Fi locations, dates, and times when the pastor traveled out
of state to be with the victim. The analysis uncovered Internet searches including, “What is the legal age of consent in
Indiana”, “What is the legal age of consent in Michigan”, and “Penalty for sexting Indiana.” In addition, image files were located
which depicted him in compromising positions with the victim. These are examples of how important evidence that
resides on smart phones and other devices can be to law enforcement – evidence that might not have been
available to us had strong encryption been in place on those devices and the user’s consent not granted. The above
examples serve to show how critical electronic evidence has become in the course of our investigations
and how timely, reliable access to it is imperative to ensuring public safety. Today’s encryption methods are increasingly
more sophisticated, and pose an even greater challenge to law enforcement . We are seeing more and more
cases where we believe significant evidence resides on a phone, a tablet, or a laptop – evidence that may
be the difference between an offender being convicted or acquitted – but we cannot access it. Previously,
a company that manufactured a communications device could assist law enforcement in unlocking the
device. Today, however, upon receipt of a lawful court order, the company might only be able to provide
information that was backed up in the cloud – and there is no guarantee such a backup exists, that the data is current, or
that it would be relevant to the investigation. If this becomes the norm, it will be increasingly difficult for us to
investigate and prevent crime and terrorist threats.

Encryption is getting stronger—cloaks terrorists.

Hess 15 (Amy Hess, Executive Assistant Director Federal Bureau of Investigation,
Before the Subcommittee on Information Technology Oversight and Government
Reform U.S. House of Representatives Concerning Encryption and Cybersecurity
for Mobile Electronic Communication Devices, page 4-5, April 29, 2015.)\\mwang
Court-Ordered Access to Stored Encrypted Data Encryptionof stored data is not new, but it has become increasingly
prevalent and sophisticated. The challenge to law enforcement and national security officials has
intensified with the advent of default encryption settings and stronger encryption standards on both
devices and networks. In the past, a consumer had to decide whether to encrypt data stored on his or her device and take some action to
implement that encryption. With today’s new operating systems, however, a device and all of a user’s
information on that device can be encrypted by default – without any affirmative action by the consumer.
In the past, companies had the ability to decrypt devices when the Government obtained a search warrant and a court order. Today,
companies have developed encryption technology which makes it impossible for them to decrypt data on
devices they manufacture and sell, even when lawfully ordered to do so . Although there are strong and appropriate
cybersecurity and other reasons to support these new uses of encryption, such decisions regarding system design have a
tremendous impact on law enforcement’s ability to fight crime and bring perpetrators to justice .
Evidence of criminal activity used to be found in written ledgers, boxes, drawers, and file cabinets, all of which could be searched pursuant to a
warrant. But like the general population, criminal actors are increasingly storing such information on electronic
devices. If these devices are automatically encrypted, the information they contain may be unreadable to
anyone other than the user of the device. Obtaining a search warrant for photos, videos, email, text
messages, and documents can be an exercise in futility . Terrorists and other criminals know this and
will increasingly count on these means of evading detection. Additional Considerations Some assert that
although more and more devices are encrypted, users back-up and store much of their data in “the cloud,”
and law enforcement agencies can access this data pursuant to court order. For several reasons, however, the
data may not be there. First, aside from the technical requirements and settings needed to successfully back up data to the cloud, many
companies impose fees to store information there – fees which consumers may be unwilling to pay. Second,
criminals can easily avoid putting information where it may be accessible to law enforcement. Third, data backed up to the cloud
typically includes only a portion of the data stored on a device, so key pieces of evidence may reside
only on a criminal’s or terrorist’s phone , for example. And if criminals do not back up their phones
routinely, orif they opt out of uploading to the cloud altogether, the data may only be found on the
devices themselves – devices which are increasingly encrypted.

Strong encryption facilitates terrorist recruitments and plots

Ybarra 15 (Maggie Ybarra, military affairs and Pentagon correspondent for the Washington Times,
Washington Times, “FBI director James Comney flags dangers of encryption services, 07/7/15,
http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2015/jul/7/fbi-encryption-fosters-furtive-terrorism/)
FBI Director James B. Comey will be arguing for a robust debate on message-encryption technology to lawmakers Wednesday, as
he takes to Capitol Hill to plead his case that terrorist groups such as the Islamic State could take advantage of such
technology to recruit Americans into their organization . The technology, commonly referred to as “going dark” allows
people to send messages to one another that cannot be traced by the government . Google has reported about 80 percent of its Gmail messages
to other addresses in the last month were encrypted, and Apple has said it uses encryption on its iMessage and FaceTime tools which is so secure
that even the company can’t read or decode the communications. But for all the good encryption services provide — protecting innovation,
private thoughts and other things of value — the technology can also be used for nefarious purposes, Mr. Comey wrote in a blog posting Monday.
“There is simply no doubt that bad people can communicate with impunity in a world of universal strong
encryption,” Mr. Comey wrote. The Senate Judiciary Committee is prepared to hear Mr. Comey’s testimony about the technology, along
with the testimony of Sally Quillian Yates, the deputy attorney general at the Department of Justice. “Today’s hearing is intended to start a
conversation in the Senate about whether recent technological changes have upset the balance between public safety
and privacy,” Sen. Chuck Grassley, Iowa Republican and the panel, said in prepared remarks. “In particular, Director Comey has talked
about the challenges this issue presents the FBI in the national security context. According to the Director, ISIS is recruiting
Americans on-line and then directing them to encrypted communication platforms that are beyond the
FBI’s ability to monitor, even with a court order. If this is accurate, it obviously represents a dangerous state of affairs.” Despite
the danger, a group of computer scientists and security experts are trying to counter Mr. Comey’s message by defending the need for encrypted
technology. The same day that FBI director made a rare social media effort to flag the dangers of “going dark,” the Computer Science and
Artificial Intelligence Laboratory released a 34-page technical report that advocates against providing federal authorities access to encrypted
conversations. “We have found that the damage that could be caused by law enforcement exceptional access requirements would be even greater
today than it would have been 20 years ago,” the report states. “In the wake of the growing economic and social cost of the fundamental
insecurity of today’s Internet environment , any proposals that alter the security dynamics online should be approached with caution.” President
Obama has been trying to ease the concerns of Mr. Comey and the other heads of U.S. government intelligence agencies by searching for a
middle ground solution that protects the privacy of U.S. citizens while providing federal agencies with the tools they need to track down and halt
potential terrorist threats. Mr. Obama said during a joint January press conference with British Prime Minister David Cameron that his
administration has been communicating with companies about how to provide agencies with legal access to conversations that might be taking
place via technologies that are constantly evolving. “If
we get into a situation in which the technologies do not allow us
at all to track somebody that we’re confident is a terrorist, if we … have specific information, we are confident that this
individual or this network is about to activate a plot and, despite knowing that information, despite having a phone number or despite having a
social media address or a e-mail address, that we can’t penetrate that, that’s a problem,” he said. The solution to that problem will likely be
complicated and involve consideration of legislation, regulation, cooperation among lawmakers and with private companies, Mr. Comey said
during a June 18 press conference at the Department of Justice. “The companies that are providing communication services don’t want folks
killed by people using their platforms,” he said. “So we’re having good conversations with them. I’m sure a big part of it’s going to be
international cooperation.”

Backdoor searches protect privacy and are key to law enforcement

Vance 7/8 <Cyrus R., New York District Attorney, 7/8/15, “Going Dark: Encryption, Technology, and
the Balance Between Public Safety and Privacy”, p.2-3, http://www.judiciary.senate.gov/meetings/going-
dark-encryption-technology-and-the-balance-between-public-safety-and-privacy >//wx
As you know, the Fourth Amendment of the United States Constitution authorizes reasonable searches and seizures ,
providing law enforcement agencies access to places where criminals hide evidence of their crimes – from car trunks, to storage facilities, to
computers, mobile devices, and digital networks. In order to safeguard Fourth Amendment rights, these searches are conducted
pursuant
to judicial warrants, issued upon a neutral judge’s finding of probable cause. The probable cause standard
represents a balance between privacy and public safety carefully calibrated by centuries of jurisprudence, and it guides
individuals and companies in developing their expectations of privacy. Through this judicial process, my Office obtains smartphone evidence to
support all types of cases – homicides, sex crimes, child abuse, fraud, assaults, robberies, cybercrime, and identity theft. Many
perpetrators, particularly those who commit sexual offenses, take photos and videos of their acts, and store them on
computers and smartphones. Between October 2014 and June 2015, 35 percent of the data extracted from all phones by my Office was
collected from Apple devices; 36 percent was collected from Android devices.2 That means that when smartphone encryption is
fully deployed by Apple and Google, 71 percent of all mobile devices examined —at least by my Office’s lab—
may be outside the reach of a search warrant. I want to emphasize I am testifying from a state and local perspective. I am not
advocating bulk data collection or unauthorized surveillance. Instead, I am concerned about protecting local law
enforcement’s ability to conduct targeted requests for information, scrutinized by an impartial judge for his or her
evaluation as to whether probable cause has been established. Importantly, and by Apple’s own admission, governmental request for
information have affected only .00571 percent of Apple’s customers .

Strong encryption decks law enforcement abilities – can’t obtain any data
Vance 7/8 <Cyrus R., New York District Attorney, 7/8/15, “Going Dark: Encryption, Technology, and
the Balance Between Public Safety and Privacy”, p.3-5,
http://www.judiciary.senate.gov/imo/media/doc/07-08-15%20Vance%20Testimony.pdf>//wx
Last fall, Apple and Google, whose operating systems run 96 percent of smartphones worldwide, announced with some fanfare, but
without notice to my Office or other law enforcement offices I have spoken to, that they had engineered their new mobile operating
systems such that they can no longer assist law enforcement with search warrants written for passcode-
protected smartphones. According to Apple’s website: On devices running iOS 8.0 and later versions, your personal data such as
photos, messages (including attachments), email, contacts, call history, iTunes content, notes, and reminders is placed under the
protection of your passcode. . . Apple will not perform iOS data extractions in response to government search warrants because
the files to be extracted are protected by an encryption key that is tied to the user’s passcode , which Apple does
not possess. [Emphasis added.]5 Apple’s announcement led to an immediate response by law enforcement officials who pointed out that
allowing a phone or tablet to be locked such that it would be beyond the reach of lawful searches and seizures was
unprecedented and posed a threat to law enforcement efforts – in effect, a boon to criminals. Unless law
enforcement officials can obtain the passcode from the user, which will be difficult or impossible in many cases,
or can use “brute force” to obtain the passcode (again, difficult or impossible, and attempts to do this would likely lead to the destruction of
evidence on the iPhone), the search warrant would be of no consequence, because no
one will be able to unlock the phone,
notwithstanding the court order. Law enforcement’s warnings are hardly idle. Recently, a father of six was murdered
in Evanston, Illinois. City of Evanston Police believe that prior to his murder, the victim was robbed of a large sum of money. There were
no eyewitnesses to or surveillance footage of the killing. Found alongside the body of the deceased were an iPhone 6 and a
Samsung Galaxy S6 Edge running Google Android. Cook County prosecutors served Apple and Google with judicial warrants
to unlock the phones, believing that relevant evidence might be stored on them. Apple and Google replied, in
substance, that they could not, because they did not know the user’s passcode. Information that might be crucial to solving
the murder, therefore, had effectively died with the victim . His homicide remains unsolved. His killer remains at large. It
is not hyperbole to say that beginning in September 2014, Americans conceded a measure of their protection
against everyday crimes to Apple and Google’s new encryption policies. Yet, I would note that, before the changes, neither
company, to our knowledge, ever suggested that their encryption keys, held by the companies, were vulnerable to hacking or theft. Fully one-
quarter of our felony cases now involve cybercrime or identity theft, so I am keenly aware of the dangers and impact of these
crimes on our community (which happens to be situated in a world financial center and is the number one target for terrorism in the world).
Because of this, my Office has invested heavily in becoming highly proficient and active in the prosecution of these crimes, and in the promotion
of best cybersecurity practices for New York consumers and companies. From my vantage point, and in my opinion, for reasons set forth later in
my testimony, Apple and Google’s new encryption policies seem to increase protection for consumers from
hackers only minimally, if at all. But those policies create serious new risks for my constituents and the millions of
visitors and workers passing through Manhattan every day.

Access to smartphone data is key to law enforcement – numerous cases prove

Vance 7/8 <Cyrus R., New York District Attorney, 7/8/15, “Going Dark: Encryption, Technology, and
the Balance Between Public Safety and Privacy”, p.3-5,
http://www.judiciary.senate.gov/imo/media/doc/07-08-15%20Vance%20Testimony.pdf>//wx
The Cost of Evidence Made Inaccessible Through Apple’s Encryption Although encryption has been often discussed in the context of
international terrorism, the NSA, and the CIA,
the greatest cost of these new encryption policies may well be borne by
local law enforcement. Smartphones are ubiquitous, and there is almost no kind of case in which prosecutors have
not used evidence from smartphones. My Office (and, I expect, every other local prosecutor’s office) has used evidence from
cellphones in homicides, rape cases, human trafficking, assaults, domestic violence cases, narcotics cases, kidnappings, larcenies, frauds, identity
theft, cybercrime, and robberies. Indeed, it
is the rare case in which information from a smartphone is not useful. The
following list of recent cases is representative : • Homicide: People v. Hayes, Indictment Number 4451/12: The victim was
filming a video using his iPhone when he was shot and killed by the defendant. The video captured the shooting. Because the iPhone was not
locked, the video was recovered and admitted into evidence at trial. The video corroborated eyewitness testimony. The defendant was convicted
of murder and sentenced to 35 years to life. • Sex Trafficking: People v. Brown , Indictment Numbers 865/12, 3908/12, and 3338/13:
The defendant directed a sex trafficking operation involving at least four women, using physical violence, threats of force, and psychological
manipulation to coerce the women to engage in prostitution. Evidence recovered from electronic devices lawfully seized from the defendant’s
home proved crucial to his conviction at trial. In particular, the defendant’s cellular phones contained photographs showing him posing his
victims for online prostitution advertisements, and showing that he had “branded” multiple women, with his 14 nickname tattooed onto their
bodies; text messages between him and several victims confirmed that he had engaged in acts of violence against the testifying witness and
others. The defendant was convicted of multiple counts of sex trafficking and promoting prostitution and was sentenced to 10-20 years in prison.
• Cybercrime and Identity Theft: People v. Jacas et al., Indictment Number 42/12 and People v. Brahms et al., Indictment
Number 5151/11: This case involved the successful prosecution of a 29-member identity theft ring, which was able to be investigated and
prosecuted, in large part, because of evidence obtained early in the investigation from an iPhone, pursuant to a search warrant. An iPhone was
recovered from a waiter who was arrested for stealing more than 20 customers’ credit card numbers by surreptitiously swiping those credit cards
through a card reader that stored the credit card number and other data. When the phone was lawfully searched, law enforcement officials
discovered text messages between members of the group regarding the ring’s crimes. Investigators were able to obtain an eavesdropping warrant,
and ultimately arrested 29 people, including employees of high-end restaurants who stole credit card numbers, shoppers who made purchases
using counterfeit credit cards containing the stolen credit card numbers, and managers who oversaw the operation. The group compromised over
100 American Express credit card numbers and stole property worth over $1,000,000. All of the defendants pleaded guilty, and more than
$1,000,000 in cash and merchandise were seized and forfeited. • Sex Offenses: United States v. Juarez , Case No. 12-CR-59: The
defendant was arrested for unlawful surveillance by an NYPD officer after the officer observed the defendant using a cell phone to film up
women’s skirts. My Office obtained a search warrant for the phone. 15 During the subsequent search of the phone’s micro SD card, forensic
analysts discovered a series of images, taken by the defendant, showing a seven-year-old girl lying down on a bed and an adult man pushing aside
her underwear, revealing her genitals. The case was referred to the United States Attorney’s Office for the Eastern District of New York, which
charged the defendant with producing child pornography. • Physical and Sexual Abuse of a Child: U.S. v. Patricia and
Matthew Ayers, Case No. 5:14 CR 0117 LSC SGC: In case after case, law enforcement has been able to discover and prosecute child abuse
by using video or photographic evidence taken by the abuser. This case is illustrative: From 2010 to 2013, the defendants abused and exploited a
young child in their care who, during that period, was six to nine years old. The couple took photographs of the child in lewd poses, as well as of
each other engaged in sexual acts with the child. The defendants recorded the abuse with their smartphones and downloaded the images to a
computer. In at least one instance, one of the defendants transmitted images to another individual, indicating that she would travel interstate with
the child to the individual’s home so the individual could also have sexual relations with the child. The federal judge overseeing the case
described it as the worst case he has personally dealt with, including murders, in his 16 years on the bench. The defendants were ultimately
convicted of producing child pornography, in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 2251(a), and were sentenced to 1,590 and 750 years, respectively, in
federal prison. There
are many other cases—almost too many to count —that I might have selected, but the point is
clear: We would risk losing crucial evidence in all of these cases if the contents of passcode-protected
smartphones were unavailable to us, even with a warrant. 16 The enormity of the loss is fully appreciated by
wrongdoers who use smartphones. Recently, a defendant in a serious felony case told another individual on recorded jailhouse call
that “Apple and Google came out with these softwares that can no longer be encrypted [sic: decrypted] by the police. . . . If our phones is running
on the i0[S]8 software, they can’t open my phone. That might be another gift from God.” This defendant’s appreciation of the safety that the iOS
8 operating system afforded him, is surely shared by criminal defendants in every jurisdiction in America charged with all manner of crimes,
including rape, kidnapping, robbery, promotion of child pornography, larceny, and presumably by those interested in committing acts of
terrorism. Criminal
defendants across the nation are the principal beneficiaries of iOS 8, and the safety of all
American communities is imperiled by it.

Data on encrypted devices is crucial to law enforcement and counterterrorism

Yates and Comey 7/8 <Sally Quillian Yates, Deputy Attorney General, and James B. Comey,
Director of the FBI, 7/8/2015, “Going Dark: Encryption, Technology, and the Balance Between Public
Safety and Privacy”, p.3-4, http://www.judiciary.senate.gov/imo/media/doc/07-08-15%20Yates%20and
%20Comey%20Joint%20Testimony1.pdf>//wx
The more we as a society rely on electronic devices to communicate and store info rmation, the more likely it is
that information that was once found in filing cabinets, letters, and photo albums will now be stored only in electronic form.
We have seen case after case – from homicides and kidnappings, to drug trafficking, financial fraud, and child exploitation – where
critical evidence came from smart phones, computers, and online communications. When changes in
technology hinder law enforcement’s ability to exercise investigative tools and follow critical leads, we may not be
able to identify and stop terrorists who are using social media to recruit, plan, and execute an attack in our country. We may not
be able to root out the child predators hiding in the shadows of the Internet, or find and arrest violent criminals who are targeting our
neighborhoods. We may not be able to recover critical information from a device that belongs to a victim who cannot
provide us with the password, especially when time is of the essence. These are not just theoretical concerns. We continue to identify
individuals who seek to join the ranks of foreign fighters traveling in support of the Islamic State of Iraq and the
Levant, commonly known as ISIL, and also homegrown violent extremists who may aspire to attack the United States from within.
These threats remain among the highest priorities for the Department of Justice, including the FBI, and the United States government as a whole.
Of course, encryption is not the only technology terrorists and criminals use to further their ends. Terrorist
groups, such as ISIL, use the
Internet to great effect. With the widespread horizontal distribution of social media, terrorists can spot, assess, recruit, and radicalize
vulnerable individuals of all ages in the United States either to travel or to conduct a homeland attack. As a result, foreign terrorist organizations
now have direct access into the United States like never before. For example, in recent arrests, a group of individuals was contacted by a known
ISIL supporter who had already successfully traveled to Syria and encouraged them to do the same. Some of these conversations occur in
publicly accessed social networking sites, but others take place via private messaging platforms. These encrypted direct messaging
platforms are tremendously problematic when used by terrorist plotters . Outside of the terrorism arena we see
countless examples of the impact changing technology is having on our ability to affect our court authorized investigative tools. For example, last
December a long-haul trucker kidnapped his girlfriend, held her in his truck, drove her from State to State and repeatedly sexually assaulted her.
She eventually escaped and pressed charges for sexual assault and kidnapping. The trucker claimed that the woman he had kidnapped engaged in
consensual sex. The trucker in this case happened to record his assault on video using a smartphone, and law enforcement was able to access the
content stored on that ‐ 4 - phone pursuant to a search warrant, retrieving video that revealed that the sex was not consensual. A jury subsequently
convicted the trucker. In a world where users have sole control over access to their devices and communications, and so can easily block all
lawfully-authorized access to their data, the jury would not have been able to consider that evidence, unless the truck driver, against his own
interest, provided the data. And the theoretical availability of other types of evidence , irrelevant to the case, would have
made no difference. In that world, the grim likelihood that he would go free is a cost that we must forthrightly acknowledge and consider.
We are seeing more and more cases where we believe significant evidence resides on a phone, a tablet, or
a laptop—evidence that may be the difference between an offender being convicted or acquitted . If we cannot
access this evidence, it will have ongoing, significant impacts on our ability to identify, stop, and prosecute these offenders. Legal Framework

Encryption blocks successful investigation – Investigators locked out

Ellen Nakashima and Barton Gellman ’15 (Ellen Nakashima is a national security reporter for The
Washington Post. Gellman writes for the national staff. He has contributed to three Pulitzer Prizes for The
Washington Post. He is a senior fellow at the Century Foundation and visiting lecturer at Princeton’s
Woodrow Wilson School. https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/as-encryption-
spreads-us-worries-about-access-to-data-for-investigations/2015/04/10/7c1c7518-d401-11e4-a62f-
ee745911a4ff_story.html)CK
Bitkower cited a case in Miami in December in which a long-haul trucker kidnapped his girlfriend, held
her in his truck, drove her from state to state and repeatedly sexually assaulted her. She eventually
escaped and pressed charges for sexual assault and kidnapping. His defense, Bitkower said, was that she
engaged in consensual sex. As it turned out, the trucker had video-recorded his assault, and the phone did
not have device encryption enabled. Law enforcement agents were able to get a warrant and retrieve the
video. It “revealed in quite disturbing fashion that this was not consensual,” Bitkower said. The jury
convicted the trucker. Officials and former agents say there will be cases in which crimes will go
unsolved because the data was unattainable because only the phone owner held the key. “I just look at the
number of cases I had where, if the bad guy was using one of these [locked] devices, we never would
have caught him,” said Timothy P. Ryan, a former FBI supervisory special agent who now leads Kroll
Associates’ cyber-investigations practice.

Encryption decks efforts to combat ISIS- online recruiting

Clare Hopping 7/8/15---Freelance editor and journalist as well as editorial editor for Longneck and
Thunderfoot. Cites FBI. (Hopping, “FBI director complains encryption makes his job harder”, ITpro.
http://www.itpro.co.uk/security/24943/fbi-encryption-helps-isis-recruit-new-members.)//ET
Universal encryption will help terrorists spread their creeds through secure messaging services, according
to the FBI. James Comey, director of the agency, claimed in a blog post that worldwide encryption will help groups like
ISIS ahead of his appearance at the Senate Intelligence Committee. He wrote that secure messaging services and social media
will help ISIS recruit new members online. "When the government's ability—with appropriate predication and court
oversight—to see an individual's stuff goes away , it will affect public safety," he wrote on pro surveillance website
Lawfare. "That tension is vividly illustrated by the current ISIL threat, which involves ISIL operators in Syria
recruiting and tasking dozens of troubled Americans to kill people , a process that increasingly takes part
through mobile messaging apps that are end-to-end encrypted, communications that may not be intercepted,
despite judicial orders under the Fourth Amendment."

Backdoors would allow criminals to bypass encryption

Phys.org 15 (“Security experts warn against encryption 'backdoors'”, 7/7/15, http://phys.org/news/2015-07-
experts-encryption-backdoors.html)

A group of computer code experts said Tuesday that law

enforcement cannot be given special access to encrypted
communications without opening the door to "malicious" actors. A research report published by the Massachusetts
Institute of Technology challenges claims from US and British authorities that such access is the policy response needed to fight crime and
terrorism. Providing
this kind of access "will open doors through which criminals and malicious nation-
states can attack the very individuals law enforcement seeks to defend ," said the report by 13 scientists. The paper was
released a day after FBI Director James Comey called for public debate on the use of encrypted communications, saying Americans may not
realize how radical groups and criminals are using the technology. Comey argued in a blog post that Islamic State militants are among those using
encryption to avoid detection. The New York Times, which reported earlier on the study, said Comey was expected to renew a call at a
congressional hearing for better access to encrypted communications to avoid "going dark." The computer
scientists said, however, that
any effort to build in access for law enforcement could be exceedingly complex and lead to "unintended
consequences," such as stifling innovation and creating hostility toward new tech products. "The costs would be substantial, the
damage to innovation severe, and the consequences to economic growth difficult to predict ," the report said.
"The costs to developed countries' soft power and to our moral authority would also be considerable." In the 1990s, there was a similar debate on
the "clipper chip" proposal to allow "a trusted third party" to have access to encrypted messages that could be granted under a legal process. The
clipper chip idea was abandoned, but the authors said that if it had been widely adopted, "it
is doubtful that companies like
Facebook and Twitter would even exist." The computer scientists said the idea of special access would create
numerous technical and legal challenges, leaving unclear who would have access and who would set standards.
NSA decryption is vital to counterterrorism – international consensus
Robertson 13 (Adi Robertson, tech policy correspondent for The Verge, “Intelligence chief says the
US attacks encryption because the bad guys use it”, 10/4/13,
http://www.theverge.com/2013/10/4/4803646/james-clapper-justifies-tor-breaking-as-necessary-to-fight-
terrorists) -LL
Director of National Intelligence James Clapper has responded to leaks showing how the NSA tried (and
largely failed) to break through Tor's encryption network. While his statement doesn't shed much new
light on the situation, it encapsulates the intelligence community's general response to criticism since the
first leaks were published: that the threat of terrorism or other threats to national security makes any
arguably legal tactic not only ethical, but vital. Recently published news articles discuss the intelligence
community's interest in tools used to facilitate anonymous online communication. The articles accurately
point out that the intelligence community seeks to understand how these tools work and the kind of
information being concealed. However, the articles fail to make clear that the intelligence community's
interest in online anonymity services and other online communication and networking tools is based on
the undeniable fact that these are the tools our adversaries use to communicate and coordinate attacks
against the United States and our allies. Clapper accuses the articles' authors (unnamed, but likely
journalist Glenn Greenwald and security expert Bruce Schneier) of painting an "inaccurate and
misleading picture of the intelligence community. “The reality is that the men and women at the National
Security Agency and across the intelligence community are abiding by the law, respecting the rights of
citizens and doing everything they can to help keep our nation safe," he says. To do this, they must "use
every intelligence tool available to understand the intent of our foreign adversaries." In the modern
telecommunications era, our adversaries have the ability to hide their messages and discussions among
those of innocent people around the world. They use the very same social networking sites, encryption
tools and other security features that protect our daily online activities. These are promises and warnings
we've heard many times, and they're all valid defenses of the overall surveillance apparatus. What they
don't do, unfortunately, is address the implicit questions that Greenwald and Schneier have posed: should
one wing of the US government attempt to undermine the very tools that other branches have helped
create? And is it valuable to be able to keep some communications almost completely private, even if
terrorists can also exercise this privacy? If the dismissive GCHQ comments of "pseudo-legitimate" Tor
uses are any indication, the international intelligence community's answer may be a resounding "No."

Decryption Methods Prevent Terrorism

Peterson 6/4-15(Andrea Reporter for Washington Post, “FBI official: Companies should help us
‘prevent encryption above all else’”, Washington Post, “http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/the-
switch/wp/2015/06/04/fbi-official-companies-should-help-us-prevent-encryption-above-all-else/”
The debate over encryption erupted on Capitol Hill again Wednesday, with an FBI official testifying that
law enforcement's challenge is working with tech companies "to build technological solutions to prevent
encryption above all else." At first glance the comment from Michael B. Steinbach, assistant director in the FBI's Counterterrorism
Division, might appear to go further than FBI Director James B. Comey. Encryption, a technology widely used to secure digital information by
scrambling data so only authorized users can decode it, is "a good thing," Comey has said, even if he wants the government to have the ability get
around it. [Special report: The Internet’s founders saw its promise but didn’t foresee users attacking one another] But Steinbach's
testimony also suggests he meant that companies shouldn't put their customers' access to encryption ahead
of national security concerns -- rather than saying the government's top priority should be preventing the use of the technology that
secures basically everything people do online. "Privacy, above all other things, including safety and freedom from
terrorism, is not where we want to go," Steinbach said. He also disputed the "back door" term used by
experts to describe such built-in access points. "We're not looking at going through a back door or being
nefarious," he argued, saying that the agency wants to be able to access content after going through a
judicial process.

Decryption is effective for counter-terrorism

Ataide 2/7/-13(Rui As a security conscious individual, I’ve learned to educate people on the advantages
of encryption, “The Man in the Middle: Advantages of SSL Decryption “,
RSA“https://blogs.rsa.com/author/rui-ataide/”
I’m currently involved on a lot of security analytics, security response, and other defensive activities.
While encryption provides a level of protection when it comes to defense, it also causes a lack of
visibility when analyzing network traffic. More and more, even the “bad guys” are using encryption to
cover their tracks and avoid detection. It’s therefore no surprise that more and more organizations are
using SSL inspection devices to monitor their traffic and infrastructure. I actually find myself
recommending that they do use the technology and how to best implement it. SSL inspection devices are nothing
more than a well designed man-in-the-middle attack that breaks the encryption into two separate encrypted streams.
Therefore, they still provide an adequate level of protection to end-users while allowing security analysts and devices to properly monitor and
alert when malicious or unwanted activity takes place. This could be something as simple as a user uploading a confidential document to his/her
personal webmail account or more elaborate as someone using an SSL VPN to connect back to a host using a Dynamic DNS name service (a
technique commonly used by current malware and advanced attackers).

Decryption is crucial to fighting cyberattacks

Butler 13 (J. Michael Butler, Associate Professor of Humanities at Flagler College, “Finding Hidden
Threats by Decrypting SSL”, November 2013, http://www.sans.org/reading-
room/whitepapers/analyst/finding-hidden-threats-decrypting-ssl-34840)
SSL encryption is crucial to protecting data in transit during web transactions, email communications and
the use of mobile apps. Data encrypted with this common method can sometimes pass uninspected
through almost all the components of your security framework, both inbound and outbound. As such, SSL
encryption has become a ubiquitous tool for the enemy to hide sensitive data transfers and to obfuscate
their command and control communications. For example, suppose a user has succumbed to one of the
many phishing emails she receives every day, has followed a bad URL link and inadvertently downloaded
encrypted Zeus malware to the financial officer’s computer used for ACH bank transfers. Under the cover
of encryption, Zeus sends that password information and other sensitive data to an external user, making
it possible for the remote attacker to capture a login session, use the transmitted password and deposit the
organization’s money in an offshore account. With all commands and traffic transmitted into and out of
the network via SSL, the company’s security tools were blind to these activities. Now companies are
accepting even more encrypted traffic as they shift toward greater use of cloud services. This means
malware will find more innovative ways to take advantage of this common form of transport encryption.
For example, attackers can use cloud services to bypass the firewall and synchronize malware from one
computer to another, as described in an August 2013 article in “Technology Review News.” 1 With the
good guys and bad guys both using encryption, making malicious traffic visible through decryption—and
inspecting it—becomes essential. The decryption must be conducted in a way that doesn’t interfere with
legitimate network traffic, while working with other security systems for optimum accuracy and
performance. Then, the traffic must be re-encrypted before sending it on to its destination to protect
sensitive information that might be caught up in the packets being decrypted. This whitepaper describes
the role of SSL, the role SSL decryption/inspection tools play in security, options for deploying
inspection tools, and how the information generated by such inspection can be shared with other security
monitoring systems.

NSA decryption Program Works

Insider Surveillance 12/30/-14(“NSA Decryption: New Snowden Leak is Ancient History “,Insider
surveilance“https://insidersurveillance.com/nsa-decryption-new-snowden-leak-is-ancient-history/”)
Well-known for many months now is that the NSA views encryption as a threat to national security, and
classifies five types of network communications challenges ranging from “trivial,” “minor” and
“moderate” on the low end to the most serious, “major” and “catastrophic.” Small time stuff for NSA
Decryption experts: Peer-to-Peer. Skype, still touted as a “secure” form of voice & video communication
by owner Microsoft, has been an open book to NSA analysts since at least 2011. Secure Socket Layer —
Not so Much. Web connections via https — with the “s” standing for secure, and using secure socket
layer (SSL) for encryption, are a snap to break into. NSA routinely captures untold number of SSL
handshakes, then analyzes metadata about the connections and metadata from the encryption protocols to
break the keys and decrypt any traffic on the Internet via man-in-the-middle attacks. Virtual Private
Networks. Long considered highly secure, and still used to connect mediation devices/routers with law
enforcement end points, VPNs have for quite some time been readily opened and their contents reviewed
by NSA analysts. “Major” encryption challenges deemed difficult but not impossible: Zoho and Tor. As
of 2012 the NSA had problems cracking messages sent through encrypted email service providers Zoho.
Monitoring users of the Tor network was also a challenge. Truecrypt. The leaked files point to Truecrypt,
a program for “on the fly encruption,” as a major headache for the NSA several years ago. Truecrypt was
discontinued in May 2014 and developers urged site visitors to find another source for encryption. Read:
The NSA figured it out. Off-the-Record (OTR). OTR is an open source protocol for encrypting instant
messaging in an end-to-end encryption process. OTR once proved a formidable challenge by combining
AES symmetric key algorithm,the Diffie-Hellman method of securely exchanging cryptographic keys
over a public channel, and SHA-1 (secure hash algorithm) cryptographic hash function developed by the
NSA itself in the mid-1990s. Any combination of encryption modes raises the bar for network
penetration. In addition, open source software is harder to attach back doors to without the public
noticing. Back in 2011 – 2012, released documents showed that OTR occasionally created problems for
NSA. One internal comment reads, “No decrypt available for this OTR encrypted message.” However,
tech moves on. The NSA — being a significant user of encryption itself — is often directly behind new
developments in the field like SHA-1. Like all honest brokers in the field, NSA likes to crack its own
work, find the weak spots, fix them and move on. New and improved versions of the hash function
include SHA-2 and SHA-3. Companies are following NSA’s lead. Microsoft announced in Nov 2013 its
“depracation” policy for discontinuing use of SHA-1. Google followed suit for Chrome in Sept 2014.
Does this mean that the SHA-1 component of OTR is no longer a head-scratcher for NSA? Yep. What
earns the moniker “catastrophic” at NSA? At the head of the list, at least in 2012, was the challenge of
users combining Tor with other anonymizing services such as ZRTP, which encrypts VoIP voice and text
chats on mobile phones. The “Z” stands for its author, Phil Zimmerman, and the “RTP” for Real-Time
Transport Protocol.” ZRTP uses Diffie-Hellman secure key cryptography, and auto-senses for other VoIP
clients that support ZRTP. It is common to open source programs such as Signal and Redphone. While
Tor and ZRTP penetration may have seemed insurmountable several years, the UK’s NSA equivalent —
GCHQ — has proposed methods for breaking into Tor and defeating other encryption methods.

Targeting terrorist use of encryption is key

Davis, United States representative to Palestine, Congressional aide, lawyer, 2006
(Benjamin R. , European Journal for Criminology, “ENDING THE CYBER JIHAD: COMBATING
TERRORIST EXPLOITATION OF THE INTERNET WITH THE RULE OF LAW AND IMPROVED
TOOLS FOR CYBER GOVERNANCE” 2006, HeinOnline, ES)
As law enforcement and security services' interception of terrorists' messages in some countries has
grown,92 operatives have increasingly utilized encryption technologies to communicate online via e-
mail.93 As the Washington Post reported, "Al Qaeda members have taught individuals ... how to use the
Internet to send messages and how to encrypt those communications to avoid detection."'94 For example,
Wadih El-Hage, Osama bin Laden's former personal secretary and a senior planner of the 1998 Al Qaeda
bombings of U.S. Embassies in Kenya and Tanzania, "sent en- crypted e-mails under various names to
associates in Al Qaeda.' '95 In addition, "Khalik Deek, an alleged terrorist arrested in Pakistan in 1999,
used encrypted computer files to plot bombings in Jordan at the turn of the millennium. '9' 6 The
convicted planner of the 1993 World Trade Center bombing, Ramzi Yousef, "used encrypted files to hide
details of a plot to destroy eleven U.S. airliners over the Pacific Ocean. 97
Targeting encrypted data key to countering terrorist backdoors
Barfield 6/9/15 [ Claude Barfield, a former consultant to the office of the U.S. Trade Representative,
researches international trade policy (including trade policy in China and East Asia), the World Trade
Organization (WTO), intellectual property, and science and technology policy. “Encryption: The next
battle between security and privacy”, American Enterprise Institute,
https://www.aei.org/publication/encryption-the-next-battle-between-security-and-privacy/] Schuler 20
Over the past several weeks, we have witnessed an intense debate over cybersecurity and privacy,
revolving around the USA Freedom Act. A badly divided Congress, finally—in a rebuke to Senate
Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) and other defenders of the status quo—mandated the end of
the so-called NSA metadata (bulk collection) program that swept up data on the dates, times and location
of phone calls. The battle over the NSA metadata program, however, is only the first of what are likely to
be a series of clashes over the balance between security and privacy. Looming as the next faceoff is the
conflict over encryption and the moves by a number of US technology companies to protect their
customers against hackers, whether private or public. In the US, ,the current skirmish was precipitated by
announcements from Apple and Google that they were installing encryption protection in their cellphones
that would allow only users—and no outside individual or public official—to unblock the devices. Text
messaging services such as WhatsApp and iMessage have followed suit. FBI Director James Comey has
taken the lead in strenuous opposition to the encryption moves, denouncing “companies that are
marketing something expressly to allow people to place themselves beyond the law.” Following up, last
week FBI Assistant Director Michael Steinbach warned a congressional committee that crime groups and
terrorists organizations such as ISIS were “going dark” with encryption, heightening the chance that
future attacks would go unmasked. House Homeland Security Committee Chairman Michael McCaul (R-
TX) responded by labeling the use of encryption a “threat to the homeland.” Thus far, US tech companies
are defiant and determined to increase encryption applications to their technologies. Google’s Eric
Schmidt argued that the security agencies had only themselves to blame: “The people who criticized this
are the ones who should have expected this.” And Apple CEO Tom Cook recently delivered an
impassioned defense of encryption, labeling attempts to undermine encryption “incredibly dangerous.”
The companies make two arguments. First, technologically, there is no way to introduce “backdoors” for
the government without allowing criminals or terrorists to exploit the same flaws. Second, they argue that
the government has a number of alternatives: much cellphone data is now stored in the providers’ cloud
services and can be retrieved; legal wiretaps of smartphones are not affected; and finally, officials can still
retrieve real-time phone records and logs of text messages. There is also an international dimension to the
conflict. British Prime Minister David Cameron, new re-elected, has vowed to push through legislation
that would force tech companies doing business in Great Britain to provide encryption to police and
security officials or risk being banned from that country. In France, in the wake of the Hebdo massacre,
new security legislation gives sweeping powers to the government to undertake a host of new tactics
against future terrorist attacks. And the loose language may allow similar action against encrypted
devices. Back in the United States, the resolution of the standoff is unclear. Chairman McCaul and others
have yet to push hard for legislation. And the position of the Obama administration remains
indeterminate. President Obama has been equivocal. When queried insistently by the press, he responded
that he sympathized with the tech companies: “They’re patriots.” But the president went on to note: “If
we find evidence of a terrorist plot…and despite having a phone number, despite having a social media
address or e-mail address, we can’t penetrate that, that’s a problem.” If the syntax was garbled, so was the
message.
Encryption cracking necessary to prevent terrorism

Network World, September 19, 2013, NSA wants even closer partnership with tech industry;
NSA's Debora Plunkett says NSA's now is real-time automated information sharing on a large scale,
http://www.networkworld.com/news/2013/091913-nsa-tech-industry-274011.html DOA: 2-1-15

The National Security Agency's director of information assurance today said the "way to achieve
confidence in cyberspace" is to increase collaboration between the government and the high-tech
industry -- remarks that rang ironic given former NSA contractor Edward Snowden's revelations about
how NSA works with industry. NSA documents leaked by Snowden showed that the NSA's goal is to
build backdoors into commercial products and weaken encryption to make it easier for
surveillance, allegations that the U.S. government has not even tried to refute. When asked about that
today, NSA director of information assurance Debora Plunkett, who gave the keynote address at the New
York Institute of Technology Cyber Security Conference here, flatly refused to discuss the topic. But her
keynote address was intended to get hardware and software vendors to work in ever-closer partnership
with the NSA. Cyberattacks that could take electricity grids offline and disrupt transportation
systems are possible, Plunkett said in her keynote, pointing out the destructive attack that hit Saudi
Aramco last year and impacted data systems there. [RELATED: Reported NSA actions raise serious
questions about tech industry partnerships MORE: Black Hat: Top 20 hack-attack tools] It's a simple
matter to hire hacking services to carry out attacks such as denial-of-service, she said, and the fear now is
of "integrity attacks" that would destroy or alter critical data. These are all "cyber security challenges,"
she noted, and the government today is largely dependent on commercial hardware and software for
which the NSA itself cannot "provide indemnification." NSA's needs industry's help, she said. Plunkett
said "we have to have a community come together" to collaborate on security in mobility and the cloud
especially. The NSA expects that the future of network security lies in "more automated cyber
defense" based on "large-scale automation" that would reduce the need for manpower where there
would be more real-time sharing of findings. She said there's a need for collaboration with ISPs and
hardware companies to achieve all of this. "We have to build a close partnership," she said, adding, there
can be "confidence in cyberspace" if "we stay the course." Plunkett is a 29-year veteran of the NSA who
worked her way up through the ranks to have a hand in guiding strategic direction for the agency, which
carries out surveillance to help defend the country against cyberthreats. But NSA documents recently
leaked by Snowden show that the NSA views its partnership with industry in part as a way to subvert
security in commercial products and services to make cyber-spying easier. This revelation casts NSA's
call for industry partnership and its insistence that there can be "confidence in cyberspace" in a
questionable light.

The Bullrun program is key to decrypting internet communications and data relevant to
international terrorism
Larson, Perlroth, and Shane, 9/5/13 (Jeff, Data Editor at ProPublica; Nicole, The New York Times;
Scott, The New York Times; ProPublica, the organization that Snowden gave his leaks, ” Revealed: The
NSA’s Secret Campaign to Crack, Undermine Internet Security” http://www.propublica.org/article/the-
nsas-secret-campaign-to-crack-undermine-internet-encryption, accessed 7/14/15)
Many users assume — or have been assured by Internet companies — that their data is safe from prying eyes, including those of the government,
and the N.S.A. wants to keep it that way. Theagency treats its recent successes in deciphering protected information
as among its most closely guarded secrets, restricted to those cleared for a highly classified program code-
named Bullrun, according to the documents, provided by Edward J. Snowden, the former N.S.A. contractor. Beginning in 2000, as encryption
tools were gradually blanketing the Web, the N.S.A. invested billions of dollars in a clandestine campaign to
preserve its ability to eavesdrop. Having lost a public battle in the 1990s to insert its own “back door” in all encryption, it set out to
accomplish the same goal by stealth. The agency, according to the documents and interviews with industry officials, deployed custom-built,
superfast computers to break codes, and began collaborating with technology companies in the United States and abroad to build entry points into
their products. The documents do not identify which companies have participated. The N.S.A. hacked into target computers to snare messages
before they were encrypted. And the agency used its influence as the world’s most experienced code maker to covertly introduce weaknesses into
the encryption standards followed by hardware and software developers around the world. “For the past decade ,
N.S.A. has led an
aggressive, multipronged effort to break widely used Internet encryption technologies ,” said a 2010 memo
describing a briefing about N.S.A. accomplishments for employees of its British counterpart, Government Communications Headquarters, or
GCHQ. “Cryptanalytic capabilities are now coming online. Vast amounts of encrypted Internet data which have up till now been discarded are
now exploitable.” When the British analysts, who often work side by side with N.S.A. officers, were first told about the program, another memo
said, “those not already briefed were gobsmacked!” An intelligence budget document makes clear that the effort is still going strong. “We are
investing in groundbreaking cryptanalytic capabilities to defeat adversarial cryptography and exploit Internet traffic,” the director of national
intelligence, James R. Clapper Jr., wrote in his budget request for the current year. In recent months, the documents disclosed by Mr. Snowden
have described the N.S.A.’s broad reach in scooping up vast amounts of communications around the world. The
encryption documents
now show, in striking detail, how the agency works to ensure that it is actually able to read the
information it collects. The agency’s success in defeating many of the privacy protections offered by encryption does not change the
rules that prohibit the deliberate targeting of Americans’ e-mails or phone calls without a warrant. But it shows that the agency, which was
sharply rebuked by a federal judge in 2011 for violating the rules and misleading the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court, cannot necessarily
be restrained by privacy technology. N.S.A. rules permit the agency to store any encrypted communication, domestic or foreign, for as long as the
agency is trying to decrypt it or analyze its technical features. The N.S.A., which has specialized in code-breaking since its creation in 1952, sees
that task as essential to its mission.
If it cannot decipher the messages of terrorists, foreign spies and other
adversaries, the United States will be at serious risk, agency officials say. Just in recent weeks, the Obama
administration has called on the intelligence agencies for details of communications by Qaeda leaders about
a terrorist plot and of Syrian officials’ messages about the chemical weapons attack outside Damascus. If such
communications can be hidden by unbreakable encryption, N.S.A. officials say, the agency cannot do its
work.

Without access to backdoors, law enforcement won’t have the capacity to collect intelligence data
because of increasingly complex encryption
AP 7/8 (Eric Tucker, “FBI, JUSTICE DEPT. TAKE ENCRYPTION CONCERNS TO
CONGRESS” Associated Press, http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/U/US_FBI_ENCRYPTION?
SITE=AP&amp;SECTION=HOME&amp;TEMPLATE=DEFAULT&amp;CTIME=2015-07-08-
06-22-03)
WASHINGTON (AP) -- Federal law enforcement officials warned Wednesday that data encryption is
making it harder to hunt for pedophiles and terror suspects, telling senators that consumers' right to
privacy is not absolute and must be weighed against public-safety interests.¶ The testimony before the
Senate Judiciary Committee marked the latest front in a high-stakes dispute between the Obama
administration and some of the world's most influential tech companies, placing squarely before Congress
an ongoing discussion that shows no signs of an easy resolution. Senators, too, offered divided opinions. ¶
FBI and Justice Department officials have repeatedly asserted that encryption technology built into
smartphones makes it harder for them to monitor and intercept messages from criminal suspects, such as
Islamic State sympathizers who communicate online and child predators who conceal pornographic
images. They say it's critical that they be able to access encrypted communications during investigations,
with companies maintaining the key to unlock such data.¶ But they face fierce opposition from Silicon
Valley companies who say encryption safeguards customers' privacy rights and offers protections from
hackers, corporate spies and other breaches. The companies in recent months have written to the Obama
administration and used public speeches to argue for the value of strong encryption.¶ FBI Director James
Comey, who has pressed his case repeatedly over the last year before think tanks and in other settings,
sought Wednesday to defuse some of the tension surrounding the dispute. He told senators that he
believed technology companies were fundamentally on the same page as law enforcement, adding, "I am
not here to fight a war."¶ "Encryption is a great thing. It keeps us all safe. It protects innovation," Comey
said. "It protects my children. It protects my health care. It is a great thing." ¶ But he warned that criminals
were using encryption to create a safe zone from law enforcement. He said that concern was especially
acute at a time when the Islamic State has been recruiting sympathizers through social media and then
directing them to encrypted platforms that federal agents cannot access.¶ "Our job is to look at a haystack
the size of this country for needles that are increasingly invisible to us because of end-to-end encryption,"
he said.¶
 Deterrence
Independently, the perception of widespread surveillance is crucial to deter effective
terrorist communication --- the plan emboldens effective regrouping
Rascoff 14 [Samuel J. Rascoff, Associate Professor of Law, Faculty Director, Center on Law and
Security, New York University School of Law, “COUNTERTERRORISM AND NEW DETERRENCE,”
2014]
An open question - an answer to which requires more empirical data - is whether the government's prosecution of
relatively amateur would-be terrorists based on stings is likely to be effective in deterring better-trained
terrorists. n109 But it bears remembering that the viability [*855] of the deterrence-based account of stings does not
depend on who is prosecuted. The mere fact of prosecution can alter terrorists' perceptions of future success
by implying a pervasive surveillance network n110 facilitated by technology. n111 As Alex Wilner observed of
Canadian counterterrorism, the fact that the country's "intelligence community clearly has the means and the tools to uncover
plots expeditiously" creates an "overwhelming perception ... that terrorists are unlikely to evade Canada's watchful eye."
n112 In sum, the meaning of a sting operation and subsequent trial must include the strategic benefits of revealing the fact of undercover
surveillance as well as the normative costs implied by widespread
surveillance. n113 This in turn illustrates the [*856] complicated
New deterrence also enriches
relationship between transparency and secrecy entailed by new deterrence. C. Psychology and Strikes
understanding of the role of fear and emotion in counterterrorism. Terrorism aims at communicating vulnerability and
sowing distrust; violent attacks are, in a sense, means to bring about these more intangible objectives. n114 (Thus, building sufficient social
resiliency to withstand terrorist attacks, as new deterrence counsels, deprives terrorists of an important goal, even when an attack succeeds. n115)
But fear n116 and distrust are also part of the counterterrorism repertoire. n117 Inevitably this fact raises serious [*857] normative issues. First is
the foundational question of what it means for the state to manage terrorist risk through the potentially widespread, deliberate employment of
fear. n118 Rich sociological and historical literature attest to the emotional costs of aggressive national security tactics. n119 Second is a concern
about the distribution of fear and whether the government considers race and religion when employing it. n120 My central point here, however, is
not normative so much as conceptual: Whereas policymakers, lawyers, and the general public often define counterterrorism as the sum of so
many violent interventions, new deterrence reminds us that counterterrorism also operates in a psychological
register. Unlike traditional deterrence, which conveys its message through fear of being caught and punished, new deterrence
relies on a wider and subtler range of official modalities that go to the likelihood of terrorist success. For
example, the government may aim to demoralize an adversary by telegraphing the state's overwhelming
might. The state might do so by "spreading false or exaggerated rumors of the [*858] existence of sting operations,"
n121 sowing a sense of distrust within a cell by implying that one among them is on an official payroll, or even conveying
an image of officials as irrational and prone to unmeasured violence.
 Every Piece Matters
Successful counterterrorism requires a broad, multi-faceted strategy – removing even
a small part of the mandate weakens the entire mission
White House ‘11
[White House Brief on Federal/Local Partnerships to Combat Extremism. “Empowering Local Partners to
Combat Violent Extremism” August 2011
https://www.whitehouse.gov/sites/default/files/empowering_local_partners.pdf ]
We are fortunate that our experience with community-based problem solving, local partnerships, and community-
oriented policing provides a basis for addressing violent extremism as part of a broader mandate of community
safety. We therefore are building our efforts to counter radicalization that leads to violence in the United States
from existing structures, while creating capacity to fill gaps as we implement programs and initiatives. Rather than creating a new
architecture of institutions and funding, we are utilizing successful models, increasing their scope and scale where
appropriate.¶ While communities must often lead this effort, the Federal Government has a significant
responsibility. Our research and consultations with local stakeholders, communities, and foreign partners have
underscored that the Federal Government’s most effective role in strengthening community partnerships
and preventing violent extremism is as a facilitator, convener, and source of information. The Federal
Government will often be ill-suited to intervene in the niches of society where radicalization to violence
takes place, but it can foster partnerships to support communities through its connections to local
government, law enforcement, Mayor’s offices, the private sector, local service providers, academia, and many others who can help prevent violent
extremism. Federal departments and agencies have begun expanding support to local stakeholders and
practitioners who are on the ground and positioned to develop grassroots partnerships with the
communities they serve. Our central goal in this effort is to prevent violent extremists and their supporters
from inspiring, radicalizing, financing, or recruiting individuals or groups in the United States to commit
acts of violence. The U.S. Government will work tirelessly to counter support for violent extremism and to ensure that, as new violent groups and ideologies
emerge, they fail to gain a foothold in our country. Achieving this aim requires that we all work together—government,
communities, the private sector, the general public, and others—to develop effective programs and
initiatives.

Every facet of domestic surveillance is critical because successfully preventing

attacks requires successful coordination of diffuse priorities
White House ‘11
[“Strategic Implementation Plan for Empowering Local Partners to Prevent Violent Extremism in the
United States” December 2011 https://www.whitehouse.gov/sites/default/files/sip-final.pdf ]
There are fundamental activities that are critical to our success and cut across the objectives of the SIP. These include: (1) whole-
of-government coordination; (2) leveraging existing public safety, violence prevention, and community resilience
programming; (3) coordination of domestic and international CVE efforts , consistent with legal limits; and (4)
addressing technology and virtual space. In many instances, these crosscutting and supportive activities describe
the ongoing activities of departments and agencies in fulfilling their broader missions. As they implement new initiatives and
programs in support of the SIP, departments and agencies will ensure these enabling activities appropriately guide their
efforts.¶ 1. Whole-of-Government Coordination¶ Leveraging the wide range of tools, capabilities, and resources of the
United States Government in a¶ coordinated manner is essential for success. Traditional national security or law
enforcement agencies such as DHS, DOJ, and the FBI will execute many of the programs and activities outlined in the SIP.
However, as the National Strategy for Empowering Local Partners states, we must also use a broader set of good governance
programs, “including those that promote immigrant integration and civic engagement, protect civil rights, and provide social services, which may also help
prevent radicalization that leads to violence.” To this end, agencies such as EDU and HHS, which have substantial expertise in engaging communities and delivering
services, also play a role.¶ This does not mean the missions and priorities of these partners will change or that their efforts will become narrowly focused on national
security. Their inclusion stems from our recognition that radicalization to violence depends on a variety of
factors, which in some instances may be most effectively addressed by departments and agencies that historically have not been responsible for national security
or law enforcement. These non-security partners, including specific components within DOJ and DHS, have an array of tools that can
contribute to this effort by providing indirect but meaningful impact on CVE, including after school programs, networks
of community-based organizations that provide assistance to new immigrants, and violence prevention programs . We will coordinate activities ,
where appropriate, to support the CVE effort while ensuring we do not change the core missions and functions of these
departments and agencies.
 National Security Letters
Our dead drops link:
Terrorists coordinate attacks using email dead drops
Davis, United States representative to Palestine, Congressional aide, lawyer, 2006
(Benjamin R. , European Journal for Criminology, “ENDING THE CYBER JIHAD: COMBATING
TERRORIST EXPLOITATION OF THE INTERNET WITH THE RULE OF LAW AND IMPROVED
TOOLS FOR CYBER GOVERNANCE” 2006, HeinOnline, p. 138-9)
E-mail dead drops are another simple but effective tactic used by terrorist conspirators. E-mail dead drops
involve the distribution of a user name and password for an e-mail account to members of a terrorist cell
who can then enter the account and save an unsent message in the draft folder for the other account
users." ° Because the message is never sent from the account, there is no identifying information to assist
law enforcement officials in tracing the IP address or location of the message creator.1 ' Khalid Sheik
Mohammed, a key planner of the September 11 th attacks arrested in Pakistan in March 2003,'12 "used
the e-mail dead drop technique to avoid having his e-mails intercepted by eavesdroppers in the United
States or allied governments." ' 3 Mohammed or his operatives would open an account on a free, public e-
mail service such as Hotmail, write a message in draft form, save it as a draft, then transmit the e-mail
account name and password during chatter on a relatively secure message board .... The intended recipient
could then open the e-mail account and read the draft .... 114 Because no e-mail message was sent, there
was a reduced risk of interception by authorities.

NSL’s are key to stop those because they require ISPs to grant access
Davis, United States representative to Palestine, Congressional aide, lawyer, 2006
(Benjamin R. , European Journal for Criminology, “ENDING THE CYBER JIHAD: COMBATING
TERRORIST EXPLOITATION OF THE INTERNET WITH THE RULE OF LAW AND IMPROVED
TOOLS FOR CYBER GOVERNANCE” 2006, HeinOnline, p. 151-3)
In the weeks following the September 11th attacks, Congress passed the Uniting and Strengthening
America by Providing Appropriate Tools Required to Intercept and Obstruct Terrorism Act ("PATRIOT
Act"),2° which was designed to address inadequacies in our nation's homeland security and to provide the
necessary tools to address these problems.0 5 In the area of cyber terrorism, however, the Act narrowly
focuses on stiffer penalties for individuals who carry out offensive cyber attacks resulting in physical
injury to American citizens, damage to U.S. facilities, or threaten public health or safety.2 °" The
legislation also authorizes additional funding for forensic laboratories to investigate cyber crimes. 27
However, the law does not include penalties for using the Internet to promote or communicate terrorism-
related activities unrelated to cyber attacks. Instead, Congress appears content to allow terrorism-related
activity on the Internet to be governed by anti-terrorism statutes.20 8 The Bush administration has
emphasized that the PATRIOT Act encourages ISPs and e-mail providers to act as cyber watchdogs and
report suspi- 209 cious online activities. In a July 2005 speech, President Bush argued that the PATRIOT
Act enhances the security of the Internet by protecting ISPs from civil lawsuits "when they give
information to law enforcement when it would help law enforcement prevent a threat of death or serious
injury.,' 210 The statutory provision, however, encourages rather than requires ISPs to report threatening
information on their sites.2 1' To date, there is no available evidence to suggest that ISPs, Web hosts, or e-
mail providers have increased their monitoring or reporting of suspected terrorism-related emails since
September 11th.212 Furthermore, the voluntary nature of this measure limits the likelihood that an ISP
would shut down a Web site at the request of the government out of a fear that such action will raise civil
liberties and prior restraint concerns. 213
 General Surveillance Restriction Links

Surveillance key to stop lone wolf domestic terrorism – recent cases prove
David Inserra specializes in cyber and homeland security policy, including protection of critical
infrastructure, as research assistant in The Heritage Foundation’s Allison Center for Foreign Policy
Studies; 7-5-15 (“How to turn the tide on terrorism,” Omaha, http://www.omaha.com/opinion/david-
inserra-how-to-turn-the-tide-on-terrorism/article_583ccd2b-3b3d-509d-b3a4-d18619f36ca2.html, ME)
Most of us are familiar with Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, thanks to media coverage of the Boston Marathon bombing case. But
very few have heard of Munther Omar Saleh. There’s a good reason for that, though. Both shared a desire to
commit acts of terrorism, but Saleh’s plans, unlike Tsarnaev’s, were disrupted before they could be carried
out. He and two co-conspirators considered numerous sites in New York City for their attack before being
arrested on June 13 — the 70th publicly known terror plot on the U.S. since 9/11. So how was Saleh’s attack
foiled? And how can we address the current spike in terrorist activity? Let’s consider these important questions in turn. Late last year, Saleh
began making radical statements through social media . He called al-Qaida “too moderate” and expressed support
for the caliphate that the Islamic State claims to have established in parts of Iraq and Syria. He expressed support for the attack on the
Mohammed cartoon contest in Texas and began to translate Islamic State and other radical videos and material into English. The FBI began
watching Saleh and his computer activity through judicially authorized surveillance, and in March twice
found him examining the George Washington Bridge between New York and New Jersey. They interviewed Saleh. He denied supporting Islamic
State or holding any radical, violent beliefs, but he provided access to his computer. He then denied reading or translating the radical material
they found on it. In May, Saleh began to research weapons, training and equipment that could be used to carry
out violent attacks and bombings. He downloaded instructions for building a pressure-cooker bomb; researched various weapons, as
well as surveillance and disguise equipment and electronics; and continued to look at various New York landmarks. During this time, Saleh
was also enrolled in an electrical engineering course that would teach him skills useful for building a bomb . When
approached by a confidential informant, Saleh said he was “in NY and trying to do an op,” a reference to his terrorist operations and plotting. He
would not communicate further with the informant, however, because he was ordered by officials he believed to be part of Islamic State not to
communicate with others. On June 13, Saleh and another co-conspirator were picked up by Fareed Mumuni and began to perform anti-
surveillance measures — driving without lights, not stopping at stop signs, and erratically pulling over and speeding up. At around 4 a.m., they
stopped at a red light, and Saleh (with knife in hand) and one other individual got out of the car and charged a law enforcement vehicle tracking
them. Their surveillance operation blown, the police moved in and arrested Saleh and the other conspirator who ran at the police vehicle. After
questioning Saleh, the FBI learned that the group had planned to use a bomb, run over law enforcement
that responded with a car, and then take their weapons to attack others. Saleh pledged full allegiance to
the Islamic State and claimed that his co-conspirators had also . When the FBI went to arrest Mumuni on June 17, he
stabbed an FBI agent multiple times, but the agent’s vest prevented the knife from doing serious injury. The Saleh case, one of three
foiled attacks in June alone, shows why law enforcement and intelligence officials need more tools to
stop terrorists before they strike — not fewer, as some lawmakers have suggested . Legitimate
government surveillance programs, for example, are a vital component of our national security and
should be allowed to continue. Greater cyber-investigation capabilities in the higher-risk urban areas are
also essential. With so much terrorism-related activity occurring on the Internet, local law
enforcement should be able to monitor and track violent extremist activity on the Web when
reasonable suspicion exists to do so. Greater intelligence and law enforcement cooperation is also needed to uncover and neutralize
terrorist plots, curtail the flow of foreign fighters to Syria, and monitor the activities of foreign fighters who have returned to the U.S. and other
countries. This doesn’t mean we allow anything in the name of national security. Far from it. The government has an obligation to follow the law
and respect individual privacy and liberty. But within those necessary strictures, we
should give our law enforcement and
intelligence officials all the tools they need — to ensure that any future aspiring terrorists remain as
unknown as Munther Omar Saleh.
Communication surveillance essential to prevent terrorism

Lewis 14 (senior fellow and director of the Strategic Technologies Program at the Center for
Strategic and International Studies)
(James Andrew, Underestimating Risk in the Surveillance Debate, http://csis.org/files/publication/141209_-
Lewis_UnderestimatingRisk_Web.pdf)

There is general agreement that as terrorists splinter into regional groups, the risk of attack increases.
Certainly, the threat to Europe from militants returning from Syria points to increased risk for U.S. allies. The messy U.S. withdrawal from Iraq and (soon) Afghanistan contributes to an increase in risk.24
European authorities have increased surveillance and arrests of suspected militants as the Syrian conflict lures hundreds of Europeans. Spanish counterterrorism police say they have broken up more terrorist cells
than in any other European country in the last three years.25 The chairman of the House Select Committee on Intelligence, who is better placed than most members of Congress to assess risk, said in June 2014
that the level of terrorist activity was higher than he had ever seen it.26 If the United States overreacted in response to September 11, it now risks overreacting to the leaks with potentially fatal consequences.

A simple assessment of the risk of attack by jihadis would take into account a resurgent Taliban,
the power of lslamist groups in North Africa, the continued existence of Shabaab in Somalia,
and the appearance of a powerful new force, the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS). Al Qaeda, previously the
leading threat, has splintered into independent groups that make it a less coordinated force but more difficult target. On the positive side, the United States, working with allies and friends, appears to have
contained or eliminated jihadi groups in Southeast Asia.
Many of these groups seek to use adherents in Europe and the United States for manpower and funding. A Florida teenager was a suicide bomber in Syria and Al Shabaab has in the past drawn upon the
Somalipopulation in the United States. Hamas and Hezbollah have achieved quasi-statehood status, and Hamas has supporters in the United States. Iran, which supports the two groups, has advanced capabilities
to launch attacks and routinely attacked U.S. forces in Iraq. The United Kingdom faces problems from several hundred potential terrorists within its large Pakistani population, and there are potential attackers in
other Western European nations, including Germany, Spain, and the Scandinavian countries. France, with its large Muslim population faces the most serious challenge and is experiencing a wave of troubling
anti-Semitic attacks that suggest both popular support for extremism and a decline in control by security forces. The chief difference between now and the situation before 9/11 is that all of these countries have
put in place much more robust surveillance systems, nationally and in cooperation with others, including the United States, to detect and prevent potential attacks. Another difference is that the failure of U.S.

Western targets still

efforts in Iraq and Afghanistan and the opportunities created by the Arab Spring have opened a new “front” for jihadi groups that makes their primary focus regional.

remain of interest, but are more likely to face attacks from domestic sympathizers . This could
change if the well-resourced ISIS is frustrated in its efforts to establish a new Caliphate and
turns its focus to the West. In addition, the al Qaeda affiliate in Yemen (al Qaeda in the Arabian
Peninsula) continues to regularly plan attacks against U.S. targets.
The incidence of attacks in the United States or Europe is very low, but we do not have good data on
the number of planned attacks that did not come to fruition . This includes not just attacks that
were detected and stopped, but also attacks where the jihadis were discouraged and did not
initiate an operation or press an attack to its conclusion because of operational difficulties .
These attacks are the threat that mass surveillance was created to prevent . The needed reduction
in public anti-terror measures without increasing the chances of successful attack is contingent
upon maintaining the capability provided by communications surveillance to detect, predict, and
prevent attacks. Our opponents have not given up; neither should we.

Communication surveillance the best way to reduce terrorism

Lewis 14 (senior fellow and director of the Strategic Technologies Program at the Center for
Strategic and International Studies)
(James Andrew, Underestimating Risk in the Surveillance Debate, http://csis.org/files/publication/141209_-
Lewis_UnderestimatingRisk_Web.pdf)

The echoes of September 11 have faded and the fear of attack has diminished. We are reluctant to accept
terrorism as a facet of our daily lives, but major attacks—roughly one a year in the last five years—are
regularly planned against U.S. targets, particularly passenger aircraft and cities. America’s failures in
the Middle East have spawned new, aggressive terrorist groups . These groups include
radicalized recruits from the West —one estimate puts the number at over 3,000—who will return
home embittered and hardened by combat. Particularly in Europe, the next few years will see an influx of
jihadis joining the existing population of homegrown radicals, but the United States itself remains a
target.
America’s size and population make it is easy to disappear into the seams of this sprawling society.
Government surveillance is, with one exception and contrary to cinematic fantasy, limited and
disconnected. That exception is communications surveillance, which provides the best and perhaps
the only national-level solution to find and prevent attacks against Americans and their allies .
 Some of the suggestions for alternative approaches to surveillance, such as the recommendation
that NSA only track “known or suspected terrorists,” reflect both deep ignorance and wishful
thinking. It is the unknown terrorist who will inflict the greatest harm . This administration could
reasonably argue that everything it has done is legal and meets existing requirements for oversight, but
this defense is universally perceived as legalistic hairsplitting. If the government can be faulted, it is for
obsessive secrecy. The public debate over NSA’s surveillance programs routinely exaggerates risks and
errors, 1 but in the absence of a compelling official narrative, the space was filled with conjecture and
distortion. This has not helped a crucial debate where a wrong answer could mean more bombings.

Surveillance of communication info is key to check terror risks

Clarke ‘13
(et al; This is the Final Report and Recommendations of The President’s Review Group on Intelligence and Communications
Technologies. President Obama ordered a blue-ribbon task force to review domestic surveillance. This report releases the
findings of that group. The report was headed by five experts – including Richard Alan Clarke, who is the former National
Coordinator for Security, Infrastructure Protection, and Counter-terrorism for the United States. Other expert contributors include
Michael Joseph Morell, who was the deputy director of the Central Intelligence Agency and served as acting director twice in
2011 and from 2012 to 2013 and Cass Robert Sunstein, who was the Administrator of the White House Office of Information and
Regulatory Affairs in the Obama administration and is currently a Professor of Law at Harvard Law School. “LIBERTY AND
SECURITY IN A CHANGING WORLD” – December 12th, 2013 – Easily obtained via a google search.
https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=1&cad=rja&uact=8&ved=0CB4QFjAA&url=https%3A
%2F2Fwww.whitehouse.gov%2Fsites%2Fdefault%2Ffiles%2Fdocs%2F2013-12
12_rg_final_report.pdf&ei=Db0yVdDjKIKdNtTXgZgE&usg=AFQjCNH0S_Fo9dckL9bRarVpi4M6pq6MQ&bvm=bv.9107110
9,d.eXY)

The national security threats facing the United States and our allies are numerous and significant, and they will remain so well into the future.
These threats include international terrorism, the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction, and cyber espionage and warfare. A robust
foreign intelligence collection capability is essential if we are to protect ourselves against such threats. Because our

adversaries operate through the use of complex communications technologies , the National Security Agency, with its
impressive capabilities and talented officers, is indispensable to keeping our country and our allies safe and secure.

Expansive Domestic Communication Surveillance is key to check terror risks.

Small ‘8
MATTHEW L. SMALL. Small wrote this paper as part of studies at the United States Air Force Academy. This paper was
completed with guidance from Dr. Damon Coletta – a professor at the US Air Force Academy. He holds a Ph.D. in Political
Science from Duke and a Masters in Public Policy from Harvard. This paper was also completed with guidance from Dr. Gary
Donato – who is a Lecturer of Global Studies at Bentley University. – “His Eyes are Watching You: Domestic Surveillance, Civil
Liberties and Executive Power during Times of National Crisis” – 2008 – available at:
http://cspc.nonprofitsoapbox.com/storage/documents/Fellows2008/Small.pdf

Very soon after the terrorist attack of September 11th, 2001, President Bush authorized the NSA to conduct warrantless wiretaps on the
communications of American citizens. The agency monitored communications from phone numbers of suspected al Qaeda
affiliates (Risen and Lichtblau 2005). The calls that the NSA monitored originated in the United States and ended overseas but still involved American citizens. Bush asserted that it was
 Officials close to the president claimed these
necessary to move quickly to gain information on other suspected terrorist and/or terrorist activities (Risen and Lichtblau 2005).

actions successful in averting terrorist attacks as in the case of Iyman Faris, an Ohio trucker and naturalized citizen who
intended to bring down the Brooklyn Bridge (Risen and Lichtblau 2005). Similar to the warrantless wiretaps, President Bush authorized the collection of
phone records of millions of Americans from major phone companies such as AT&T and Verizon (USA Today [Washington], 11 May 2006). The records contain the communications of

suspected terrorists or terrorist affiliates within the US. Even though these appear to be the under the same issue concerning the right to privacy, each act must be approached separately. In
light of historical precedence, legislation enacted at the time, and the nature of the threat the US faces, President Bush’s actions are more than justified. From
Washington on, presidents have invaded citizens’ privacy by authorizing surveillance of communications. Washington did not provide
detailed accounts of his domestic surveillance to the Continental Congress, nor did Lincoln ask the permission of Congress to intercept wire communications within the US. Instead, each
president assumed it as part of their powers as Commander-in-Chief and protectors of the rule of law. In comparison, Bush’s actions are actually restrained. At the least he is recognizing the
existence of legislation restraining the use of wiretaps and attempting to fit the urgent need for information within its confines.14 In Woodrow Wilson’s case, Congress actually gave him the
power to essentially search and seize international communication. Presidents from Harry S. Truman to Lyndon B. Johnson authorized the warrantless monitoring of communications by the NSA
and FBI to combat dissension and subversion by Communist sympathizers. Although illegal, presidents even used the CIA to carry out many of these same activities. President Bush simply

Terrorists can come in all forms and can easily manifest

followed the same course of action as his predecessors, a logical course considering the nature of the threat.

within the United States. Intercepting communications serves as one of the best and only ways to prevent
these attacks from occurring. Herein lays the justification for legislative expansion of executive power.

We must keep all intelligence tools to fight terror

John McLaughlin teaches at the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies. He was
deputy director and acting director of the CIA from 2000 to 2004, January 2, 2014, Washington Post,
“NSA Intelligence-Gathering Programs Keep us Safe,” http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/nsa-
intelligence-gathering-programs-keep-us-safe/2014/01/02/0fd51b22-7173-11e3-8b3f-
b1666705ca3b_story.html
As our debate continues, the terrorist threat is not receding but transforming. The core leadership of al-Qaeda has
been degraded and remains under pressure, but robust al-Qaeda affiliates have multiplied. With the decline of
central government authority in the Middle East and North Africa in the wake of the Arab Spring and the war in
Syria, terrorists have the largest havens and areas for operational planning in a decade. If anything, the atomization
of the movement has made the job of intelligence more labor-intensive, more detail-oriented and more demanding.
Now is not the time to give up any tool in the counterterrorism arsenal.
Surveillance is a critical tool needed to defeat terrorism
Alan Dershowitz, Harvard Law School, May 5, 2014, The Atlantic, “No one opposes all surveillance:;
false equivalence on the NSA, http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2014/05/false-equivalence-on-
surveillance-from-alan-dershowitz/361694/ DOA: 2-22-15
Our enemies, especially those who target civilians, have one major advantage over us. They are not constrained
by morality or legality. We have an advantage over them. In addition to operating under the rule of law, we have
developed through hard work and extensive research technological tools that allow us to monitor and prevent
their unlawful and letha l actions.  Such technological tools helped us break the German and the Japanese
code during the Second World War. They helped us defeat fascism. They helped us in the Cold War. And
they are helping us now in the hot war against terrorists who would bomb this theater if they had the capacity
to do so. You're going to hear again that there are only excuses that are being offered, that terrorism is really not a
serious problem, or that American policy is as terroristic as the policy of al-Qaeda. I don't think you're going to
accept that argument.  We must not surrender our technological advantage.
Surveillance needed to defeat terrorism

Glenn Sulmassy, 2013, CNN, “Feds start building case against NSA leaker,”
http://www.cnn.com/2013/06/10/opinion/sulmasy-nsa-snowden/ DOA: 4-1-15
The current threat by al Qaeda and jihadists is one that requires aggressive intelligence collection
and efforts. One has to look no further than the disruption of the New York City subway bombers
(the one being touted by DNI Clapper) or the Boston Marathon bombers to know that the war on al
Qaeda is coming home to us, to our citizens, to our students, to our streets and our subways. This 21st
century war is different and requires new ways and methods of gathering information. As
technology has increased, so has our ability to gather valuable, often actionable, intelligence.
However, the move toward "home-grown" terror will necessarily require, by accident or purposefully,
collections of U.S. citizens' conversations with potential overseas persons of interest. An open society,
such as the United States, ironically needs to use this technology to protect itself. This truth is naturally
uncomfortable for a country with a Constitution that prevents the federal government from conducting
"unreasonable searches and seizures." American historical resistance towards such activities is a bedrock
of our laws, policies and police procedures. But what might have been reasonable 10 years ago is not the
same any longer. The constant armed struggle against the jihadists has adjusted our beliefs on what we
think our government can, and must, do in order to protect its citizens. However, when we hear of
programs such PRISM, or the Department of Justice getting phone records of scores of citizens without
any signs of suspicious activities nor indications of probable cause that they might be involved in terrorist
related activities, the American demand for privacy naturally emerges to challenge such "trolling"
measures or data-mining. The executive branch, although particularly powerful in this arena, must ensure
the Congress is kept abreast of activities such as these surveillance programs. The need for enhanced
intelligence activities is a necessary part of the war on al Qaeda, but abuse can occur without ensuring
the legislative branch has awareness of aggressive tactics such as these. Our Founding Fathers, aware of
the need to have an energetic, vibrant executive branch in foreign affairs, still anticipated checks upon the
presidency by the legislature. Working together, the two branches can ensure that both legally, and by
policy, this is what the citizens desire of their government -- and that leaks such as Snowden's won't have
the impact and damage that his leaks are likely to cause.

Surveillance critical to the war on terror

Jessica Zuckerman et al, 2013, 60 Terrorist Plots Since 9-11: Continued Lessons in Domestic
Counterterrorism, http://www.heritage.org/research/reports/2013/07/60-terrorist-plots-since-911-
continued-lessons-in-domestic-counterterrorism DOA: 5-24-15 Zuckerman is a Policy Analyst @
Heritage, Steven Bucci Phd, Drector, Douglas and Sarah Allison Center for Foreign and National Security
Policy, James Carafano, Vice President for the Kathryn and Shelby Cullom Davis Institute for National
Security and Foreign Policy, and the E. W. Richardson Fellow

Three months after the attack at the Boston Marathon, the pendulum of awareness of the terrorist threat
has already begun to swing back, just as it did after 9/11. Due to the resilience of the nation and its
people, for most, life has returned to business as usual. The threat of terrorism against the United
States, however, remains.
Expecting to stop each and every threat that reaches a country’s borders is unreasonable, particularly in a
free society committed to individual liberty. Nevertheless, there are important steps that America’s
leaders can take to strengthen the U.S. domestic counterterrorism enterprise and continue to make
the U.S. a harder target. Congress and the Administration should:
Ensure a proactive approach to preventing terrorist attacks. Despite the persistent threat of terrorism, the
Obama Administration continues to focus on reactive policies and prosecuting terrorists rather than on
proactive efforts to enhance intelligence tools and thwart terrorist attempts. This strategy fails to
recognize the pervasive nature of the threat posed by terrorist groups such as al-Qaeda and homegrown
extremism. The Administration, and the nation as a whole, should continue to keep in place a robust,
enduring, and proactive counterterrorism framework in order to identify and thwart terrorist threats long
before the public is in danger.
Maintain essential counterterrorism tools. Support for important investigative tools such as the
PATRIOT Act is essential to maintaining the security of the U.S. and combating terrorist threats.
Key provisions within the act, such as the roving surveillance authority and business records
provision, have proved essential for thwarting terror plots, yet they require frequent reauthorization.
In order to ensure that law enforcement and intelligence authorities have the essential counterterrorism
tools they need, Congress should seek permanent authorization of the three sun setting provisions within
the PATRIOT Act.[208] Furthermore, legitimate government surveillance programs are also a vital
component of U.S. national security, and should be allowed to continue. Indeed, in testimony before the
house, General Keith Alexander, the director of the National Security Agency (NSA), revealed that more
than 50 incidents of potential terrorism at home and abroad were stopped by the set of NSA
surveillance programs that have recently come under scrutiny. That said, the need for effective
counterterrorism operations does not relieve the government of its obligation to follow the law and
respect individual privacy and liberty. In the American system, the government must do both equally
well. Break down the silos of information. Washington should emphasize continued cooperation and
information sharing among federal, state, and local law enforcement agencies to prevent terrorists
from slipping through the cracks between the various jurisdictions. In particular, the FBI should
make a more concerted effort to share information more broadly with state and local law enforcement.
State and local law enforcement agencies are the front lines of the U.S. national security strategy. As a
result, local authorities are able to recognize potential danger and identify patterns that the federal
authorities may miss. They also take the lead in community outreach, which is crucial to identifying and
stopping “lone wolf” actors and other homegrown extremists. Federal law enforcement, on the other
hand, is not designed to fight against this kind of threat; it is built to battle cells, groups, and
organizations, not individuals.

Britain Eakin, June 19, 2013, Al Arabia, “NSA: Secret Surveillance Helped Prevent 50-plus terror
attacks,” http://english.alarabiya.net/en/News/world/2013/06/19/NSA-Secret-U-S-surveillance-helped-
prevent-50-plus-terror-attacks.html DOA: 4-25-15

Secret surveillance programs helped prevent more than 50 potential terror attacks worldwide,
including plots to target the New York Stock Exchange and the city’s subway, the director of the
National Security Agency testified on Tuesday. Ten of the 50 potential threats were domestic, said
Army General Keith B. Alexander. A hearing before the House Intelligence Committee sought to calm
fears among the American public that the U.S. government spies on them unconstitutionally, and repeated
assurances that none of the NSA surveillance programs can target U.S. citizens at home or abroad without
a court order. “These programs are limited, focused and subject to rigorous oversight,” Alexander said.
Because of that, the civil liberties and privacy of Americans are not at stake, he added.
However, Bruce Fein, a specialist in constitutional law, said the NSA surveillance programs are
unconstitutional because there is no demonstration of individualized suspicion, as required by the Fourth
Amendment.
“The government has a burden to show some reasonable suspicion that someone being spied on is
engaged in some wrongdoing before privacy can be invaded,” said Fein.
Nonetheless, the witnesses defended the NSA programs as legal and necessary because of the nature of
the threat of terrorism.
“If you’re looking for a needle in a haystack, you have to get the haystack first,” testified Deputy
Attorney General James Cole.
Alexander and other senior U.S. intelligence officials testified in response to details leaked by former
NSA contractor Edward Snowden about how the agency gathers data.
The hearing reviewed NSA surveillance programs 215 and 702. Testimony said program 215 gathers data
in bulk from various providers, such as Verizon, but does not look at content or names, while program
702 applies only to foreign citizens.
The leak has sparked a debate among the American public over what information the government should
be able to collect to safeguard national security, and how it should be allowed to gather it.
A recent Pew poll shows that a slight majority of Americans think the NSA surveillance programs are
acceptable.
Meanwhile, U.S. President Barack Obama’s approval ratings have dropped over the past month.
Alexander linked the relative safety Americans have enjoyed since the 9/11 attacks directly to the NSA
surveillance programs, but Fein said people’s fears are being exploited.“Most people are risk-averse.
They’re easily frightened, and told they need to surrender their liberties in order to be safe, even if it’s not
true,” Fein said.
The government has not provided any evidence that these programs are effective, he added. “It’s just their
say-so.”
When questioned about whether the NSA surveillance programs previously collected any other
information, Alexander said what they have and have not collected remains classified and cannot be
discussed.
However, some details about how the programs have stopped potential terror attacks would be
presented as early as Wednesday to U.S. lawmakers, he said.
The largely docile Congress expressed overall support for the NSA programs, with Rep. Michele
Bachmann framing Snowden as a traitor.
“It seems to me that the problem here is that of an individual who worked within the system, who broke
laws and who chose to declassify highly sensitive classified information,” Bachmann said.
Alexander said they are investigating where security broke down, and how to provide better oversight for
nearly 1,000 system administrators that can access classified information.
The leaks were viewed across the board as a threat to national security.
“These are egregious leaks… and now here we are talking about this in front of the world, so I think those
leaks affect us,” said Sean Joyce, deputy director of the FBI.
Only one member of the House Committee, Rep. Jim Himes, said he was troubled by what he called the
historically unprecedented revelations revealed in the leaks.
“We know that when a capability exists, there’s a potential for abuse… From time to time, it’ll be
abused.”

Intelligence collection key to defeating Al Qaeda

Benjamin Wittes, Brookings, 2014, Senior Fellow in Governance Studies at the Brookings Institution.
I co-founded and am Editor in Chief of Lawfare, a website devoted to sober and serious discussion of
“Hard National Security Choices.” I am the author or editor of several books on subjects related to
law and national security: Detention and Denial: The Case for Candor After Guantánamo (2011),
Law and the Long War: The Future of Justice in the Age of Terror (2008), and Legislating the War
on Terror: An Agenda for Reform (2009). I have written extensively both on the AUMF and on NSA
collection under various provisions of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA). 3 The views I
am expressing here are my own, April 8, Prepared Statement, Is Al Qaeda Winning the
Administration’s Counterterrorism Policy,”
http://docs.house.gov/meetings/FA/FA18/20140408/102109/HHRG-113-FA18-Wstate-WittesB-
20140408.pdf DOA: 5-1-15

Yet in considering the question of the state of the U.S. confrontation with Al Qaeda, there is
something to be said for considering these questions in conjunction with one another. These are, after
all, two of the most important legal instruments in the struggle this committee is endeavoring to
assess. One is the key legal authority for virtually every military action the United States undertakes
in its military battle against Al Qaeda, its offshoots, and its affiliates. The other is the single most
important legal authority the intelligence community has for collecting intelligence against the Al
Qaeda target—not to mention other foreign targets of great national security significance. This
intelligence is key to arrests and the thwarting of terrorist plots against the United States and its
allies. It is also key to accurate and precise targeting judgments in lethal force operations.

Surveillance is one piece of the puzzle used to catch terrorists

General Keith Alexander, retired after 8 years as director of the NSA, May 15, 2014, New Yorker,
http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/newsdesk/2014/05/were-at-greater-risk-q-a-with-general-keith-
alexander.html DOA: 2-20-15

In January, President Obama claimed that the N.S.A. bulk-metadata program has disrupted fifty-four terrorist
plots. Senator Patrick Leahy said the real number is zero. There’s a big difference between fifty-four and zero.
Those [fifty-four events] were plots, funding, and giving money—like the Basaaly Moalin case, where the guy is
giving money to someone to go and do an attack. [Note: Moalin’s case is awaiting appeal.] It’s fifty-four
different events like that, where two programs—the metadata program and the 702 program—had some
play. I was trying to think of the best way to illustrate what the intelligence people are trying to do. You know
“Wheel of Fortune”? Here’s the deal: I’m going to give you a set of big, long words to put on there. Then I’m going
to give you some tools to guess the words. You get to pick a vowel or a consonant—one letter. There’s a hundred
letters up there. You’ll say, I don’t have a clue. O.K., so you’ve used your first tool in analysis. What the
intelligence analysts are doing is using those tools to build the letters, to help understand what the plot is. This
is one of those tools. It’s not the only tool. And, at times, it may not be the best tool. It evolved from 9/11, when we
didn’t have a tool that helped us connect the dots between foreign and domestic. Around 9/11, we intercepted
some of [the hijackers’] calls, but we couldn’t see where they came from. So guys like [Khalid al-]Mihdhar, [one
of the 9/11 hijackers who was living] in California—we knew he was calling people connected to Al Qaeda in
Yemen. But we thought he was in the Middle East. We had no way to connect the dots. If you rewound 9/11,
what you would have done is tipped the F.B.I. that a guy who is planning a terrorist attack is in San Diego.
You may have found the other three groups that were with him.

The DA has an invisible risk, every form of data collection is useful because they
give fragments to prevent attacks
James Andrew Lewis 14, senior fellow and director of the Strategic Technologies Program at the Center
for Strategic and International Studies, December 2014, “Underestimating Risk in the Surveillance
Debate,” http://csis.org/files/publication/141209_Lewis_UnderestimatingRisk_Web.pdf
NSA carried out two kinds of signals intelligence programs: bulk surveillance to support counterterrorism and collection to support U.S. national
security interests. The debate over surveillance unhelpfully conflated the two programs. Domestic bulk collection for counterterrorism is
politically problematic, but assertions
that a collection program is useless because it has not by itself prevented
an attack reflect unfamiliarity with intelligence . Intelligence does not work as it is portrayed in films—
solitary agents do not make startling discoveries that lead to dramatic, last-minute success. Success is the
product of the efforts of teams of dedicated individuals from many agencies , using many tools and techniques, working
together to assemble fragments of data from many sources into a coherent picture .

In practice, analysts must simultaneously

explore many possible scenarios. A collection program contributes
by not only what it reveals, but also what it lets us reject as false. The Patriot Act Section 215 domestic bulk telephony
metadata program provided information that allowed analysts to rule out some scenarios and suspects. The consensus view from interviews with
current and former intelligence officials is that while metadata collection is useful, it is the least useful of the collection programs available to the
intelligence community. If there was one surveillance program they had to give up, it would be 215, but this would not come without an increase
in risk. Restricting metadata collection will make it harder to identify attacks and increase the time it takes
to do this.

Every instance of surveillance is a necessity

Jessica Zuckerman 13, policy analyst at the Heritage Foundation, et al, 7/22/13, “60 Terrorist Plots
Since 9/11: Continued Lessons in Domestic Counterterrorism,”
http://www.heritage.org/research/reports/2013/07/60-terrorist-plots-since-911-continued-lessons-in-
domestic-counterterrorism

Maintain essential counterterrorism tools. Support for important investigative tools such as the PATRIOT
Act is essential to maintaining the security of the U.S. and combating terrorist threats. Key provisions
within the act, such as the roving surveillance authority and business records provision, have proved
essential for thwarting terror plots , yet they require frequent reauthorization. In order to ensure that law
enforcement and intelligence authorities have the essential counterterrorism tools they need, Congress
should seek permanent authorization of the three sun setting provisions within the PATRIOT Act.[208]
Furthermore, legitimate government surveillance programs are also a vital component of U.S. national
security, and should be allowed to continue. Indeed, in testimony before the house, General Keith
Alexander, the director of the National Security Agency (NSA), revealed that more than 50 incidents of
potential terrorism at home and abroad were stopped by the set of NSA surveillance programs that have
recently come under scrutiny. That said, the need for effective counterterrorism operations does not
relieve the government of its obligation to follow the law and respect individual privacy and liberty. In
the American system, the government must do both equally well.

Surveillance is key to preventing violence before it happens- here’s an example

Inserra and Walters 4-8-15, Policy Analyst, Homeland Security and Cybersecurity, and Research
Assistant
David and Riley, “65th Islamist Terrorist Plot or Attack Since 9/11: Persistent Terrorism Requires
Constant Vigilance”, http://www.heritage.org/research/reports/2015/04/65th-islamist-terrorist-plot-or-
attack-since-911-persistent-terrorism-requires-constant-vigilance
Terrorist Plot Details¶ U.S. citizens Noelle “Najma Samaa” Velentzas and Asia “Murdiyyah” Siddiqui
were arrested for willfully conspiring to use a weapon of mass destruction in the United States.[2] Using
the Internet and relevant books, the two roommates researched and obtained the items needed to create an
explosive device made from propane tanks. Velentzas noted several weeks ago that there are more
“opportunities of pleasing Allah” in the United States, implying that she intended to launch an attack on
U.S. soil rather than going to fight overseas.[3]¶ An investigation revealed that both defendants took to
Islamist ideology several years ago. Velentzas admired Osama bin Laden and his mentor Abdullah
Azzam and had been obsessed with pressure-cooker bombs since the 2013 Boston Marathon bombings.
She also considered herself a citizen of the Islamic State (ISIS). Siddiqui showed an interest in Islamist
ideology even earlier. In 2006, she became close to a prominent figure in the al-Qaeda in the Arabian
Peninsula terrorist group, Samir Khan, who died in 2011. In 2009, she wrote a poem for a magazine
called Jihad Recollections and called for readers to engage in violent jihad. In 2010, she sent a letter of
support to Mohamed Mohamud, who was arrested for attempting to detonate a car bomb in Portland,
Oregon.[4]¶ Through an undercover agent, the FBI began tracking both Velentzas and Siddiqui in July
2014. About that time, the two women showed an increased interest in learning how to construct and
detonate explosive devices within the United States. Velentzas and Siddiqui read about how to make
homemade grenades, pipe bombs, and pressure-cooker bombs and on electrical currents and chemistry.
Velentzas showed a growing interest in attacking police, military, and other government targets, and
discussed how she and Siddiqui could defend themselves with concealed knives or with stolen weapons in
the event they were arrested.[5]¶ Ultimately, the FBI acted because Velentzas and Siddiqui had not only
acquired the materials necessary to build a bomb, including multiple propane canisters, but Siddiqui had
indicated a desire to proceed with independent planning and plots. With the potential for a bomb to be
built, the undercover agent unable to track the progress of the work, and Siddiqui and Velentzas’s clear
desire to attack the U.S., the FBI arrested them before harm could come to the public.[6]¶ Terrorism on
the Rise¶ Of the 65 Islamist terrorist plots or attacks since 9/11, this marks the 54th homegrown terrorist
plot, as both individuals were U.S. citizens who were radicalized in the U.S. This case is also the third
terror plot in less than three months, indicating an uptick in Islamist terrorism. This may be due to the
success of terrorist campaigns by ISIS and other terrorist organizations inspiring individuals to radicalize
and act on those extremist beliefs.[7] The past three terrorist plots have all expressed at least some, if not
direct, allegiance to ISIS and a desire to help ISIS by attacking targets here in the U.S. ¶ With the trend of
homegrown terrorism continuing to grow and the recent increase in terrorist plots, both here in the U.S.
and across the West, the U.S. must redouble its efforts. ¶ Specifically, the U.S. should:¶ Maintain essential
counterterrorism tools. Support for important investigative tools is essential to maintaining the security of
the U.S. and combating terrorist threats. Legitimate government surveillance programs are also a vital
component of U.S. national security and should be allowed to continue. The need for effective
counterterrorism operations, however, does not relieve the government of its obligation to follow the law
and respect individual privacy and liberty. In the American system, the government must do both equally
well.¶ Emphasize community outreach. Federal grant funds should be used to create robust community
outreach capabilities in higher-risk urban areas. Importantly, these funds must not be used for political
pork or so broadly used that they are no longer targeted at those communities at greatest risk. Such
capabilities are key to building trust in local communities, and if the United States is to be successful in
thwarting lone-wolf terrorist attacks, it must put effective community outreach operations at the tip of the
spear.¶ Develop a comprehensive counterterrorism strategy. Since the inspirational source of domestic
radicalization and terrorism often lies overseas, battling violent Islamist extremism abroad must be
addressed in concert with the challenges presented by the terrorism at home. To this end, Congress should
ensure that the Administration has a comprehensive strategy for addressing violent Islamist extremism
both at home and abroad. This includes working with allies to strengthen intelligence sharing and
collaborative counterterrorism efforts.
 Mass Surveillance Links
Mass surveillance has thwarted many attacks – more transparency of the programs makes attacks
very likely
Nakashima 13 [Ellen Nakashima, national security reporter for The Washington Post. She focuses on issues relating to intelligence,
technology and civil liberties. “Officials: Surveillance programs foiled more than 50 terrorist plots”,
https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/officials-surveillance-programs-foiled-more-than-50-terrorist-
plots/2013/06/18/d657cb56-d83e-11e2-9df4-895344c13c30_story.html, June 18th, 2013//Rahul]

The U.S. government’s sweeping surveillance programs have disrupted more than 50 terrorist plots in the
United States and abroad, including a plan to bomb the New York Stock Exchange , senior government officials
testified Tuesday. The officials, appearing before a largely friendly House committee, defended the collection of telephone
and Internet data by the National Security Agency as central to protecting the United States and its allies
against terrorist attacks. And they said that recent disclosures about the surveillance operations have caused serious damage. “We
are now faced with a situation that, because this information has been made public , we run the risk of losing these
collection capabilities,” said Robert S. Litt, general counsel of the Office of the Director of National Intelligence. “We’re not going to know for
many months whether these leaks in fact have caused us to lose these capabilities, but if they do have that effect, there
is no doubt that
they will cause our national security to be affected.” The hearing before the House Intelligence Committee was the third
congressional session examining the leaks of classified material about two top-secret surveillance programs by Edward Snowden, 29, a former
NSA contractor and onetime CIA employee. Articles based on the material in The Washington Post and Britain’s Guardian newspaper have
raised concerns about intrusions on civil liberties and forced the Obama administration to mount an aggressive defense of the effectiveness and
privacy protections of the operations. Gen. Keith B. Alexander, the
head of the NSA, told the committee that the programs
had helped prevent “potential terrorist events over 50 times since 9/11. ” He said at least 10 of the disrupted plots
involved terrorism suspects or targets in the United States. Alexander said officials do not plan to release additional information publicly, to avoid
revealing sources and methods of operation, but he said the House and Senate intelligence committees will receive classified details of the
thwarted plots. Newly revealed plots In testimony last week, Alexander
said the surveillance programs had helped prevent
an attack on the subway system in New York City and the bombing of a Danish newspaper . Sean Joyce, deputy
director of the FBI, described two additional plots Tuesday that he said were stopped through the
surveillance — a plan by a Kansas City, Mo., man to bomb the New York Stock Exchange and efforts by
a San Diego man to send money to terrorists in Somalia. The officials said repeatedly that the operations were authorized by
Congress and subject to oversight through internal mechanisms and the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court, whose proceedings are secret.
Alexander said that more than 90 percent of the information on the foiled plots came from a program targeting the communications of foreigners,
known as PRISM. The
program was authorized under Section 702 of a 2008 law that amended the Foreign Intelligence
Surveillance Act (FISA). The
law authorizes the NSA to collect e-mails and other Internet communications to
and from foreign targets overseas who are thought to be involved in terrorism or nuclear proliferation or
who might provide critical foreign intelligence. No American in the country or abroad can be targeted without a warrant, and no
person inside the United States can be targeted without a warrant. A second program collects all call records from U.S. phone companies. It is
authorized under Section 215 of the USA Patriot Act. The records do not include the content of calls, location data, or a subscriber’s name or
address. That law, passed in 2001 and renewed twice since then, also amended FISA. Snowden, a high school dropout who worked at an NSA
operations center in Hawaii for 15 months as a contractor, released highly classified information on both programs, claiming they represent
government overreach. He has been in hiding since publicly acknowledging on June 9 that he leaked the material. Several lawmakers pressed for
answers on how Snowden, a low-level systems administrator, could have had access to highly classified material such as a court order for phone
records. “We need to seal this crack in the system,” said Rep. C.A. Dutch Ruppersberger (Md.), the ranking Democrat on the intelligence panel.
Alexander said he is working with intelligence officials to come up with a “two-person” rule to ensure that the agency can block unauthorized
people from removing information from the system. But Alexander and the other witnesses focused more heavily on justifying the programs and
arguing that they operate under legal guidelines. “As Americans, we value our privacy and our civil liberties,” Alexander said. “As Americans,
we also value our security and our safety. In
the 12 years since the attacks on September 11th, we have lived in
relative safety and security as a nation. That security is a direct result of the intelligence community’s
quiet efforts to better connect the dots and learn from the mistakes that permitted those attacks to occur on
9/11.”
Bulk surveillance is crucial to detect and act on threats – many examples prove
Hines 13 [Pierre Hines is a defense council member of the Truman National Security Project, “Here’s how metadata on billions of phone
calls predicts terrorist attacks” http://qz.com/95719/heres-how-metadata-on-billions-of-phone-calls-predicts-terrorist-attacks, June 19th,
2013//Rahul]

Yesterday, whenNSA Director General Keith Alexander testified before the House Committee on Intelligence, he
declared that the NSA’s surveillance programs have provided “critical leads to help prevent over 50
potential terrorist events.” FBI Deputy Director Sean Boyce elaborated by describing four instances when
the NSA’s surveillance programs have had an impact: (1) when an intercepted email from a terrorist in
Pakistan led to foiling a plan to bomb of the New York subway system; (2) when NSA’s programs helped
prevent a plot to bomb the New York Stock Exchange; (3) when intelligence led to the arrest of a U.S.
citizen who planned to bomb the Danish Newspaper office that published cartoon depictions of the
Prophet Muhammad; and (4) when the NSA’s programs triggered reopening the 9/11 investigation. So what
are the practical applications of internet and phone records gathered from two NSA programs? And how can “metadata” actually prevent terrorist
attacks? Metadata does not give the NSA and intelligence community access to the content of internet and phone communications. Instead,
metadata is more like the transactional information cell phone customers would normally see on their
billing statements—metadata can indicate when a call, email, or online chat began and how long the communication lasted. Section 215 of
the Patriot Act provides the legal authority to obtain “business records” from phone companies. Meanwhile, the NSA uses Section 702
of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act to authorize its PRISM program . According the figures provided by
Gen. Alexander, intelligence gathered based on Section 702 authority contributed in over 90% of the 50 cases .
One of major benefits of metadata is that it provides hindsight— it gives intelligence analysts a retrospective view of a
sequence of events. As Deputy Director Boyce discussed, the ability to analyze previous communications allowed the
FBI to reopen the 9/11 investigation and determine who was linked to that attack. It is important to recognize that terrorist
attacks are not orchestrated overnight; they take months or years to plan. Therefore, if the intelligence
community only catches wind of an attack halfway into the terrorists’ planning cycle , or even after a terrorist
attack has taken place, metadata might be the only source of information that captures the sequence of events
leading up to an attack. Once a terrorist suspect has been identified or once an attack has taken place, intelligence analysts can use powerful
software to sift through metadata to determine which numbers, IP addresses, or individuals are associated with the suspect. Moreover,
phone numbers and IP addresses sometimes serve as a proxy for the general location of where the
planning has taken place. This ability to narrow down the location of terrorists can help determine
whether the intelligence community is dealing with a domestic or international threat. Even more useful than hindsight is a
crystal ball that gives the intelligence community a look into the future. Simply knowing how many individuals are in a chat room, how many
individuals have contacted a particular phone user, or how many individuals are on an email chain could serve as an indicator of how many
terrorists are involved in a plot. Furthermore, knowing when a suspect communicates can help identify his patterns of behavior. For instance,
metadata can help establish whether a suspect communicates sporadically or on a set pattern (e.g., making a
call every Saturday at 2 p.m.). Any deviation from that pattern could indicate that the plan changed at a certain
point; any phone number or email address used consistently and then not at all could indicate that a suspect has stopped communicating with an
associate. Additionally, a rapid increase in communication could indicate that an attack is about to happen. Metadata can provide all of
this information without ever exposing the content of a phone call or email. If the metadata reveals the
suspect is engaged in terrorist activities, then obtaining a warrant would allow intelligence officials to
actually monitor the content of the suspect’s communication. In Gen. Alexander’s words, “These programs have protected
our country and allies . . . [t]hese programs have been approved by the administration, Congress, and the courts.” Now, Americans will have to
decide whether they agree.

Surveillance is necessary and has very little negative consequences on civil liberty
Boot 13 [Max Boot, Max Boot is an American author, consultant, editorialist, lecturer, and military historian, “Stay calm and let the NSA
carry on”, http://articles.latimes.com/2013/jun/09/opinion/la-oe-boot-nsa-surveillance-20130609, June 9th, 2015//Rahul]
After 9/11, there was a widespread expectation of many more terrorist attacks on the United States. So far
that hasn't happened. We haven't escaped entirely unscathed (see Boston Marathon, bombing of), but on the whole
we have been a lot safer than most security experts , including me, expected. In light of the current controversy over the
National Security Agency's monitoring of telephone calls and emails, it is worthwhile to ask: Why is that? It is certainly not due to any change of
heart among our enemies. Radical Islamists still want to kill American infidels. But the vast majority of the time,
they fail. The Heritage Foundation estimated last year that 50 terrorist attacks on the American homeland had been
foiled since 2001. Some, admittedly, failed through sheer incompetence on the part of the would-be terrorists. For instance, Faisal
Shahzad, a Pakistani American jihadist, planted a car bomb in Times Square in 2010 that started smoking before exploding, thereby alerting two
New Yorkers who in turn called police, who were able to defuse it. But it would be naive to adduce all of our security success to pure serendipity.
Surely more attacks would have succeeded absent the ramped-up counter-terrorism efforts undertaken by
the U.S. intelligence community, the military and law enforcement. And a large element of the intelligence community's success lies
in its use of special intelligence — that is, communications intercepts. The CIA is notoriously deficient in human intelligence —
infiltrating spies into terrorist organizations is hard to do, especially when we have so few spooks who speak Urdu, Arabic, Persian and other
relevant languages. But the
NSA is the best in the world at intercepting communications. That is the most
important technical advantage we have in the battle against fanatical foes who will not hesitate to
sacrifice their lives to take ours. Which brings us to the current kerfuffle over two NSA monitoring programs that have been exposed
by the Guardian and the Washington Post. One program apparently collects metadata on all telephone calls made in the United States. Another
program provides access to all the emails, videos and other data found on the servers of major Internet firms such as Google, Apple and
Microsoft. At
first blush these intelligence-gathering activities raise the specter of Big Brother snooping on
ordinary American citizens who might be cheating on their spouses or bad-mouthing the president. In fact, there are
considerable safeguards built into both programs to ensure that doesn't happen. The phone-monitoring program does
not allow the NSA to listen in on conversations without a court order. All that it can do is to collect information on the time, date and destination
of phone calls. It should go without saying that it would be pretty useful to know if someone in the U.S. is
calling a number in Pakistan or Yemen that is used by a terrorist organizer. As for the Internet-monitoring
program, reportedly known as PRISM, it is apparently limited to "non-U.S. persons" who are abroad and thereby enjoy no
constitutional protections. These are hardly rogue operations. Both programs were initiated by President George W. Bush and
continued by President Obama with the full knowledge and support of Congress and continuing oversight from the federal judiciary. That's why
the leaders of both the House and Senate intelligence committees, Republicans and Democrats alike, have come to the defense of these activities.
It's possible that, like all government programs, these could be abused — see, for example, the IRS making life tough on tea partiers. But there

is no evidence of abuse so far and plenty of evidence — in the lack of successful terrorist attacks — that
these programs have been effective in disrupting terrorist plots. Granted there is something inherently creepy
about Uncle Sam scooping up so much information about us. But Google, Facebook, Amazon, Twitter, Citibank and other companies know at
least as much about us, because they use very similar data-mining programs to track our online movements. They gather that information in order
to sell us products, and no one seems to be overly alarmed. The NSA is gathering that information to keep us safe from terrorist attackers. Yet
somehow its actions have become a "scandal," to use a term now loosely being tossed around. The real scandal here is that the Guardian and
Washington Post are compromising our national security by telling our enemies about our intelligence-gathering capabilities. Their news stories
reveal, for example, that only nine Internet companies share information with the NSA. This
is a virtual invitation to terrorists to
use other Internet outlets for searches, email, apps and all the rest. No intelligence effort can ever keep us
100% safe, but to stop or scale back the NSA's special intelligence efforts would amount to unilateral
disarmament in a war against terrorism that is far from over.

Unwarranted domestic surveillance is the most significant anti-terror tool available- allows us to
infiltrate terror groups and prevent weapons proliferation- has solved 53 of 54 suppressed terror
attacks in recent years
Clarke et al 2013 [Report and Recommendations of the President’s Review Group on Intelligence and Surveillance Technologies,
“Liberty and Security in a Changing World”, https://www.whitehouse.gov/sites/default/files/docs/2013-12-12_rg_final_report.pdf, Accessed
7/3/15, AX]

According to NSA, section 702 “is the most significant tool in NSA collection arsenal for the detection,
identification, and disruption of terrorist threats to the US and around the world.” To cite just one example,
collection under section 702 “was critical to the discovery and disruption” of a planned bomb attack in
2009 against the New York City subway system and led to the arrest and conviction of Najibullah Zazi and
several of his co-conspirators. According to the Department of Justice and the Office of the Director of National Intelligence in a 2012
report to Congress: Section 702 enables the Government to collect information effectively and efficiently
about foreign targets overseas and in a manner that protects the privacy and civil liberties of Americans.
Through rigorous oversight, the Government is able to evaluate whether changes are needed to the
procedures or guidelines, and what other steps may be appropriate to safeguard the privacy of personal
information. In addition, the Department of Justice provides the joint assessments and other reports to the FISC. The FISC has been actively
involved in the review of section 702 collection. Together, all of these mechanisms ensure thorough and continuous oversight of section 702
activities. . . . Section702 is vital to keeping the nation safe. It provides information about the plans and
identities of terrorists allowing us to glimpse inside terrorist organizations and obtain information about
how those groups function and receive support. In addition, it lets us collect information about the intentions
and capabilities of weapons proliferators and other foreign adversaries who threaten the United States. In
reauthorizing section 702 for an additional five years in 2012, the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence concluded:
[T]he authorities provided [under section 702] have greatly increased the government’s ability to collect
information and act quickly against important foreign intelligence targets. The Committee has also found that [section
702] has been implemented with attention to protecting the privacy and civil liberties of US persons, and has been the subject of extensive
oversight by the Executive branch, the FISC, as well as the Congress. . . . [The]
failure to reauthorize [section 702] would
“result in a loss of significant intelligence and impede the ability of the Intelligence Community to
respond quickly to new threats and intelligence opportunities .”147Our own review is not inconsistent with this assessment.
During the course of our analysis, NSA shared with the Review Group the details of 54 counterterrorism investigations
since 2007 that resulted in the prevention of terrorist attacks in diverse nations and the United States. In
all but one of these cases, information obtained under section 702 contributed in some degree to the success of the
investigation. Although it is difficult to assess precisely how many of these investigations would have turned out differently without the
information learned through section 702, we are persuaded that section 702 does in fact play an important role in the nation’s
effort to prevent terrorist attacks across the globe.

Meta-data has stopped terror attacks

Schwartz 15 [Mattathias Schwartz, 1-26-2015, staff writer for the New Yorker and won the 2011
Livingston Award for international reporting "How to Catch a Terrorist," New Yorker,
http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2015/01/26/whole-haystack jf]

The N.S.A. asserts that it uses the metadata to learn whether anyone inside the U.S. is in contact with
high-priority terrorism suspects, colloquially referred to as “known bad guys.” Michael Hayden, the former C.I.A. and
N.S.A. director, has said, “We kill people based on metadata.” He then added, “But that’s not what we do
with this metadata,” referring to Section 215.

Soon after Snowden’s revelations, Alexander said that the N.S.A.’s

surveillance programs have stopped “fifty-four
different terrorist-related activities.” Most of these were “terrorist plots.” Thirteen involved the United States.
Credit for foiling these plots, he continued, was partly due to the metadata program, intended to “find the
terrorist that walks among us.”
President Obama also quantified the benefits of the metadata program. That June, in a press conference with Angela Merkel, the German
Chancellor, Obama
said, “We know of at least fifty threats that have been averted because of this
information.” He continued, “Lives have been saved.”
Even if terror is unlikely meta-data surveillance is worth it
Lake 2014 [Eli Lake, 2-17-2014, senior national-security correspondent for the Daily Beast, "Spy Chief:
We Should’ve Told You We Track Your Calls," Daily Beast,
http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2014/02/17/spy-chief-we-should-ve-told-you-we-track-your-
calls.html jf]

Clapper still defends the 215 program, too. The storage of the phone records allows NSA analysts to connect
phone numbers of suspected terrorists overseas to a possible network inside the United States. Other
U.S. intelligence officials say its real value is that it saves work for the FBI and the NSA in tracking down potential leads
by ruling out suspicious numbers quickly.
In the interview Clapper said the 215 program was not a violation the rights of Americans. “For me it was not
some massive assault on civil liberties and privacy because of what we actually do and the safeguards that are put on this,” he said. “ To
guard against perhaps these days low probability but a very (high) impact thing if it happens .” Clapper
compared the 215 program to fire insurance. “I buy fire insurance ever since I retired, the wife and I bought a house out here and we
buy fire insurance every year. Never had a fire. But I am not gonna quit buying my fire insurance , same kind of
thing.”

Meta Data is key to damage control after terrorist attacks

Lewis 14 [James Andrew Lewis, Director and Senior Fellow of the Technology and Public Policy Program at the
CSIS, December 2014, "Underestimating Risk in the Surveillance Debate", Center for Strategic and
International Studies, http://csis.org/files/publication/141209_Lewis_UnderestimatingRisk_Web.pdf pg 9
jf]
The most controversial aspect of the surveillance program involved metadata. Metadata is information
describing a telephone call, such as the number from which the call was placed, the number called, and
the date, time, and length of the call. The content of the phone call (e.g., the conversation) is not
collected. No locational data is collected, although commentators seem confused on this point. Metadata
analysis gave NSA the ability to identify individuals in the United States or individuals outside the
United States who are in contact with terrorist groups.10 In 2012, NSA looked at 288 primary
telephone numbers and through “call chaining” analysis reviewed 6,000 other numbers connected to these
primary numbers. The 288 people had some connection to terrorism and NSA looked at the 6,000 people
with whom they talked to see if they were also involved. Metadata acquired and retained under Section
215 of the Patriot Act program could only be queried when there is “reasonable articulable suspicion” that
a telephone number is associated with foreign terrorist organizations. If a query merits further
investigation, which requires looking at either content of the individual unmaking the call, this requires a
specific, individual court order based on probable cause. If there is one constitutional requirement that
was not fully observed in the metadata program authorized under the Patriot Act, it was that search
requires a warrant from a court rather than an internal approval by the executive branch agency itself.11
This was a significant error. The 215 program allows law enforcement and intelligence officials to
determine if a terrorist event is an isolated incident or the first of a serious of attacks, and whether
the attacker is a “lone wolf” or connected to a larger terrorist organization. The most important
decision in the immediate aftermath of an attack is whether the incident is the first of a series. If it
is the first of a series of attacks, additional steps must be taken without delay, such as closing airports
and other transportation hubs, putting police forces around the country on high alert, and mobilizing law
enforcement agencies to locate and arrest the other attackers. These steps are both disruptive and
expensive and knowing that they are not necessary provides immediate benefit.

Surveillance necessary to prevent ISIS attacks

Guardian, June 22, 2014 , Isis threat justifies greater surveillance powers in UK, says
Liam Fox

Former defence secretary says first duty of state is to protect citizens and public will accept greater
monitoring powers

Britain's security services may need to be given greater powers of surveillance to monitor
extremists from Isis when they return home to Britain from Iraq and Syria, the former defence secretary
Liam Fox has said. A majority of people will accept that an "ideological battle" means that the
authorities will need greater powers to intercept the communications of extremists, Fox said. The
former defence secretary, who was speaking on the Andrew Marr Show on BBC1, said that Britain
should offer to put its airbases at the disposal of the US to avoid "horrendous" situation in Iraq as Isis
forces pose a threat to Baghdad. Fox said: "There are those who say if we don't get involved, if we hunker
down then we will be fine. There will be no backlash. That is utterly, utterly wrong because the jihadists
don't hate us because of what we do. They hate us because of who we are. We can't change that. It is our
values and our history that they detest more than anything else." Fox said that the authorities could
deprive British citizens returning from Syria and Iraq of their passports. But he said that the greatest
effort should go towards increasing the power of the state to monitor the communications of
extremists. He said: "We have the security services to ensure that they [extremists] are watched and that
they don't pose a greater threat." Asked whether the powers of the security services were insufficient, the
former defence secretary said: "That is a real question that we are going to have to ask - whether the
security services have adequate resources for an increased threat. "That is a question politicians will have
to take into account in judgments on spending allocations but also do the powers they have reflect the
increasing [threat]? You've got people in the light of Snowden saying that the state has too many powers
and we have to restrict the powers of the state." Asked which powers the state should be given, Fox said:
"The whole areas of intercept that need to be looked at. We have got a real debate, and it is a genuine
debate in a democracy, between the libertarians who say the state must not get too powerful and pretty
much the rest of us who say the state must protect itself." Asked whether this meant more surveillance
and increasing the manpower of the security services, he said: "If required is the first duty of the state to
protect its citizens ... it is a real worry and it is a problem that is going to be with us for a very long time.
At heart it is an ideological battle and we have to realise that we have to win the ideological battle as
well." The remarks by Fox suggests that some figures, particularly on the right, will use the success of
extremists in Iraq to challenge the claim by Edward Snowden that the state has amassed too many powers
of surveillance. Snowden leaked a series of NSA files to the former Guardian journalist Glenn Greenwald
last year.

Five reasons 9-11 proves surveillance is needed to prevent terror attacks

Report and Recommendations of the President’s Review Group on Intelligence, December 2013, Liberty and
Security in a Changing World, December 12, http://www.whitehouse.gov/sites/default/files/docs/2013-12-
12_rg_final_report.pdf
The September 11 attacks were a vivid demonstration of the need for detailed information about
the activities of potential terrorists. This was so for several reasons. First, some information, which
could have been useful, was not collected and other information, which could have helped to prevent
the attacks, was not shared among departments. Second, the scale of damage that 21st-century
terrorists can inflict is far greater than anything that their predecessors could have imagined. We
are no longer dealing with threats from firearms and conventional explosives, but with the possibility of
weapons of mass destruction, including nuclear devices and biological and chemical agents. The
damage that such attacks could inflict on the nation, measured in terms of loss of life, economic and
social disruption, and the consequent sacrifice of civil liberties, is extraordinary. The events of September
11 brought this home with crystal clarity. Third, 21st-century terrorists operate within a global
communications network that enables them both to hide their existence from outsiders and to
communicate with one another across continents at the speed of light. Effective safeguards against
terrorist attacks require the technological capacity to ferret out such communications in an international
communications grid. Fourth, many of the international terrorists that the United States and other
nations confront today cannot realistically be deterred by the fear of punishment. The conventional
means of preventing criminal conduct—the fear of capture and subsequent punishment—has relatively
little role to play in combating some contemporary terrorists. Unlike the situation during the Cold War, in
which the Soviet Union was deterred from launching a nuclear strike against the United States in part by
its fear of a retaliatory counterattack, the terrorist enemy in the 21 st-century is not a nation state against
which the United States and its allies can retaliate with the same effectiveness. In such circumstances,
detection in advance is essential in any effort to “provide for the common defence.” Fifth, the threat of
massive terrorist attacks involving nuclear, chemical, or biological weapons can generate a chilling
and destructive environment of fear and anxiety among our nation’s citizens. If Americans came to
believe that we are infiltrated by enemies we cannot identify and who have the power to bring death,
destruction, and chaos to our lives on a massive scale, and that preventing such attacks is beyond the
capacity of our government, the quality of national life would be greatly imperiled. Indeed, if a similar or
even more devastating attack were to occur in the future, there would almost surely be an impulse
to increase the use of surveillance technology to prevent further strikes, despite the potentially
corrosive effects on individual freedom and self-governance. In the years after the attacks of
September 11, a former cabinet member suggested a vivid analogy. He compared “the task of stopping”
the next terrorist attack “to a goalie in a soccer game who ‘must stop every shot,’” for if the enemy
“‘scores a single goal,’” the terrorists succeed. To make matters worse, “‘the goalie cannot see the ball—
it is invisible. So are the players—he doesn’t know how many there are, or where they are, or what they
look like.’” Indeed, the invisible players might shoot the ball “from the front of the goal, or from the back,
or from some other direction—the goalie just doesn’t know.’” Although the analogy might be overstated,
it is no surprise that after the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks the government turned to a much more
aggressive form of surveillance in an effort to locate and identify potential terrorists and prevent future
attacks before they could occur. One thing seemed clear: If the government was overly cautious in its
efforts to detect and prevent terrorist attacks, the consequences for the nation could be disastrous.

Surveillance critical to disrupt clandestine terrorist operations

Report and Recommendations of the President’s Review Group on Intelligence, December 2013, Liberty and
Security in a Changing World, December 12, http://www.whitehouse.gov/sites/default/files/docs/2013-12-
12_rg_final_report.pdf DOA: 1-1-14
In the American tradition, the word “security” has had multiple meanings. In contemporary parlance, it
often refers to national security or homeland security. Thus understood, it signals the immense
importance of counteracting threats that come from those who seek to do the nation and its citizens harm.
One of the government’s most fundamental responsibilities is to protect this form of security,
broadly understood. Appropriately conducted and properly disciplined, surveillance can help to
eliminate important national security risks. It has helped to save lives in the past. It will help to do so
in the future. In the aftermath of the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, it should not be necessary to
belabor this point. By their very nature, terrorist attacks tend to involve covert, decentralized actors
who participate in plots that may not be easy to identify or disrupt. Surveillance can protect, and
has protected, against such plots.

The wider the surveillance net, the more effective the surveillance
Report and Recommendations of the President’s Review Group on Intelligence, December 2013, Liberty and
Security in a Changing World, December 12, http://www.whitehouse.gov/sites/default/files/docs/2013-12-
12_rg_final_report.pdf DOA: 1-1-14
When public officials acquire information, they seek to reduce risks, above all risks to national
security. If the government is able to obtain access to a great deal of information, it should be in a
better position to mitigate serious threats of violence. And if the goal is to reduce such threats, a
wide net seems far better than a narrow one, even if the government ends up acquiring a great deal
of information that it does not need or want. As technologies evolve, it is becoming increasingly
feasible to cast that wide net. In the future, the feasibility of pervasive surveillance will increase
dramatically. From the standpoint of risk reduction, that prospect has real advantages.

NSA surveillance has disrupted more than 50 terror plots

USA Today, JUN 07, 2013, http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2013/06/18/nsa-surveillance-

secret-programs-terror-plots/2434193/
NSA: Surveillance foiled 50 terror plots By: Kevin Johnson, DOA: 1-1-14

Director says NYSE was among targets

Section: News, Pg. 05a
National Security Agency Director Keith Alexander told a House committee Tuesday that more
than 50 terror threats throughout the world have been disrupted with the assistance of two secret
surveillance programs that were recently disclosed by former defense contractor Edward Snowden.
More than 10 of the plots targeted the U.S. homeland, Alexander told the House Intelligence Committee,
including a plan to attack the New York Stock Exchange. "I would much rather be here today debating
this," Alexander said, "than explaining why we were unable to prevent another 9/11" attack.
At the rare open committee hearing, Alexander and Deputy Attorney General Jim Cole told
lawmakers that both surveillance operations -- a domestic telephone tracking system that collects
records of millions of Americans and an Internet monitoring program targeting non-citizens outside the
U.S. -- have been subject to rigorous oversight to guard against privacy abuses. "This isn't some
rogue operation that some guys at the NSA are operating," Alexander said. Deputy FBI Director Sean
Joyce told the committee about a threat that was neutralized by the programs: Investigators used the
phone-tracking system to identify an operative in San Diego who was providing support to
terrorists in Somalia.
Joyce also referred to two disrupted plots that were disclosed last week as having been thwarted by
the surveillance operations, including a 2009 plan to bomb the New York subway system. In that
case, authorities used NSA's Internet monitoring program to identify overseas communications involving
Najibullah Zazi in Colorado, who was later convicted in connection with the subway attack plan.
"This is not a program that is off the books," Cole said, outlining the executive, legislative and judicial
controls. In the plot against the stock exchange, Joyce said investigators identified a former New York
accountant working with contacts in Yemen who were in the early stages of planning an assault. Joyce
did not name the man. In court documents, however, he is identified as Sabirhan Hasanoff, 37, who
pleaded guilty last year to providing support to al-Qaeda. Hasanoff was not charged in a plot against the
stock exchange, but prosecutors, while arguing for a harsh prison sentence, alleged in court documents
that he "cased the New York Stock Exchange" at the direction of a terror leader in Yemen. Hasanoff's
attorney was not immediately available for comment. Lawmakers raised few questions about the
intelligence officials' authority to conduct the operations, despite the heated national privacy debate that
was prompted by Snowden's disclosures. Rep. Mike Rogers, R-Mich., the panel's chairman, said the
programs were "designed" to protect Americans. Maryland Rep. Dutch Ruppersberger, the committee's
ranking Democrat, said Snowden's unauthorized disclosures "put our country and allies in danger."

Intelligence gathering critical to defeat terrorism

Paul Rosenzweig, Heritage Senior Legal Research Fellow, 2004

["The Patriot Act Reader," w/ Alane Kochems & James Jay Carafano, 9/20,
http://www.heritage.org/Research/HomelandDefense/loader.cfm?
url=/commonspot/security/getfile.cfm&PageID=69895]

As should be clear from the outline of the scope of the problem, the suppression of terrorism will not be
accomplished by military means alone. Rather, effective law enforcement and/or intelligence gathering
activity are the key to avoiding new terrorist act s. Recent history supports this conclusion. In fact, police have arrested more terrorists than military
operations have captured or killed. Police in more than 100 countries have arrested more than 3,000 al-Qaeda–linked suspects, while the military captured some 650 enemy combatants. Equally
important, it is policing of a different form—preventative rather than reactive, since there is less value in punishing terrorists after the fact when, in some instances, they are willing to perish in
the attack. The foregoing understanding of the nature of the threat from terrorism helps to explain why the traditional law enforcement paradigm needs to be modified (or, in some instances,

The traditional law enforcement model is highly protective of civil

discarded) in the context of terrorism investigations.

liberty in preference to physical security. All lawyers have heard one or another form of the maxim
that “it is better that 10 guilty go free than that one innocent be mistakenly punished .” This embodies a
fundamentally moral judgment that when it comes to enforcing criminal law, American society, in effect, prefers to have many more Type II errors (false negatives) than it does Type I errors
(false positives). That preference arises from two interrelated grounds. One is the historical distrust of government that, as already noted, animates many critics of the Patriot Act. But the other is,
at least implicitly, a comparative valuation of the social costs attending the two types of error. We value liberty sufficiently highly that we see a great cost in any Type I error. And though we
realize that Type II errors free the guilty to return to the general population, thereby imposing additional social costs on society, we have a common-sense understanding that those costs, while

The post–September 11th world

significant, are not so substantial that they threaten large numbers of citizens or core structural aspects of the American polity.

changes this calculus in two ways. First, and most obviously, it changes the cost of the Type II errors.
Whatever the cost of freeing mob boss John Gotti or sniper John Muhammad might be, they are
substantially less than the potentially horrific costs of failing to stop the next al-Qaeda assault. Thus,
the theoretical rights-protective construct under which our law enforcement system operates must,
of necessity, be modified to meet the new reality. We simply cannot afford a rule that “better 10 terrorists
go free than that one innocent be mistakenly punished.” Second, and less obviously, it changes the nature
of the Type I errors that must be considered. In the traditional law enforcement paradigm, the liberty
interest at stake is personal liberty—that is, freedom from the unjustified application of governmental
force. We have as a model the concept of an arrest, the seizure of physical evidence, or the search of a
tangible place. As we move into the Information Age, and deploy new technology to assist in tracking
terrorists, that model is no longer wholly valid.
 General NSA Surveillance

Broad NSA access to US data is crucial to preveting terrorist attacks in the US –

their authors vastly underestimate the probability of attack. You need to evaluate
link through a very high probability of attempted attack
Lewis 14 (senior fellow and director of the Strategic Technologies Program at the Center for
Strategic and International Studies)
(James Andrew, Underestimating Risk in the Surveillance Debate, http://csis.org/files/publication/141209_-
Lewis_UnderestimatingRisk_Web.pdf)

Americans are reluctant to accept terrorism is part of their daily lives, but attacks have been planned or
attempted against American targets (usually airliners or urban areas) almost every year since 9/11. Europe
faces even greater risk, given the thousands of European Union citizens who will return hardened and
radicalized from fighting in Syria and Iraq. The threat of attack is easy to exaggerate, but that does not
mean it is nonexistent. Australia’s then-attorney general said in August 2013 that communications
surveillance had stopped four “mass casualty events” since 2008. The constant planning and
preparation for attack by terrorist groups is not apparent to the public . The dilemma in assessing
risk is that it is discontinuous. There can be long periods with no noticeable activity, only to have
the apparent calm explode. The debate over how to reform communications surveillance has
discounted this risk. Communications surveillance is an essential law enforcement and
intelligence tool. There is no replacement for it. Some suggestions for alternative approaches to
surveillance, such as the idea that the National Security Agency (NSA) only track known or
suspected terrorists, reflect wishful thinking, as it is the unknown terrorist who will inflict the
greatest harm. The Evolution of Privacy Some of the unhappiness created by the Edward Snowden leaks reflects the unspoken recognition that online privacy has changed irrevocably. The
precipitous decline in privacy since the Internet was commercialized is the elephant in the room we ignore in the surveillance debate. America’s privacy laws are both limited in scope and out of date. Although a
majority of Americans believe privacy laws are inadequate, the surveillance debate has not led to a useful discussion of privacy in the context of changed technologies and consumer preferences. Technology is
more intrusive as companies pursue revenue growth by harvesting user data. Tracking online behavior is a preferred business model. On average, there are 16 hidden tracking programs on every website. The
growing market for “big data” to predict consumer behavior and target advertising will further change privacy. Judging by their behavior, Internet users are willing to exchange private data for online services. A
survey in a major European country found a majority of Internet users disapproved of Google out of privacy concerns, but more than 80 percent used Google as their search engine. The disconnect between
consumer statements and behavior reduces the chances of legislating better protections. We have global rules for finance and air travel, and it is time to create rules for privacy, but governments alone cannot set
these rules, nor can a single region impose them. Rules also need to be reciprocal. NSA bears the brunt of criticism, but its actions are far from unique. All nations conduct some kind of communications
surveillance on their own populations, and many collect against foreign targets. Getting this consensus will be difficult. There is no international consensus on privacy and data protection. EU efforts to legislate
for the entire world ignore broad cultural differences in attitudes toward privacy, and previous EU privacy rules likely harmed European companies’ ability to innovate. Finding a balance between privacy,
security, and innovation will not be easy since unconstrained collection creates serious concerns while a toorestrictive approach threatens real economic harm. Espionage and Counterterrorism NSA carried out
two kinds of signals intelligence programs: bulk surveillance to support counterterrorism and collection to support U.S. national security interests. The debate over surveillance unhelpfully conflated the two
programs. Domestic bulk collection for counterterrorism is politically problematic, but assertions that a collection program is useless because it has not by itself prevented an attack reflect unfamiliarity with
intelligence. Intelligence does not work as it is portrayed in films—solitary agents do not make startling discoveries that lead to dramatic, last-minute success. Success is the product of the efforts of teams of
dedicated individuals from many agencies, using many tools and techniques, working together to assemble fragments of data from many sources into a coherent picture. In practice, analysts must simultaneously
explore many possible scenarios. A collection program contributes by not only what it reveals, but also what it lets us reject as false. The Patriot Act Section 215 domestic bulk telephony metadata program
provided information that allowed analysts to rule out some scenarios and suspects. The consensus view from interviews with current and former intelligence officials is that while metadata collection is useful, it
is the least useful of the collection programs available to the intelligence community. If there was one surveillance program they had to give up, it would be 215, but this would not come without an increase in
risk. Restricting metadata collection will make it harder to identify attacks and increase the time it takes to do this. Spying on Allies NSA’s mass surveillance programs for counterterrorism were carried out in
cooperation with more than 30 countries. Unilateral U.S. collection programs focused on national security problems: nonproliferation, counterintelligence (including Russian covert influence operations in
Europe), and arms sales to China. The United States failed to exercise sufficient oversight over intelligence collection, but the objectives set for NSA reflect real security problems for the United States and its
allies. The notion that “friends don’t spy on friends” is naive. The United States has friends that routinely spy on it and yet are strong security partners. Relations among powerful states are complex and not
explained by simple bromides drawn from personal life. The most startling thing about U.S. espionage against Germany was the absence of a strategic calculation of risk and benefit. There are grounds for
espionage (what other major power has a former leader on Russia’s payroll?), but the benefits were outweighed by the risk to the relationship. The case for spying on Brazil is even weaker. While Brazil is often
antagonistic, it poses no risk to national security. If economic intelligence on Brazil is needed, the private sector has powerful incentives and legitimate means to obtain information and usually has the best data.

Broad surveillance of communications is the least intrusive and most effective method
Risk Is Not Going Away

for discovering terrorist and espionage activity. Many countries have expanded surveillance
programs since the 9/11 attacks to detect and prevent terrorist activity, often in cooperation with other
countries, including the United States. Precise metrics on risk and effectiveness do not exist for
surveillance, and we are left with conflicting opinions from intelligence officials and civil libertarians as
to what makes counterterrorism successful. Given resurgent authoritarianism and continuing jihad, the
new context for the surveillance debate is that the likelihood of attack is increasing . Any
legislative change should be viewed through this lens .
Err Neg on the link – your default assumption should be that changing intel
gathering could have big security risks.
Clarke ‘13
(et al; This is the Final Report and Recommendations of The President’s Review Group on Intelligence and Communications
Technologies. President Obama ordered a blue-ribbon task force to review domestic surveillance. This report releases the
findings of that group. The report was headed by five experts – including Richard Alan Clarke, who is the former National
Coordinator for Security, Infrastructure Protection, and Counter-terrorism for the United States. Other expert contributors include
Michael Joseph Morell, who was the deputy director of the Central Intelligence Agency and served as acting director twice in
2011 and from 2012 to 2013 and Cass Robert Sunstein, who was the Administrator of the White House Office of Information and
Regulatory Affairs in the Obama administration and is currently a Professor of Law at Harvard Law School. “LIBERTY AND
SECURITY IN A CHANGING WORLD” – December 12th, 2013 – Easily obtained via a google search.
https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=1&cad=rja&uact=8&ved=0CB4QFjAA&url=https%3A
%2F2Fwww.whitehouse.gov%2Fsites%2Fdefault%2Ffiles%2Fdocs%2F2013-12
12_rg_final_report.pdf&ei=Db0yVdDjKIKdNtTXgZgE&usg=AFQjCNH0S_Fo9dckL9bRarVpi4M6pq6MQ&bvm=bv.9107110
9,d.eXY)

Most of these challenges have a significant intelligence component. Policymakers cannot understand the issues, cannot make policy with
regard to those issues, and cannot successfully implement that policy without reliable intelligence. Any expert with access to open sources can provide insight on questions such as the Eurozone

insights on the plans, intentions, and capabilities of al-Qa’ida, on the status of the Iranian nuclear weapons
crisis and Japanese politics, but

and on the development of cyber warfare tools by other nations are simply not possible without reliable intelligence. A
program,

wide range of intelligence collectors, including NSA, have made important contributions to protecting the
nation’s security. Notwithstanding recent controversies, and the importance of significant reforms, the national security of the United States
depends on the continued capacity of NSA and other agencies to collect essential information. In considering
proposals for reform, now and for the future, policymakers should avoid the risk of overreaction and take care in
making changes that could undermine the capabilities of the Intelligence Community.
 Bulk Collection

Plan limits bulk collection programs. That increases terror risk. Claims that “bulk
programs haven’t stopped an attack” are naïve.
Lewis ‘14
James Andrew Lewis is a senior fellow and director of the Strategic Technologies Program at the Center for Strategic and
International Studies in Washington, D.C., where he writes on technology, security, and the international economy. Before
joining CSIS, he worked at the US Departments of State and Commerce as a Foreign Service officer and as a member of the
Senior Executive Service. His diplomatic experience included negotiations on military basing in Asia, the Cambodia peace
process, and the five-power talks on arms transfer restraint. Lewis received his Ph.D. from the University of Chicago.
“Underestimating Risk in the Surveillance Debate” - CENTER FOR STRATEGIC & INTERNATIONAL STUDIES -
STRATEGIC TECHNOLOGIES PROGRAM – December - http://csis.org/publication/underestimating-risk-surveillance-debate
NSA carried out two kinds of signals intelligence programs: bulk surveillance to support counterterrorism and collection to support U.S. national security interests. The debate over surveillance

unhelpfully conflated the two programs. Domestic bulk collection for counterterrorism is politically problematic, butassertions that a collection program is
useless because it has not by itself prevented an attack reflect unfamiliarity with intelligence. Intelligence does
not work as it is portrayed in films—solitary agents do not make startling discoveries that lead to dramatic,
last-minute success. Success is the product of the efforts of teams of dedicated individuals from many agencies, using many tools and
techniques, working together to assemble fragments of data from many sources into a coherent picture. In practice, analysts must simultaneously explore many possible scenarios. A

collection program contributes by not only what it reveals, but also what it lets us reject as false . The Patriot
Act Section 215 domestic bulk telephony metadata program provided information that allowed analysts to rule out some scenarios

and suspects. The consensus view from interviews with current and former intelligence officials is that while metadata collection is useful, it is the
least useful of the collection programs available to the intelligence community. If there was one surveillance program they had to give up, it would be 215, but this would not come without an

Restricting metadata collection will make it harder to identify attacks and increase the time it
increase in risk.

takes to do this.
 Storage, Super minimization

Plan “super-minimizes” data storage. But, historical analysis key to check sleeper
cells
Shea ‘14
At the time of this testimony, Teresa Shea was the director of signals intelligence, or SIGINT, which involves intercepting and
decoding electronic communications via phones, email, chat, Skype, and radio. Ms. Shea graduated from the Georgia Institute of
Technology with a Bachelor of Science degree in Electrical Engineering. She earned her Master of Science Degree in Electrical
Engineering from Johns Hopkins University. Ms. Shea is a graduate of the National Security Studies Leadership Program at the
Maxwell School, Syracuse University. She also attended the Intelligence Community Program at the Kellogg School of
Management. Ms. Shea joined the NSA workforce in 1984 as an Electrical Engineer where she developed technical solutions to
SIGINT requirements. Since then she has served as project engineer, program manager, technical director, and line manager in
the Signals Intelligence Directorate and its predecessor organizations. Ms. Shea participated in the NSA Graduate Fellowship
Program and was selected to be a Director’s Fellow. Since her tour as a Director’s Fellow, Ms. Shea has served in multiple
management positions. Ms. Shea was the Chief of Tailored Access Operations group within the Data Acquisition organization in
the Signals Intelligence Directorate. Amicus Brief for Smith v. Obama – before The US District Court for THE DISTRICT OF
IDAHO – December 20th – This cite is a bit tricky to find – it was submitted within the addendum section of Acting Assistant
Attorney General Branda’s Amicus Brief in the matter of Smith v. Obama – before the United States Ninth Circuit Court of
Appeals. Her testimony concludes with “I declare under penalty of perjury that the foregoing is true and correct to the best of my
knowledge”. Jan 23rd - It is towards the bottom of a lengthy addendum section – https://www.eff.org/document/governments-
smith-answering-brief

50. Specifically, when the NSA performs a contact-chaining query on a terrorist associated telephone identifier, it is able to detect not
only the further contacts made by that first tier of contacts, but the additional tiers of contacts, out to the maximum number of permitted
"hops" from the original identifier. The collected metadata thus holds contact information that can be immediately accessed as new
terrorist-associated telephone identifiers are identified. Multi-tiered contact chaining identifies not only the terrorist's direct associates but also indirect associates, and,
therefore provides a more complete picture of those who associate with terrorists and/or are engaged in terrorist activities. 51. Another advantage
of the
metadata collected in this matter is that it is historical in nature, reflecting contact activity from the past. Given that terrorist
operatives often lie dormant for extended periods of time, historical connections are critical to understanding a
newly identified target, and metadata may contain links that are unique , pointing to potential targets that may
otherwise be missed.
 Data must be *Aggregated*

Individual company data can’t solve – multi-company data must be aggregated

Shea ‘14
At the time of this testimony, Teresa Shea was the director of signals intelligence, or SIGINT, which involves intercepting and
decoding electronic communications via phones, email, chat, Skype, and radio. Ms. Shea graduated from the Georgia Institute of
Technology with a Bachelor of Science degree in Electrical Engineering. She earned her Master of Science Degree in Electrical
Engineering from Johns Hopkins University. Ms. Shea is a graduate of the National Security Studies Leadership Program at the
Maxwell School, Syracuse University. She also attended the Intelligence Community Program at the Kellogg School of
Management. Ms. Shea joined the NSA workforce in 1984 as an Electrical Engineer where she developed technical solutions to
SIGINT requirements. Since then she has served as project engineer, program manager, technical director, and line manager in
the Signals Intelligence Directorate and its predecessor organizations. Ms. Shea participated in the NSA Graduate Fellowship
Program and was selected to be a Director’s Fellow. Since her tour as a Director’s Fellow, Ms. Shea has served in multiple
management positions. Ms. Shea was the Chief of Tailored Access Operations group within the Data Acquisition organization in
the Signals Intelligence Directorate. Amicus Brief for Smith v. Obama – before The US District Court for THE DISTRICT OF
IDAHO – December 20th – This cite is a bit tricky to find – it was submitted within the addendum section of Acting Assistant
Attorney General Branda’s Amicus Brief in the matter of Smith v. Obama – before the United States Ninth Circuit Court of
Appeals. Her testimony concludes with “I declare under penalty of perjury that the foregoing is true and correct to the best of my
knowledge”. Jan 23rd - It is towards the bottom of a lengthy addendum section – https://www.eff.org/document/governments-
smith-answering-brief

49. Anadvantage of bulk metadata analysis as applied to telephony metadata, which is interconnected in nature, is that
it enables the Government to quickly analyze past connections and chains of communication. Unless the
data is aggregated, it may not be feasible to detect chains of communications that cross communication
networks. The ability to query accumulated telephony metadata significantly increases the NSA's ability to rapidly
detect persons affiliated with the identified foreign terrorist organizations who might otherwise go undetected.

Meta-data must be aggregated. Alternatives hamper counter-terror efforts.

Shea ‘14
At the time of this testimony, Teresa Shea was the director of signals intelligence, or SIGINT, which involves intercepting and
decoding electronic communications via phones, email, chat, Skype, and radio. Ms. Shea graduated from the Georgia Institute of
Technology with a Bachelor of Science degree in Electrical Engineering. She earned her Master of Science Degree in Electrical
Engineering from Johns Hopkins University. Ms. Shea is a graduate of the National Security Studies Leadership Program at the
Maxwell School, Syracuse University. She also attended the Intelligence Community Program at the Kellogg School of
Management. Ms. Shea joined the NSA workforce in 1984 as an Electrical Engineer where she developed technical solutions to
SIGINT requirements. Since then she has served as project engineer, program manager, technical director, and line manager in
the Signals Intelligence Directorate and its predecessor organizations. Ms. Shea participated in the NSA Graduate Fellowship
Program and was selected to be a Director’s Fellow. Since her tour as a Director’s Fellow, Ms. Shea has served in multiple
management positions. Ms. Shea was the Chief of Tailored Access Operations group within the Data Acquisition organization in
the Signals Intelligence Directorate. Amicus Brief for Smith v. Obama – before The US District Court for THE DISTRICT OF
IDAHO – December 20th – This cite is a bit tricky to find – it was submitted within the addendum section of Acting Assistant
Attorney General Branda’s Amicus Brief in the matter of Smith v. Obama – before the United States Ninth Circuit Court of
Appeals. Her testimony concludes with “I declare under penalty of perjury that the foregoing is true and correct to the best of my
knowledge”. Jan 23rd - It is towards the bottom of a lengthy addendum section – https://www.eff.org/document/governments-
smith-answering-brief
63. If the telephony metadata
are not aggregated and retained for a sufficient period of time, it will not be possible for the
NSA to detect chains of communications that cross different providers and telecommunications networks. But for the
NSA's metadata collection, the NSA would need to seek telephonic records from multiple providers whenever a
need to inquire arose, and each such provider may not maintain records in a format that is subject to a
standardized query. 64. Thus, the Government could not achieve the aforementioned benefits of Section 215
metadata collection through alternative means.
 Link Wall – Detection

( ) Meta-data boost terror detection – it’s a vital complimentary tool.

Shea ‘14
At the time of this testimony, Teresa Shea was the director of signals intelligence, or SIGINT, which involves intercepting and
decoding electronic communications via phones, email, chat, Skype, and radio. Ms. Shea graduated from the Georgia Institute of
Technology with a Bachelor of Science degree in Electrical Engineering. She earned her Master of Science Degree in Electrical
Engineering from Johns Hopkins University. Ms. Shea is a graduate of the National Security Studies Leadership Program at the
Maxwell School, Syracuse University. She also attended the Intelligence Community Program at the Kellogg School of
Management. Ms. Shea joined the NSA workforce in 1984 as an Electrical Engineer where she developed technical solutions to
SIGINT requirements. Since then she has served as project engineer, program manager, technical director, and line manager in
the Signals Intelligence Directorate and its predecessor organizations. Ms. Shea participated in the NSA Graduate Fellowship
Program and was selected to be a Director’s Fellow. Since her tour as a Director’s Fellow, Ms. Shea has served in multiple
management positions. Ms. Shea was the Chief of Tailored Access Operations group within the Data Acquisition organization in
the Signals Intelligence Directorate. Amicus Brief for Smith v. Obama – before The US District Court for THE DISTRICT OF
IDAHO – December 20th – This cite is a bit tricky to find – it was submitted within the addendum section of Acting Assistant
Attorney General Branda’s Amicus Brief in the matter of Smith v. Obama – before the United States Ninth Circuit Court of
Appeals. Her testimony concludes with “I declare under penalty of perjury that the foregoing is true and correct to the best of my
knowledge”. Jan 23rd - It is towards the bottom of a lengthy addendum section – https://www.eff.org/document/governments-
smith-answering-brief

53. Furthermore, the Section 215 metadata program complements information that the NSA collects via other means and
is valuable to NSA, in support of the FBI, for linking possible terrorist-related telephone communications that occur
between communicants based solely inside the U.S. 54. As a complementary tool to other intelligence authorities, the NSA's
access to telephony metadata improves the likelihood of the Government being able to detect terrorist cell contacts
within the U.S. With the metadata collected under Section 215 pursuant to FISC orders, the NSA has the information necessary to perform the call
chaining that can enable NSA intelligence analysts to obtain a much fuller understanding of the target and, as a result, allow the
NSA to provide FBI with a more complete picture of possible terror ist-related activity occurring inside the U.S.
 Video Surveillance Links

Video surveillance essential to defeat terrorism

St. Louis Dispatch, August 13, 2013, “The Role of Surveillance Cameras in the War on Terror,”
http://www.gopusa.com/news/2013/04/22/the-role-of-surveillance-cameras-in-crime-or-terror/ DOA:
5-1-15

Mere hours after the public release of grainy surveillance camera images in the Boston Marathon bombings,
law enforcement officials had pinpointed suspects in one of the nation's most horrific terrorist acts. It was a
stunning and swift break in the case, one that illustrates the potency surveillance photos have for the public and
police in solving crime. For Howard Richards, the images captured in Boston are validation of a three-year project
in St. Louis to link 150 surveillance cameras into a single security system throughout the city's central corridor, from
the riverfront to Forest Park. "Without those images, they would not have been able to solve this thing as
quickly, there are no two ways about it," Richards said of the Boston case. "You can't overestimate the value of
this technology." Richards is head of security at Harris-Stowe State University and chairs monthly meetings of the
Central Corridor Security Group, formed about three years ago to address security issues. The group eventually
brought on United for a Better St. Louis, a nonprofit organization formed in 2011 to enhance public safety efforts, to
lead a fundraising campaign.
The
St. Louis project would form a common network out of cameras owned and operated by a host of entities,
such as the city's port authority and street department, the Partnership for Downtown St. Louis, the Locust
Business District and the Central West End. The security system, which organizers hope to have in place
in about three months, would equip police with tablet computers and software allowing officers to look
through any of the cameras on the network. With newer cameras, police would be able to zoom, pan and
tilt to get a better view. "It's going to make us cutting-edge and on board with other big cities in the
country," said Michael Gerdine, a chiropractor and chairman of United for a Better St. Louis. Cities such
as Baltimore, Chicago, Atlanta and Dallas use the technology, and their systems have been reviewed for
the St. Louis project. New York operates a "Ring of Steel" that trains an estimated 3,000 cameras in
Lower Manhattan. Boston has a network of cameras throughout its city and transit system. London --
known for its ubiquitous security cameras -- has also seen how surveillance images can lead to a swift
resolution to terrorism investigations. In 2005, terrorism suspects were quickly identified with such
images. Weeks later, a failed group of bombers was also caught, thanks to the cameras. In Baltimore, the
cameras have been a valuable tool in prosecuting crimes, and have been successful in reducing crime in
trouble spots, said Baltimore police spokesman Anthony Guglielmi. "We love them. It's a really great
system," Guglielmi said. Still, he said, "they are in no way designed to replace those on patrol." Research
further backs up the value that surveillance cameras have in solving crime. In St. Louis, the project grew
out of meetings between members of the Locust Business District and the Downtown Partnership over
security concerns. Expanding and linking camera systems was proposed as a way to not only help
solve crime, but prevent it. From those early discussions, the Central Corridor Security Group was
formed. The group's board includes representatives of the Downtown Partnership, Grand Center Inc., St.
Louis University and Barnes-Jewish Hospital. Two St. Louis police captains are on the board.
Representatives of Metro, Sigma-Aldrich and Wells Fargo also attend meetings. Maggie Campbell,
president of the Partnership for Downtown St. Louis, said live monitoring of cameras has been happening
downtown for about five years. "But if we can grow it and leverage it with our neighboring business
districts, then we can make it work better for everyone," she said. "It's all about multiplying the eyes that
are watching." No public funds are being sought in the startup of the program, and the cameras would be
limited to public areas. "We all decided it would be a good idea to basically look out for each other,"
Richards said. But increasing cameras and the number of people allowed to monitor them concerns
privacy advocates.

Surveillance cameras critical to defeat terrorism

Farhad Manjo, April 18, 2013, Slate, We Need More Cameras and We Need them Now,”
http://www.slate.com/articles/technology/technology/2013/04/boston_bomber_photos_the_marathon
_bombing_shows_that_we_need_more_security.html DOA: 4-5-15

Though DesLauriers did not indicate the source of the images, the Boston Globe reported earlier that
authorities were focusing on video “from surveillance cameras on the same side of Boylston Street as the
explosions.” If it turns out that the people in the FBI’s photos are the guys who did it, they shouldn’t be
surprised that surveillance cameras turned out to be their undoing. Neither should you. We should see this
potential break in the case as a sign of the virtues of video surveillance. More than that, we should
think about how cameras could help prevent crimes, not just solve them once they’ve already
happened. Cities under the threat of terrorist attack should install networks of cameras to monitor
everything that happens at vulnerable urban installations. Yes, you don’t like to be watched. Neither do I.
But of all the measures we might consider to improve security in an age of terrorism, installing
surveillance cameras everywhere may be the best choice. They’re cheap, less intrusive than many
physical security systems, and—as will hopefully be the case with the Boston bombing—they can be
extremely effective at solving crimes. Surveillance cameras aren’t just the bane of hardcore civil
libertarians. The idea of submitting to constant monitoring feels wrong, nearly un-American, to most of
us. Cameras in the sky are the ultimate manifestation of Big Brother—a way for the government to watch
you all the time, everywhere. In addition to normalizing surveillance—turning every public place into a
venue for criminal investigation—there’s also the potential for abuse. Once a city is routinely surveilled,
the government can turn every indiscretion into a criminal matter. You used to be able to speed down the
street when you were in a hurry. Now, in many places around the world, a speed camera will record your
behavior and send you a ticket in the mail. Combine cameras with facial-recognition technology and
you’ve got a recipe for governmental intrusion. Did you just roll a joint or jaywalk or spray-paint a bus
stop? Do you owe taxes or child support? Well, prepare to be investigated—if not hassled, fined, or
arrested. These aren’t trivial fears. The costs of ubiquitous surveillance are real. But these are not
intractable problems. Such abuses and slippery-slope fears could be contained by regulations that
circumscribe how the government can use footage obtained from security cameras. In general, we need to
be thinking about ways to make cameras work for us, not reasons to abolish them. When you weigh
cameras against other security measures, they emerge as the least costly and most effective choice.
In the aftermath of 9/11, we’ve turned most public spaces into fortresses—now, it’s impossible for you to
get into tall buildings, airports, many museums, concerts, and even public celebrations without being
subjected to pat-downs and metal detectors. When combined with competent law enforcement,
surveillance cameras are more effective, less intrusive, less psychologically draining, and much more
pleasant than these alternatives. As several studies have found, a network of well-monitored cameras
can help investigators solve crimes quickly, and there’s even evidence that cameras can help deter
and predict criminal acts, too.  

Surveillance cameras necessary to counter terrorism

Charlie Savage, August 12, 2007, “US doles out millions for street cameras, local efforts raise privacy concerns,”
Boston Globe, http://www.boston.com/news/nation/articles/2007/08/12/us_doles_out_millions_for_street_cameras/?
page=full DOA: 5-1-15
The Department of Homeland Security is funneling millions of dollars to local governments nationwide for
purchasing high-tech video camera networks, accelerating the rise of a "surveillance society" in which the
sense of freedom that stems from being anonymous in public will be lost, privacy rights advocates warn. Since 2003,
the department has handed out some $23 billion in federal grants to local governments for equipment and training to
help combat terrorism. Most of the money paid for emergency drills and upgrades to basic items, from radios to
fences. But the department also has doled out millions on surveillance cameras, transforming city streets and
parks into places under constant observation. The department will not say how much of its taxpayer-funded grants
have gone to cameras. But a Globe search of local newspapers and congressional press releases shows that a large
number of new surveillance systems, costing at least tens and probably hundreds of millions of dollars, are being
simultaneously installed around the country as part of homeland security grants. In the last month, cities that
have moved forward on plans for surveillance networks financed by the Homeland Security Department include St.
Paul, which got a $1.2 million grant for 60 cameras for downtown; Madison, Wis., which is buying a 32-camera
network with a $388,000 grant; and Pittsburgh, which is adding 83 cameras to its downtown with a $2.58 million
grant. Small towns are also getting their share of the federal money for surveillance to thwart crime and terrorism.
Recent examples include Liberty, Kan. (population 95), which accepted a federal grant to install a $5,000 G2
Sentinel camera in its park, and Scottsbluff, Neb. (population 14,000), where police used a $180,000 Homeland
Security Department grant to purchase four closed-circuit digital cameras and two monitors, a system originally
designed for Times Square in New York City. "We certainly wouldn't have been able to purchase this system
without those funds," police Captain Brian Wasson told the Scottsbluff Star-Herald. Other large cities and small
towns have also joined in since 2003. Federal money is helping New York, Baltimore, and Chicago build massive
surveillance systems that may also link thousands of privately owned security cameras. Boston has installed about
500 cameras in the MBTA system, funded in part with homeland security funds. Marc Rotenberg, director of the
Electronic Privacy Information Center, said Homeland Security Department is the primary driver in spreading
surveillance cameras, making their adoption more attractive by offering federal money to city and state leaders.
Homeland Security Department spokesman Russ Knocke said that it is difficult to say how much money has been
spent on surveillance cameras because many grants awarded to states or cities contained money for cameras and
other equipment. Knocke defended the funding of video networks as a valuable tool for protecting the nation.
"We will encourage their use in the future," he added. But privacy rights advocates say that the technology is putting
at risk something that is hard to define but is core to personal autonomy. The proliferation of cameras could mean
that Americans will feel less free because legal public behavior -- attending a political rally, entering a doctor's
office, or even joking with friends in a park -- will leave a permanent record, retrievable by authorities at any time.
Businesses and government buildings have used closed-circuit cameras for decades, so it is nothing new to be
videotaped at an ATM machine. But technology specialists say the growing surveillance networks are potentially
more powerful than anything the public has experienced. Until recently, most surveillance cameras produced only
grainy analog feeds and had to be stored on bulky videotape cassettes. But the new, cutting-edge cameras produce
clearer, more detailed images. Moreover, because these videos are digital, they can be easily transmitted, copied,
and stored indefinitely on ever-cheaper hard-drive space. In addition, police officers cannot be everywhere at once,
and in the past someone had to watch a monitor, limiting how large or powerful a surveillance network could be.
But technicians are developing ways to use computers to process real-time and stored digital video, including
license-plate readers, face-recognition scanners, and software that detects "anomalous behavior." Although
still primitive, these technologies are improving, some with help from research grants by the Homeland Security
Department's Science and Technology Directorate. "Being able to collect this much data on people is going to be
very powerful, and it opens people up for abuses of power," said Jennifer King, a professor at the University of
California at Berkeley who studies privacy and technology. "The problem with explaining this scenario is that today
it's a little futuristic. [A major loss of privacy] is a low risk today, but five years from now it will present a higher
risk." As this technological capacity evolves, it will be far easier for individuals to attract police suspicion simply for
acting differently and far easier for police to track that person's movement closely, including retracing their steps
backwards in time. It will also create a greater risk that the officials who control the cameras could use them for
personal or political gain, specialists said. The expanded use of surveillance in the name of fighting terrorism has
proved controversial in other arenas, as with the recent debate over President Bush's programs for eavesdropping on
Americans' international phone calls and e-mails without a warrant. But public support for installing more
surveillance cameras in public places, both as a means of fighting terrorism and other crime, appears to be
strong. Last month, an ABC News/Washington Post poll foun that 71 percent of Americans favored increased use
of surveillance cameras, while 25 percent opposed it.

Video surveillance necessary to defeat terrorism

Steven Simon is an adjunct senior fellow in Middle Eastern Studies at the Council on Foreign
Relations and the co-author of “The Age of Sacred Terror” and “The Next Attack.”, Times Square,
Bombs, and Big Crowds, New York Times, http://roomfordebate.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/05/03/times-
square-bombs-and-big-crowds/?_r=0#steven DOA: 5-5-15
Video surveillance would not have stopped the Times Square attack. Does this mean that it would be useless? Not
necessarily. Swift and accurate analysis of video surveillance information might prevent the next attack, even
if it is powerless to stop the last one. Imagery can be used to assist in the identification and location of
individuals at the scene of the crime. It can also be used to track the progress of the bomb-laden vehicle from
the its point of origin, or the point at which the truck was weaponized, to the place the terrorists have
targeted. In combination with physical evidence acquired from the vehicle — fingerprints, hair, cloth fibers, soil,
trash, forgotten personal items or a host of other bits of evidence — video surveillance can lead to the arrest of
the bombers and to the unraveling of cells or networks and, if the attackers are foreign, the ratlines they
exploited to enter the country. At this point, the U.S. does not have the kind of pervasive surveillance systems in
place that, say, the British have deployed. In the U.K., there is about one surveillance camera for every thousand
residents. It took British authorities years to reach this level of intensive surveillance. The U.S., as anyone who
follows the debate over privacy loss in this country knows, is studded with cameras, but most of these are in stores
to track consumption habits to facilitate marketing or deter shoplifters. They’re not where they’re needed, which is
on the street. The two smallest jurisdictions in the U.K., very rural areas indeed, together deploy more surveillance
cameras than the San Francisco police department. The U.S., of course, does not have to match Britain camera for
camera. Surveillance can be enhanced in areas that are assessed to be likely targets, a category that can be inferred,
at least in a general sense, from targeting patterns and what the terrorists actually have said about the desirability of
attacking this or that; and they do discuss this in their literature and on their Web sites. More problematic, is the
need to organize our law enforcement capabilities in ways that enable this visual information to be exploited
effectively, while protecting the rapidly fading privacy available to ordinary citizens. Therein lies the real challenge.
 Warrant Requirement Links

Warrantless surveillance necessary to combat Al Qaeda

Yohn Yoo, Summer 2014, Emanuel S. Heller Professor of Law, University of California, Berkeley Law
School; Visiting Scholar, American Enterprise Institute, Harvard Journal of Law & Public Policy, THE
LEGALITY OF THE NATIONAL SECURITY AGENCY'S BULK DATA SURVEILLANCE
PROGRAMS, http://moritzlaw.osu.edu/students/groups/is/files/2013/11/Yoo1.pdf, DOA: 1-1-15, p. 903-
4
It is al Qaeda's nature as a decentralized network that stresses the normal division between military
and intelligence surveillance and the warrant-based approach of the criminal justice system. The
Constitution vests the President with the executive power and designates him Commander-in-Chief.
The Framers understood these powers to invest the executive with the duty to protect the nation from
foreign attack and the right to control the conduct of military hostilities. To exercise those powers
effectively, the President must have the ability to engage in electronic surveillance that gathers
intelligence on the enemy. Regular military intelligence need not follow standards of probable cause
for a warrant or reasonableness for a search, just as the use of force against the enemy does not have
to comply with the Fourth Amendment. During war, military signals intelligence might throw out a
broad net to capture all communications within a certain area or by an enemy nation. Unlike the
criminal justice system, which seeks to detain criminals, protection of national security need not
rest on particularized suspicion of a specific individual.

Warrant requirement for national security decisions undermines executive power

needed for effective surveillance
Yohn Yoo, Summer 2014, Emanuel S. Heller Professor of Law, University of California, Berkeley Law
School; Visiting Scholar, American Enterprise Institute, Harvard Journal of Law & Public Policy, THE
LEGALITY OF THE NATIONAL SECURITY AGENCY'S BULK DATA SURVEILLANCE
PROGRAMS, http://moritzlaw.osu.edu/students/groups/is/files/2013/11/Yoo1.pdf, DOA: 1-1-15, p. 904
This approach applies to national security activity that occurs within the United States as well as
outside it. In 1972, the Supreme Court refused to subject surveillance for national security purposes
to the Fourth Amendment warrant requirement. But it has extended this protection to purely domestic
terrorist groups, out of concern that the government might use its powers to suppress political liberties.
Lower courts, however, have found that when the government conducts a search of a foreign power
or its agents, it need not meet the requirements that apply to criminal law enforcement. In a leading
1980 case, the Fourth Circuit held that "the needs of the executive are so compelling in the area of foreign
intelligence, unlike the area of domestic security, that a uniform warrant requirement would . . . unduly
frustrate the President in carrying out his foreign affairs responsibilities." A warrant requirement for
national security searches would reduce the flexibility of the executive branch, which possesses
"unparalleled expertise to make the decision whether to conduct foreign intelligence surveillance"
and is "constitutionally designated as the pre-eminent authority in foreign affairs." A warrant
requirement would place national security decisions in the hands of the judiciary, which "is largely
inexperienced in making the delicate and complex decisions that lie behind foreign intelligence
surveillance." Under this framework, Presidents conducted national security surveillance using their
executive authority for decades. President Nixon's abuses, however, led Congress to enact the Foreign
Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) in 1978. FISA replaced presidentially-ordered monitoring of
national security threats with a system similar to that used by law enforcement to conduct electronic
surveillance of criminal suspects, but with important differences to protect classified information. FISA
requires the government to show "probable cause" that a target is "an agent of a foreign power," which
includes terrorist groups. A special court of federal district judges, the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance
Court (FISC), examines classified information in a closed, ex parte hearing before issuing the warrant.
 Stricter Court Review

Stricter Court review Link. Plan imposes stricter law enforcement warrants on intel
agencies. That slows counter-terror operations to the point of failure.
Yoo, 13
John Yoo. Alma mater: Harvard University (B.A. 1989), Yale Law School (J.D. 1992). Yoo has been a professor at the
University of California, Berkeley, School of Law since 1993. “Ending NSA Surveillance is not the answer”. National Review -
8/16/13 - www.nationalreview.com/corner/356027/ending-nsa-surveillance-not-answer-john-yoo

We should be careful not to put the NSA in an impossible position. Of course, we should be vigilant against the administrative state in
all of its tangled tendrils, especially its collection of taxes (the IRS scandal) and enforcement of the laws (Obama’s refusal to enforce Obamacare and immigration
law). The problem here, however, is that we
are placing these kinds of domestic law-enforcement standards on a foreign
intelligence function. With domestic law enforcement, we want the Justice Department to monitor one identified target (identified
because other evidence gives probable cause that he or she has already committed a crime) and to carefully minimize any surveillance so as not to
intrude on privacy interests. Once we impose those standards on the military and intelligence agencies, however,
we are either guaranteeing failure or we must accept a certain level of error. If the military and intelligence agencies had to follow
law-enforcement standards, their mission would fail because they would not give us any improvement over what the FBI could achieve
anyway. If the intelligence community is to detect future terrorist attacks through analyzing electronic communications, we are asking them to search through a vast
sea of e-mails and phone-call patterns to find those few which, on the surface, look innocent but are actually covert terrorist messages. If we give them broader
authority, we would have to accept a level of error that is inherent in any human activity. No intelligence agency could perform its mission of protecting the nation’s
security without making a few of these kinds of mistakes. The question is whether there are too many, not whether there will be any at all. Domestic law enforcement
makes these errors too. Police seek warrants for the wrong guy, execute a search in the wrong house, arrest the wrong suspect, and even shoot unarmed suspects. We
accept these mistakes because we understand that no law-enforcement system can successfully protect our communities from crime with perfection. The question is
the error rate, how much it would cost to reduce it, the impact on the effectiveness of the program, and the remedies we have for mistakes. Consider those
questions in the context of the NSA surveillance program. The more important question is not the top of the fraction but the bottom — not just how
many mistakes occurred, but how many records were searched overall. If there were 2,000 or so mistakes, as the Washington Post suggests, but involving billions of
communications, the
error rate is well less than 1 percent. Without looking at the latest figures, I suspect that is a far lower error rate than those
turned in by domestic police on searches and arrests. To
end the NSA’s efforts to intercept terrorist communications would be
to willfully blind ourselves (disregard) to the most valuable intelligence sources on al-Qaeda (now that the president won’t
allow the capture and interrogation of al-Qaeda leaders). The more useful question is whether there is a cost-effective way to reduce the error rate without detracting
from the effectiveness of the program, which, by General Keith Alexander’s accounting, has been high. Increasing
judicial oversight might reduce
errors — though I am dubious — but in a way that would seriously slow down the speed of the program , which is all-
important if the mission is to stop terrorists. And perhaps Congress should think about ways to remedy any privacy violations in the future.
But to end the program because it does not have an error rate of zero is to impose a demand on the NSA that no other government program, foreign or domestic,
military or civilian, could survive.
 Internet Surveillance
Terrorists coordinate and plan attacks over the internet – empirics prove
Janbek, Ph.D, and Williams 14
(Williams and Valerie, Sping/Summer Ed. The Brown Journal of World Affairs, 20.2, “The Role of the
Internet in post-9/11 Terrorism and Counterterrorism,”)
Since 9/11, extremists have utilized the Internet in many ways such as inspiring potential recruits through
online communication and mobilizing them to act on radical ideology. In addition to aiding the planning
and execution of terrorist attacks, one of the Internet's most common uses today by terrorists is as a
database of information to learn more about terrorist organizations and their causes. The use of the
Internet as a communication medium by terrorists has historically taken place prior to terrorist attacks
themselves. Extremists or potential terrorists use the Internet to frequent online extremist forums and
websites. These websites usually offer a significant amount of information-including organizations'
missions, doctrines, and histories-to their visitors, allowing terrorist organizations to communicate
detailed information about themselves to potential recruits.1 The organizations communicate their version
of reality and how they perceive the world. In many cases, they specify who their enemies are and justify
the use of violence against them, often while boasting about previous operations against enemies that
were allegedly successful. Photos and videos of specific terrorist operations ensure that the websites
remain entertaining and engaging for their audiences. Through personally maintaining their online
presence, terrorist organizations are able to communicate directly with their target audiences without their
message being distorted by mainstream media. Extremist websites and forums are maintained by
sympathizers who are responsible for posting relevant content. Mohamed Jarmoune, a Moroccan-Italian
in his twenties, was accused in 2012 of using his web skills to disseminate terrorist propaganda. Jarmoune
"spent all his time-up to 15 hours a day-online, disseminating jihadist materials and connecting with
interested individuals around the world."2 Additionally, he administered a Facebook group that showed
that he agreed with jihadist ideology. Similarly, Babar Ahmad and Syed Talha Ahsan, two British
citizens, maintained a family of websites operating out of London known as Azzam Publications.3 The
sites were utilized to solicit funds, personnel, and physical items like gas masks for the Taliban and other
groups. The websites featured instructional training articles, biographies of mujahideen, as well as audio
and video products for sale. The videos included actual footage of combat and deceased extremists.
Ahmad and Ahsan's cases have been ongoing since 2004 and 2006 respectively. In a similar case in
Sweden, Swedish citizen Oussama Kassir, who was hoping to establish a jihad training camp in Oregon,
operated six websites since December 2001 that presented "instructions about how to make bombs and
poisons."4 Kassir was a fan of Osama bin Laden and had previously received jihadist training in
Pakistan.5 These cases serve as examples of how the Internet has been used by jihadist sympathizers to
assist terrorist organizations in spreading their ideology online. ¶ The Internet also serves as a networking
tool for extremists to connect with like-minded individuals or even leaders with whom they can discuss
their ideologies. Such is the case of Major Nidal Malik Hasan, who communicated with the infamous
American-born Muslim cleric Anwar al-Awlaki.6 Al-Awlaki represents a modern-day terrorist. He
utilized online publications and videos, as well as individual emails, to recruit potential terrorists. During
his search for spiritual guidance, Major Hasan became engaged with jihadist ideology posted online. His
exchanges with Anwar al-Awlaki arguably further encouraged Hasan's thoughts of violence, leading to
his ultimate decision to shoot several American soldiers in 2009 in Fort Hood, Texas. Major Hasan
attacked a processing center where soldiers were preparing to deploy to Afghanistan, resulting in the
deaths of 13 people.7 The FBI intercepted emails between Hasan, who was a psychiatrist at the time, and
the cleric about a year before the shootings took place. As a Muslim, Major Hasan was troubled by the
war, which was causing the deaths of other Muslims in Afghanistan. After the attack, the cleric al-Awlaki
praised Major Hasan for doing "the right thing."¶ Although al-Awlaki acknowledged communicating with
Major Hasan, the cleric "said that he neither ordered nor pressured Maj. Nidal M. Hasan to harm
Americans, but that he considered himself a confidant of the Army psychiatrist who was given a glimpse
via email into Hasan's growing discomfort with the U.S. military."8 In fact, this was not the first time that
Major Hasan had come across the cleric. Back in 2001, Major Hasan worshipped at a mosque in Falls
Church, Virginia, where al-Awlaki preached.9 There, he was exposed to radical ideas. In other words,
Major Hasan came across the extreme teachings of al-Awlaki eight years prior to the Ford Hood
shootings. Years later, before the shootings took place, Major Hasan relied on the Internet to seek advice
from a former leader. This is an example of how the Internet can not only facilitate direct communication
between those interested in terrorism and those who seek to inspire them, but also how it can reinforce
existing radical ideology.¶ Faisal Shahzad, more famously known as the Times Square Bomber who
intended to set offa bomb in Times Square in 2010, used the Internet to connect with extremists. As
Professor John Mueller notes, "The Internet was crucial for Shahzad's entrance into the domain of
religious fanatical terrorism. He initiated contact with Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan over the Internet.
Through the initial connection, he was in communication with many jihadist contacts including Anwar al-
Awlaki."10 Similar to the case of Major Hasan, Shahzad was also troubled by the U.S. role in Muslim
countries, the use of drones, and the killings of Muslims abroad, and used the Internet to connect with
experienced jihadists who gave him both the necessary push and practical knowledge to pursue his attack.
Both Major Hasan's and Shahzad's cases demonstrate the important role that the Internet played in
connecting extremists. International organizations working on counterterrorism acknowledge that "the
reach of the Internet provides terrorist organizations and sympathizers with a global pool of potential
recruits."11¶ The Internet is also used to sway those who have some interest in extremist ideologies.
Speeches by extremist leaders are posted online and can be accessed by anyone interested in their
rhetoric. Nigerian Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab became known as the "Underwear Bomber" for his
attempt to blow up a Michigan-bound flight in 2009 with material hidden in his underwear. He, too, had
connections with the late al-Awlaki. U.S. government documents reveal that Abdulmutallab sought out
al-Awlaki, who later trained him.12 The government argued that Abdulmutallab was manipulated by
extremist lectures posted online. This case demonstrates the not inconsiderable potential influence of
Internet videos in the radicalization process.¶ In addition to connecting like-minded individuals and
inspiring others to commit violent action, terrorist networks use the Internet to recruit new members. One
of the cases that drew media attention was that of Colleen LaRose, more popularly recognized as "Jihad
Jane" or Fatima LaRose.13 In 2008, LaRose, linked to other extremists online in Europe, had conspired to
kill a Swedish cartoonist who depicted Prophet Muhammad in a negative light.14 This case captured the
attention of many in the United States and Europe, especially since the accused was a white American
female who had converted to Islam as an adult. LaRose used the Internet to successfully recruit and
convince other women, such as Jamie Paulin Ramirez, to join her jihadist mission. According to the U.S.
Department of Justice, "LaRose and her co-conspirators used the Internet to establish relationships with
one another and to communicate regarding their plans...in order to wage violent jihad."15 Here, the
Internet took on the role of recruiting potential terrorists for an international terrorist plot. As
demonstrated in this case, "the Internet becomes a virtual "echo chamber"-acting as a radicalization
accelerant while creating the path for the ultimate stage of Jihadization."16 ¶ The Internet can also be used
to communicate during the process of planning an attack. Najibullah Zazi, a Colorado resident
responsible for planning an attack against the New York subway system in 2009, communicated with his
contact in Pakistan via email to design the foiled attack.17 In addition to other recruits from the United
Kingdom involved in the case, the two exchanged messages concerning the making of the bomb and the
progress of the plot using coded language. Before heading to New York to execute his plot, Zazi wrote to
his contact, letting him know that "the marriage is ready"-signaling that the attack was ready.18 The two
used the term "wedding" to refer to the attack. They also used coded language to refer to explosives. In
this example, the Internet was used by individuals to communicate the details and the logistics of their
planned attack.

Tracing visited web content is key – Spam Mimicking is used to organize attacks
Davis, United States representative to Palestine, Congressional aide, lawyer, 2006
(Benjamin R. , European Journal for Criminology, “ENDING THE CYBER JIHAD: COMBATING
TERRORIST EXPLOITATION OF THE INTERNET WITH THE RULE OF LAW AND IMPROVED
TOOLS FOR CYBER GOVERNANCE” 2006, HeinOnline, p. 140)
7. Spam Mimicking One of the newest techniques exploited by terrorist operatives is to visit the Spam
Mimic Web site, http://www.spammimic.com, and "embed encrypted messages in span in order to
disguise the fact that confidential data has been exchanged."' 12' According to the SANS Institute, users
wishing to transfer secret messages need only visit the site, "choose 'encode' from the menu, type in a
short message, and press enter. This generates a realistic spain message with the secret message
embedded inside it."'122 Upon receipt of the message, the end recipient of the span message can then
visit the "Spam Mimic Web site to 'decode' the spam, and retrieve the original message. 123

Terrorists use the internet to distribute propaganda – monitoring that traffic is key
Davis, United States representative to Palestine, Congressional aide, lawyer, 2006
(Benjamin R. , European Journal for Criminology, “ENDING THE CYBER JIHAD: COMBATING
TERRORIST EXPLOITATION OF THE INTERNET WITH THE RULE OF LAW AND IMPROVED
TOOLS FOR CYBER GOVERNANCE” 2006, HeinOnline, p. 142-3)
Several other individuals and organizations operating in the United States during the late 1990s and early
2000s exploited the Internet to promote and materially support Islamic terrorism. Sami Omar Al-
Hussayen, a Saudi Arabian computer science doctoral student at the University of Idaho developed and
maintained content for more than fifteen Islamic extremist Web sites and Internet chat rooms "which
contained materials designed and intended to recruit mujahideen and raise funds for violent jihad."'' 37
Among the various items that al-Hussayen posted on his Web sites was the following fatwa 138 posted at
www.alasr.ws in June 2001, just three months prior to the September 11 th attacks: [T]he Mujahid
(warrior) must kill himself if he knows that this will lead to killing a great number of the enemies, and
that he will not be able to kill them without killing himself first, or demolishing a center vital to the
enemy or its military force, and so on. This is not possible except by involving the human element in the
operation. In this new era, this can be accomplished with the modem means of bombing or bringing down
an airplane on an important location that will cause the enemy great losses. Interrogation transcripts of
detainees at the U.S. military base at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, released by the Department of Defense in
early 2006, also make frequent references to how the detainees were inspired to join Al Qaeda and the
Taliban prior to September 11, 2001 by fatwas they viewed online."4°

Terrorists use websites to recruit newer members

Davis, United States representative to Palestine, Congressional aide, lawyer, 2006
(Benjamin R. , European Journal for Criminology, “ENDING THE CYBER JIHAD: COMBATING
TERRORIST EXPLOITATION OF THE INTERNET WITH THE RULE OF LAW AND IMPROVED
TOOLS FOR CYBER GOVERNANCE” 2006, HeinOnline, p. 146-7)
In addition to providing a method of outward communication, jihadist Websites glorify Islamic militancy
in video testimonials of jihad operations. Sympathizers and potential recruits are thereby indoctrinated
with virtuous messages of jihad and martyrdom that justify and legitimize violent action against non-
Muslims. 165 A video entitled "The Attack on the Hotels: 'Badr al-Baghdad,"' posted on a Zarqawi-
affiliated site in December 2005, glorifies strikes on foreign targets in Iraq by taking viewers inside a
terrorist cell's pre-attack surveillance. 166 The video chronicles planning and practice runs for the suicide
bombings of the Sheraton Ishtar and Meridian Palestine Hotels in Baghdad. 167 The video includes
laudatory biographical profiles of the suicide bombers as well as their martyrdom statements.168
Palestinian Islamic Jihad ("PI") exploits the Internet to glorify the purported courage and selflessness of
suicide bombers who attack Israeli targets. 169 The aim is to inspire new sympathizers and recruits to
commit to sacrifices for the terrorist group. 170 Visitors to PIJ's Qudsway.net Web site hear background
music and the voice of the group's founder, Fathi Shiqaqi, proclaiming that the "Islamic nation's covenant
[is] with blood."'' The site features the picture of the suicide bomber who carried out the December 5,
2005, attack on a shopping mall in Netanya, Israel, that killed five Israeli citizens. The caption reads:
"The suicide bomber Abu Sa'ad . . . waited for the Zionists to approach, smiled a broad smile and blew
himself up.' ' 172 The site also includes official PU publications, which can be downloaded by individuals
who wish to learn about PIJ operations.17 3

Terrorists use the internet for fundraising

Davis, United States representative to Palestine, Congressional aide, lawyer, 2006
(Benjamin R. , European Journal for Criminology, “ENDING THE CYBER JIHAD: COMBATING
TERRORIST EXPLOITATION OF THE INTERNET WITH THE RULE OF LAW AND IMPROVED
TOOLS FOR CYBER GOVERNANCE” 2006, HeinOnline, p. 147-8)
According to Todd Hinnen, a terrorist financing expert who serves on the Bush administration's National
Security Council, terrorists use the Internet in "four primary ways to solicit and collect funding and
equipment in support of terrorist operations."'' 74 Terrorists: (1) solicit donations, indoctrinate adherents,
share information, and recruit supporters directly via Web site chat groups, and targeted electronic
mailings; (2) they take advantage of charitable organizations, soliciting funds with the express purpose of
clothing, feeding, and educating a population, but with the covert intent of exploiting contributors'
largesse to fund acts of violence; (3) they perpetrate online crimes such as identity and credit card theft,
intellectual property piracy, and fraud, and support their mission with the proceeds of such crimes; (4)
and they use the Internet as a pervasive, inexpensive, and anonymous medium of communication to
organize and implement fund raising activities. 7 5 The U.K.-based Hamas front-organization Interpal is
one of the largest Internet-based fundraising organizations and utilizes many of the above methodologies.
In addition to being a principal conduit through which funds are funneled (under the guise of charity) to
Hamas, "Interpal is [a] fundraising... coordination point for other Hamas-affiliated charities... [As such,
Interpal] supervis[es] activities of charities, develop[s] new charities in targeted areas, instruct[s] how
funds should be transferred from one charity to another, and even determine[es] public relations policy.' 7
6 Despite enforcement actions by the United States and Israel to freeze the assets of Interpal and to shut
down the Web site, the organization continues to operate and raise funds online. 1 7 Some prominent
Islamic extremists issue public statements and writings referring followers to Web sites that provide
instructions on how to exploit the Internet to raise funds for their deadly campaigns. Imam Samudra,
Indonesian Al Qaeda terrorist and the leader of the 2002 Al Qaeda Bali bombings, 78 recently released an
autobiography from his jail cell containing a chapter entitled, "Hacking, Why Not?"1'79 The chapter
"details basic information on money laundering, online credit card fraud, and computer programming
languages, exhorting all would-be terrorists to use cyberspace to further jihad."' 80 Other terrorist
networks have combined multiple communications media to raise funds for terrorism-related operations.
For example, Hezbollah maintains its own popular television station, Al Manar,' 8' which is broadcast
throughout the Middle East, and promoting violence against Israel and the United States. Al-Manar's Web
site urges contributions "for the sustenance of the Intifadah" and provides bank accounts in Lebanon to
which donations can be made for the purpose of carrying out violence against Israeli interests. 82 Each of
these Internet fundraising techniques illustrates terrorists' technological sophistication and strategic
manipulation of readily-available technology in order to raise funds for militant campaigns.

Websites are used to give instructions for attacks

Davis, United States representative to Palestine, Congressional aide, lawyer, 2006
(Benjamin R. , European Journal for Criminology, “ENDING THE CYBER JIHAD: COMBATING
TERRORIST EXPLOITATION OF THE INTERNET WITH THE RULE OF LAW AND IMPROVED
TOOLS FOR CYBER GOVERNANCE” 2006, HeinOnline, p. 148-9)
Many violent extremist Web sites have become one-stop terrorist training and planning centers. As
traditional means of travel and communication have become increasingly difficult for many terrorist
operatives since September 11 th, 183 a number of terrorist-related sites have expanded their use of the
Internet as a command and control platform.' 84 With horrifying openness and audacity, jihadi
webmasters utilize multimedia Web technologies to create virtual training and planning command
centers. "If you want to conduct an attack, you will find what you need on the Internet."' 185 During 2005
and early 2006, a series of high-quality training films shot in Afghanistan were posted on Web sites
associated with Al Qaeda affiliated groups. These Web videos include instructions for conducting a
roadside assassination, raiding a house, shooting a rocket propelled grenade, blowing up a car, attacking a
village, destroying a bridge and firing an SA-7 surface-to-air missile. 11 6 Al Qaeda operatives planning
the March 14, 2004, Madrid train bombings studied a report on the Al Qaeda-affiliated Global Islamic
Media front Web site, "in which a committee of al-Qaeda experts suggested an attack in Spain before the
general elections of March 14, 2004." ls17 In late 2003, a Web site entitled "Al Qa'ida University for
Jihad Sciences" offered an online instruction manual for various terrorist attacks including "suicide
operations."'l88 In August 2005, a site maintained by an Iraqi insurgency group posted an instructional
pamphlet entitled "The New Road to Mesopotamia" for prospective foreign fighters seeking to enter Iraq
to fight against U.S. and allied forces.18 9 The pamphlet included very specific tactical recommendations
for crossing the Syria-Iraq border, based on what appeared to be first-hand accounts of fighters who had
previously made the trip: Arrange your trip to take place over two stages. The first stage is to learn the
area, the people and the roads, and then head toward the city of Dayr AI-Zawr [Syria] near the Iraqi
border. It is recommended to enter the city using a car and do not carry large sums of money. If anyone
asks, say you are here on a vacation and have come to go fishing in the Euphrates-therefore, bring some
fishing equipment and another person with you so you won't look suspicious. It is an inexpensive region
and usually you will end up pa~ing $300 for 15 days in a four star hotel. A tank of gas will cost you
around $10 .... A number of other Web sites include remarkably detailed instructional booklets on how to
make suicide explosive belts. For instance, a 26-minute video on the Al-Ansar forum site discovered by
the SITE Institute in December 2004 "shows how to estimate the impact of an explosion, how best to
arrange the shrapnel for maximum destruction, how to strap the belt onto the bomber's body, [and] even
how to avoid the migraine headache that can come from exposure to the recommended explosive
chemicals."' 91

The internet is used to disseminate instructions for bioterror

Davis, United States representative to Palestine, Congressional aide, lawyer, 2006
(Benjamin R. , European Journal for Criminology, “ENDING THE CYBER JIHAD: COMBATING
TERRORIST EXPLOITATION OF THE INTERNET WITH THE RULE OF LAW AND IMPROVED
TOOLS FOR CYBER GOVERNANCE” 2006, HeinOnline, p. 150)
Other sites have published a 15-page document authored by Al Qaeda operational leader Mustafa
Setmariam Nasar with instructions for deploying potential biological weapons agents. 192 The document
explains how to develop a crude biological weapons delivery mechanism: "inject carrier animals, like
rats, with the virus and how to extract microbes from infected blood... and how to dry them so that they
can be used with aerosol delivery system."' 93 Online manuals discovered by the Terrorism Research
Center instruct operational activities on "how to extract explosive materials from missiles and land mines.
Another offered a country-by-country list of explosive materials available in western markets .... 194

Terrorists use codes to pass messages – cracking these is key to counterterrorism

Davis, United States representative to Palestine, Congressional aide, lawyer, 2006
(Benjamin R. , European Journal for Criminology, “ENDING THE CYBER JIHAD: COMBATING
TERRORIST EXPLOITATION OF THE INTERNET WITH THE RULE OF LAW AND IMPROVED
TOOLS FOR CYBER GOVERNANCE” 2006, HeinOnline, ES)
Terrorist groups, including Al Qaeda, use online coding techniques or programs, known as
steganography,98 which allow illicit computer users, to hide a message inside another message, image, or
file posted on the Internet. 99 For example, French intelligence officials assert that "suspects arrested in
an alleged plot to blow up the U.S. Embassy in Paris were to get the go-ahead for the attack via a message
hidden in a picture posted on the Intemet."' ° Other extremists utilize "Internet bulletin boards carrying
pornographic and sports information" to relay steganographic operational information to associates
located elsewhere in the world.'0' According to Internet security expert Chet Hosmer, other terrorist
operatives transfer messages via "images that might be in an email message... [inside an] image that no
one else would be able to detect or see."'1 2 September I Ith ringleader, Mohamed Atta, may have used
steganographic tactics to encode e-mail messages to his co-conspirators. Atta was "seen repeatedly by
witnesses using his Hotmail account at public libraries in Florida to surf the Internet, downloading what
appeared to be pictures of children and scenes of the Middle East."'10 3 Even where a terrorist's e-mail is
not encrypted, terrorist operatives are known to utilize previously identified code words to signal that a
particular event or action is going to take place. In the weeks preceding the September 11 th attacks,
September 11 th ringleader Mohammed Atta e-mailed his Al Qaeda associates: "The semester begins in
three more weeks. We've obtained 19 confirmations for studies in the faculty of law, the faculty of urban
planning, the faculty of fine arts, and the faculty of engineering."'"

Status quo internet surveillance prevents terrorism

Janbek, Ph.D, and Williams 14
(Williams and Valerie, Sping/Summer Ed. The Brown Journal of World Affairs, 20.2, “The Role of the
Internet in post-9/11 Terrorism and Counterterrorism,”)
The way in which terrorists utilize the Internet has continuously evolved since 9/11. U.S. intelligence, law
enforcement, and security agencies have responded by significantly expanding their counterterrorism
workforce, conducting undercover operations, and increasing surveillance of communications and online
activity. Collaboration between these agencies has been vital to the nation's counterterrorism efforts;
information gathered by the National Security Agency (NSA)'s surveillance technology is shared with the
FBI for use in investigations.20 Though these strategies have arguably stopped potential attacks on U.S.
soil, media outlets have questioned the ethics behind undercover operations and advanced surveillance
technologies.¶ Due to varying motivations, levels of expertise, and tactics of extremist groups and
individuals, the FBI acknowledges terrorism as a complex threat. As a response, the agency has increased
its number of agents by 40 percent and now allocates approximately half of its resources to
counterterrorism and the remaining half to all other criminal activity.21 Between 2001 and 2011, the
agency has almost tripled its intelligence analyst workforce.22 It has also increased the number of Joint
Terrorism Task Force (JTTF) partnerships from 35 to over 100.23 JTTF partnerships exist between law
enforcement agencies across the country that share essential information with each other. These
partnerships contribute resources, enhance operational capability, and significantly expand the FBI's
intelligence base. According to the FBI, "JTTFs have been instrumental in breaking up cells...[and]
they've foiled attacks on the Fort Dix Army base in New Jersey, on the JFK International Airport in New
York, and on various military and civilian targets in Los Angeles."24¶ In addition to expanding its labor
force, the FBI has adapted its investigative approach to more proactive, intelligence-led strategies to
combat terrorist attacks. These strategies are specifically tailored to the targeted suspect, requiring agents
to utilize unique skill sets and language abilities for undercover operations. The FBI implements a variety
of undercover tactics on the Internet, at times creating terrorist-network recruiting websites convincing
enough to attract potential terrorists. When 18-year-old would-be terrorist Abdella Ahmad Tounisi was
searching the Internet for Jabhat al-Nusra, an al-Qaeda branch in Syria, he found one of these sites.
Created and maintained by the FBI, the page featured pictures and videos of armed fighters in masks and
fatigues intended to depict terrorist training.25 A section of the site, titled "A Call for Jihad in Syria,"
urged visitors to "come and join your lion brothers of Jabhat Al-Nusra who are fighting under the true
banner of Islam, come and join your brothers, the heroes of Jabhat Al-Nusra."26 When Tounisi contacted
the website's recruiter, who in reality was an FBI agent, they exchanged email messages in which the teen
divulged his detailed plan to engage in jihad in Syria. As a result of this communication, the agency was
able to arrest Tounisi in 2013 at Chicago's O'Hare International Airport before his flight across seas.
Tounisi was ultimately charged with attempting to provide material support to a foreign terrorist
organization and lying to federal authorities.¶ The FBI utilizes specially trained undercover agents to
befriend and earn the trust of domestic terror suspects similar to Tounisi. This strategy allows agents to
monitor terrorism plots in their beginning stages and intercept forum posts and emails from individual
suspects before they catch the attention of authentic extremist organizations. For example, after posting
violent messages on an online extremist forum, teenaged Texas resident Hosam Maher Husein Smadi was
befriended by an Arabic-speaking FBI agent posing as a member of an al-Qaeda sleeper cell.27 Within
months, Smadi and three undercover agents devised a plot to bomb a 60-story corporate building in
Dallas, Texas. On the last day of the sting operation in 2009, Smadi attempted to detonate the fake bomb
provided by the FBI and was immediately arrested. ¶ Once an agent befriends a targeted suspect, plans are
developed and if necessary, resources are provided at the target's request. Throughout this process, FBI
agents attempt to dissuade the suspect, offering him or her a chance to abandon the plan.28 If the
individual is adamant in completing the mission-at times seen in attempts to purchase weapons, to leave
the country, or to detonate an FBI-provided bomb-he or she is arrested and tried for the crime. This
scenario is not uncommon; there have been several cases of homegrown violent extremism fueled by
extremist websites, even in individuals as young as 14.29 In cases like these, the FBI asserts that if an
individual is susceptible to an undercover agent, he or she would be just as susceptible to an extremist
group.30 Although sting operations have been used by law enforcement for decades, this process of
befriending and working with potential terrorists online has sparked an ethical debate. Furthermore, some
have questioned whether sting operations are the best use of counterterrorism resources. Some consider
these operations to be entrapment since the FBI partially devises the plan and provides money, fake
bombs, and even vehicles to suspects. In a recent New York Times article, author David Shipler
questioned the legitimacy of cultivating potential terrorists instead of finding real ones.31 Shipler
dismisses some terror suspects as "incompetent wannabes looking for a cause that the informer or
undercover agent skillfully helps them find."32¶ Cases like that of Hosam Smadi exemplify these
arguments; Smadi's defense team described him as a troubled youth who suffered from depression and
schizophrenia. 33 According to the defense, Smadi was motivated by the undercover agents' praise and
companionship.34 Despite their efforts to portray him as a misguided victim of entrapment, Smadi was
charged in 2010 with one count of attempting to use a weapon of mass destruction and one count of
bombing a public place. He was sentenced to 24 years in prison and deportation upon release. According
to investigative journalist Trevor Aaronson, no terrorism defendant since 9/11 has won an acquittal using
entrapment as a defense.35 Collaborating with prosecutors, undercover operatives determine strategies to
prove the suspect's predisposition to committing the crime. Working together, prosecutors and FBI
employees document proof to use in court later.36 Though its ethical standards are in question by the
public, the FBI's strategies have been successful under legal standards. ¶ Undercover operations represent
just one investigative technique for identifying terrorists and their networks. FBI operatives also
investigate activities of known terrorist organizations, interview locals, and monitor foreign press for
intelligence. These traditional, preventative policing techniques are employed in collaboration with online
data to compile evidence necessary to prosecute terrorists.37 Although controversy surrounds the
agency's sting operations, the FBI reports that it has removed more than 20 of al-Qaeda's top 30 leaders
due to the FBI's improvements since 9/11.38 These changes hinder al-Qaeda's efforts in fundraising,
recruiting, training, and planning attacks outside their local region. The FBI also says that every major al-
Qaeda affiliate has lost its key leader.39 Although these leaders can be replaced, al-Qaeda is forced to use
less experienced leaders, degrading their overall efficiency. The FBI credits their achievements to their
expansion in intelligence and access to digital records, due in part to post- 9/11 legislation.¶ Post-9/11
legislation, including the PATRIOT Act and the FISA (Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act of 1978)
Amendments Act, enables the NSA to gain access to individuals' online activity, employ advanced
surveillance technology, and increase the use of National Security Letters. National Security Letters,
commonly used in counterterrorism investigations, enable agents to collect noncontent consumer
information including Internet records, telephone records, and credit reports from third party service
providers. Additionally, section 215 of the PATRIOT Act permits the FBI to seize anything tangible from
a person for investigations against international terrorism.40 Intelligence officials admit that "the National
Security Agency is searching the contents of vast amounts of Americans' email and text communications
into and out of the country" for mentions of foreign terrorist suspects under surveillance.41 Relevant data
collected by this surveillance is shared with the FBI and their JTTFs to aid investigations.42
 XKEYSCORE
XKEYSCORE key to solve terrorism – shows networks and provides invaluable
intelligence
Pham, 14 (Cassidy, San Jose State University, 2/27/14, “Effectiveness of Metadata Information and
Tools Applied to National Security”, Library Philosophy and Practice (e-journal), University of
Nebraska-Lincoln, http://digitalcommons.unl.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=2608&context=libphilprac)
With this wealth of metadata, and the tools to organize and graphically visualize the information, the IC can apply
sophisticated analytics techniques to identify persons of interests and associates. The first experiment is
applicable as a national security tool since it efficiently connects contacts, and isolates social groups. This
is particularly useful in disassociating contacts that are unaware or uninvolved with the person interest. It
is also valuable in finding unknown associates of targets he or she already knows about . The second experiments
provide additional contextual information. Naturally, metadata explains the who, what, where and when . It does not explain the why and
how. These questions are left for analysts to fill in by using contextual information, such world cloud experiment, to develop a so-called picture. Though the
experiments were innately limited in scope, the relative success
in the application of metadata shows its effectiveness as a
national security tool.¶ As noted in the literature review, metadata tools, such as the XKeyscore are truly invaluable as
intelligence gathering tools. According to leaked documents, over 300 terrorists were captured using the
XKeyscore (The Guardian, 2013). Also, examples from various case studies, such as the killing of Osama Bid Laden indicate successful use
and application of metadata. With the added benefit of the interoperability of these various tools, the IC
can lighten the burden and share information. Rather than having one agency find a needle in a haystack
—a haystack of infinite size, it is far more efficient and effective to divide the hay into multiple stacks
among multiple players.¶ Conclusion¶ Much of the information and sources are conjecture since they are based on leaked documents. And of course,
the government has yet to fully disclose the information on the tools, which exasperates the problem. Nonetheless, declassified documents, journal articles, and
metadata tools that are relatively similar to the ones used by the IC, insure legitimacy to the evidence. Overall, the results from the experiments indicate
a
high success rate since untrained observers were able to analyze the metadata diagrams, and accurately
determine social groups and personal backgrounds for most of the participants. Evidence from various
sources, such as case studies, journal articles, and leaked government documents further support the
effectiveness of metadata as part of a national security platform. As the country, and the rest of the world
becomes more dependent on smart devices, social media sites, the internet, and other 21st century
necessities, metadata and the associated tools are equally necessary for the IC to effectively face the
threats of national security.
 Court Action, stricter legal standards

Court action and stricter standards create legal uncertainty – hampering the
government’s counter-terror interests.
Branda ‘14
(et al; JOYCE R. BRANDA, Acting Assistant Attorney General, BRIEF FOR THE APPELLEES - Amicus Brief for Smith v.
Obama – before the United States Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals. “Amici” means “friend of the court” and – in this context - is
legal reference to the Reporters Committee – October 2 nd – “She” is not gendered language in this instance – as the particular
plaintiff identified as a “she”. https://www.eff.org/document/governments-smith-answering-brief)

Plaintiff does not address how she has a privacy interest in business records produced pursuant to congressionally
authorized judicial orders. She does, however, argue that she has a privacy interest in telephony metadata, and that
Smith is distinguishable. Pl. Br. 15-26. Those arguments do not withstand analysis. First, plaintiff suggests
that it “obvious[ly]” makes a difference that “[t]he surveillance in Smith continued for three days,” whereas under
the Section 215 program the government obtains and retains business records containing telephony metadata over a longer time
period. Pl. Br. 16. But the greater time over which metadata may be collected does not validly distinguish Smith, which held
that individuals lack a privacy interest in any of the telephony metadata voluntarily transmitted to a telephone
company because the company’s customers “voluntarily convey[] those numbers to the telephone company” and because “‘a person has no legitimate
expectation of privacy in information he voluntarily turns over to third parties.’” California v. Greenwood, 486 U.S. 35, 41 (1988) (quoting Smith, 442 U.S. at 743-
44). That holding did not depend on the number of days the pen register operated, and any
other rule would inject needless
uncertainty into an area in which certainty is crucial to enable government personnel to implement
these rules in the field. See, e.g., Atwater, 532 U.S. at 347.

Plan undermines Judicial deference – critical to effective counter-terrorism

operations – secrecy and expertise
Posner 12 (Eric A. – Kirkland & Ellis Professor, University of Chicago Law School, “DEFERENCE TO THE
EXECUTIVE IN THE UNITED STATES AFTER SEPTEMBER 11: CONGRESS , THE COURTS , AND THE OFFICE OF
LEGAL COUNSEL”, 1/11, Harvard Journal of Law & Public Policy, http://www.harvard-jlpp.com/wp-
content/uploads/2012/01/PosnerFinal.pdf)

The deference thesis states that during emergencies the legislature and judiciary should defer to the
executive. 8 It assumes that the executive is controlled by the President, but to the ex ‐ tent that the President could be bound
by agents within the ex ‐ ecutive, the deference thesis also holds that those agents should follow the President’s orders , not the
other way around. In normal times, the three branches of government share power. For example, if the executive believes that a new, dangerous
drug has become available, but possession of the drug is not yet illegal, the executive may not act on its own to detain and prosecute those who
deal and use the drug. The legislature must first enact a statute that outlaws the drug. The executive also depends on the legislature for financial
appropriations and other forms of support. The executive also faces constraints from the courts. If the executive arrests drug dealers and seeks to
imprison them, it must first obtain the approval of courts. The courts ensure that the executive does not go beyond the bounds of the new law,
In emergencies,
does not violate earlier ‐ enacted laws that have not been superseded by the new law, and does not violate the Constitution.
the executive often will contemplate actions that do not have clear legislative authority and might be
constitutionally dubious. For example, after September 11, the U.S. government engaged in immigration sweeps,
detained people without charges, used coercive interrogation, and engaged in warrantless wiretapping
of American citizens. 9 Many, if not all, of these actions would have been considered violations of the law and the U.S. Constitution if they had
been undertaken against normal criminal suspects the day before the attacks. After September 11, both the legislature and the courts
gave the executive some deference. The legislature gave explicit authori ‐ ties to the executive that it had initially lacked; 10 the
courts did not block actions that they would have blocked during normal times. 11 But neither body was entirely passive. Congress ob ‐ jected to
coercive interrogation and did not give the executive all the authorities that it requested. 12 After a slow start, the courts also resisted some of the
assertions the executive made. There is some dispute about whether this resistance was mean ‐ ingful and caused the executive to change policy
or merely re ‐ acted to the same stimuli that caused the executive to moderate certain policies independently. 13 In any event, no
one
disputes that the courts gave the executive a nearly free pass over at least the first five to seven years of the conflict
with al Qaeda. The deference thesis, then, can be strong ‐ form or weak ‐ form. This ambiguity has had unfortunate consequences for
debates about post ‐ September 11 legal policies. Few people believe that the courts should impose exactly the same restrictions on the executive
during an emergency as during normal times. Indeed, doctrine itself instructs courts to balance the security value of a course of action and its cost
to civil liberties, implying that cer ‐ tain actions might be legally justified to counter high ‐ stakes threats but not to counter low ‐ stakes threats.
14 Nor does anyone believe that the executive should be completely unconstrained. The debate is best understood in the context of the U.S. gov ‐
ernment’s post ‐ September 11 policies. Defenders of these policies frequently invoked the deference thesis—not so much as a way of justifying
any particular policy, but as a way of insisting that the
executive should be given the benefit of the doubt , at least in the short
term. 15 The deference thesis rests on basic in ‐ tuitions about institutional competence: that the
executive can act more decisively
and with greater secrecy than Congress or the courts because it is a hierarchical body and commands forces that are trained
and experienced in countering security threats. The other branches lack expertise . Although they may have good ideas from time to
time, and are free to volunteer them, the ability of the executive to respond to security threats would be
unacceptably hampered if Congress and the courts had the power to block it to any significant degree.
Secrecy is an important part of the argument. Policymaking depends on information, and information
during emergencies often must be kept secret. Congress and the courts are by nature and tradition open
bodies; if they were to act in secret, their value would be diminished. Meanwhile, the argument contin ‐ ues, the fear of an
out ‐ of ‐ control executive who would engage in abuses unless it was constrained by the other branches is
exaggerated. The President has strong electoral and other political incentives to act in the public interest (at least,
in the United States). Even if the executive can conceal various “inputs” into counterterrorism policy, it
cannot conceal the “output”—the existence, or not, of terrorist attacks that kill civilians. Thus, it was possible for
defenders of the Bush Administra ‐ tion’s counterterrorism policies to express discomfort with cer ‐ tain policy choices, while arguing
nonetheless that Congress
and the courts should not try to block executive policymaking or the duration of
the emergency—at least not as a matter of presumption. Critics of the Bush Administration argued that deference was not warranted—or at
least not more than a lim ‐ ited amount of deference was warranted, although again these subtleties often were lost in the debate—for a variety of
rea ‐ sons. I now turn to these arguments.

Surveillance programs are state secrets – case law proves

Bazzle 12 (Tom – J.D., Georgetown University Law Center, 2011, “Shutting the Courthouse Doors: Invoking the State
Secrets Privilege to Thwart Judicial Review in the Age of Terror”, 2012, 23 Geo. Mason U. Civ. Rts. L.J. 29, lexis)

A. No Harm, No Judicial Review: State Secrets and the Terrorist Surveillance Wiretapping Program Revelations in late 2005 and early 2006 about the
TSP - a secret terrorist surveillance wiretapping program operated by the NSA without judicial
supervision, n66 whose existence the Bush Administration later confirmed n67 - triggered numerous lawsuits against
telecommunications providers for violations of subscribers' constitutional and statutory rights. n68 These lawsuits were not the
first legal challenges to government wiretapping, nor were they the first time the government had
invoked state secrets to thwart judicial inquiry of wiretapping challenges. n69 Rather than revisit that history, this
Article instead focuses only on post-9/11 circuit court decisions to consider the extent [*41] to which courts have acquiesced to government
assertions of the state secrets privilege. While circuit courts have tended to recognize state secrets claims in these cases, it is significant that
many of these decisions actually reversed district court decisions that had rejected the state secrets claims. Perhaps the most thorough treatment of whether the state
secrets privilege precludes judicial review of the terrorist surveillance program occurred in Hepting v. AT&T Corp., where the plaintiffs argued that AT&T's alleged
warrantless wiretapping of its communications violated their First and Fourth Amendment rights. n70 The Bush Administration intervened, moving for dismissal on
state secrets grounds. n71 After reviewing the purportedly secret evidence in camera, n72 the District Court for the Northern District of California denied the
government's motion to dismiss, ruling that discovery should commence because the state secrets claim was inapplicable in light of the government's repeated
admissions about the existence of the program. n73 The district court's thoughtful opinion offers a framework for review of state secrets claims in the war-on-terror
context. The
district court's threshold inquiry in resolving the state secrets claim was determining whether
the NSA surveillance program that gave rise to the suit actually qualified as a "secret." n74 Because the
government had disclosed the existence of the program and AT&T admitted to assisting the government in classified matters when asked, the court concluded that
state secrets did not foreclose discovery. n75 While the state secrets privilege did not support pre-discovery dismissal of the case, the court found that there was
sufficient ambiguity about the extent of AT&T's involvement in the program, and the contents of any communication records surveyed, so as to permit AT&T to not
disclose the extent of its participation in the TSP. n76 The court [*42] made clear, however, that if information about AT&T's role in supporting the TSP became
public during the course of the litigation, the government could no longer invoke state secrets to resist disclosing this information. n77
Surveillance information is classified as a state secret – the plan must circumvent
the doctrine
Bazzle 12 (Tom – J.D., Georgetown University Law Center, 2011, “Shutting the Courthouse Doors: Invoking the State
Secrets Privilege to Thwart Judicial Review in the Age of Terror”, 2012, 23 Geo. Mason U. Civ. Rts. L.J. 29, lexis)

The war on terror has led to an increased use of the state secrets privilege by the Executive Branch - to
dismiss legal challenges to widely publicized and controversial government actions - ostensibly aimed at protecting national security from
terrorist threats. n1 Faced
with complaints that allege indiscriminate and warrantless surveillance, n2 tortious
detention, and torture that flouts domestic and international law, n3 courts
have had to reconcile impassioned appeals for
private justice with the government's unyielding insistence on protecting national security. Courts, almost
unanimously, have cast their lot with national security, granting considerable deference to government
assertions of the state secrets principle. This deference to state secrets shows no signs of abating; indeed, the growing trend is for
courts to dismiss these legal challenges pre-discovery, n4 even before the private litigants have had the chance to present actual, non-secret
evidence to meet their burden of proof. Although many looked optimistically at President Obama's inauguration as a chance to break decisively
from the Bush Administration's aggressive application of the state secrets [*30] privilege, n5 the
Obama Administration has
largely disappointed on the state-secrets front, asserting the privilege with just as much fervor - if not as
much regularity n6 - as its predecessor. n7

Courts are normally minimalist – the aff collapses executive independence – key to
counter terrorism
Keynes 10 -- Professor of Political Science at Pennsylvania State University, University of Wisconsin Ph.D. (Edward,
2010, "Undeclared War: Twilight Zone of Constitutional Power," p. 83)

While the constitutional separation of powers does not preclude judicial review of war-powers controversies or
require absolute deference to congressional and presidential judgment that the political-question doctrine sometimes suggests, the separation
of powers provides a broad standard for judicial intervention in the vast, complex, and uncertain realm of foreign
affairs. When the courts intervene in boundary disputes in order to protect an individual's constitutional rights or society's interest in
constitutional government, they should not impair the performance of legislative or executive functions that are
essential to protecting national-security interests. 126 Although the courts do not owe Congress or the President absolute
deference in defining the boundaries of legislative and executive power, the principle of comity suggests that the judiciary should
search for formulas that least restrict each branch in the performance of its functions, i.e., formulas that maximize each
department's independence. As Robert Nagel recommends, when the courts challenge the exercise of legislative or executive
power, they should pause to examine the effect of their decisions on the other department's operation. In cases
that involve conflicting claims of power, the courts should first determine how broadly and deeply their decisions
cut into another department's functions before marching into the political thicket.126

Judicial deference is critical to effective counter-terrorism operations – secrecy and

expertise
Posner 12 (Eric A. – Kirkland & Ellis Professor, University of Chicago Law School, “DEFERENCE TO THE
EXECUTIVE IN THE UNITED STATES AFTER SEPTEMBER 11: CONGRESS , THE COURTS , AND THE OFFICE OF
LEGAL COUNSEL”, 1/11, Harvard Journal of Law & Public Policy, http://www.harvard-jlpp.com/wp-
content/uploads/2012/01/PosnerFinal.pdf)

The deference thesis states that during emergencies the legislature and judiciary should defer to the
executive. 8 It assumes that the executive is controlled by the President, but to the ex ‐ tent that the President could be bound
by agents within the ex ‐ ecutive, the deference thesis also holds that those agents should follow the President’s orders , not the
other way around. In normal times, the three branches of government share power. For example, if the executive believes that a new, dangerous
drug has become available, but possession of the drug is not yet illegal, the executive may not act on its own to detain and prosecute those who
deal and use the drug. The legislature must first enact a statute that outlaws the drug. The executive also depends on the legislature for financial
appropriations and other forms of support. The executive also faces constraints from the courts. If the executive arrests drug dealers and seeks to
imprison them, it must first obtain the approval of courts. The courts ensure that the executive does not go beyond the bounds of the new law,
In emergencies,
does not violate earlier ‐ enacted laws that have not been superseded by the new law, and does not violate the Constitution.
the executive often will contemplate actions that do not have clear legislative authority and might be
constitutionally dubious. For example, after September 11, the U.S. government engaged in immigration sweeps,
detained people without charges, used coercive interrogation, and engaged in warrantless wiretapping
of American citizens. 9 Many, if not all, of these actions would have been considered violations of the law and the U.S. Constitution if they had
been undertaken against normal criminal suspects the day before the attacks. After September 11, both the legislature and the courts
gave the executive some deference. The legislature gave explicit authori ‐ ties to the executive that it had initially lacked; 10 the
courts did not block actions that they would have blocked during normal times. 11 But neither body was entirely passive. Congress ob ‐ jected to
coercive interrogation and did not give the executive all the authorities that it requested. 12 After a slow start, the courts also resisted some of the
assertions the executive made. There is some dispute about whether this resistance was mean ‐ ingful and caused the executive to change policy
or merely re ‐ acted to the same stimuli that caused the executive to moderate certain policies independently. 13 In any event, no
one
disputes that the courts gave the executive a nearly free pass over at least the first five to seven years of the conflict
with al Qaeda. The deference thesis, then, can be strong ‐ form or weak ‐ form. This ambiguity has had unfortunate consequences for
debates about post ‐ September 11 legal policies. Few people believe that the courts should impose exactly the same restrictions on the executive
during an emergency as during normal times. Indeed, doctrine itself instructs courts to balance the security value of a course of action and its cost
to civil liberties, implying that cer ‐ tain actions might be legally justified to counter high ‐ stakes threats but not to counter low ‐ stakes threats.
14 Nor does anyone believe that the executive should be completely unconstrained. The debate is best understood in the context of the U.S. gov ‐
ernment’s post ‐ September 11 policies. Defenders of these policies frequently invoked the deference thesis—not so much as a way of justifying
any particular policy, but as a way of insisting that the
executive should be given the benefit of the doubt , at least in the short
term. 15 The deference thesis rests on basic in ‐ tuitions about institutional competence: that the
executive can act more decisively
and with greater secrecy than Congress or the courts because it is a hierarchical body and commands forces that are trained
and experienced in countering security threats. The other branches lack expertise . Although they may have good ideas from time to
time, and are free to volunteer them, the ability of the executive to respond to security threats would be
unacceptably hampered if Congress and the courts had the power to block it to any significant degree.
Secrecy is an important part of the argument. Policymaking depends on information, and information
during emergencies often must be kept secret. Congress and the courts are by nature and tradition open
bodies; if they were to act in secret, their value would be diminished. Meanwhile, the argument contin ‐ ues, the fear of an
out ‐ of ‐ control executive who would engage in abuses unless it was constrained by the other branches is
exaggerated. The President has strong electoral and other political incentives to act in the public interest (at least,
in the United States). Even if the executive can conceal various “inputs” into counterterrorism policy, it
cannot conceal the “output”—the existence, or not, of terrorist attacks that kill civilians. Thus, it was possible for
defenders of the Bush Administra ‐ tion’s counterterrorism policies to express discomfort with cer ‐ tain policy choices, while arguing
nonetheless that Congress
and the courts should not try to block executive policymaking or the duration of
the emergency—at least not as a matter of presumption. Critics of the Bush Administration argued that deference was not warranted—or at
least not more than a lim ‐ ited amount of deference was warranted, although again these subtleties often were lost in the debate—for a variety of
rea ‐ sons. I now turn to these arguments.
 FISA Courts Too Slow to solve counter-terror

FISA Courts are too slow for modern counter-terror operations.

CFR ‘13
(The Council on Foreign Relations (CFR) is a United States nonprofit organization, publisher, and think tank specializing in U.S.
foreign policy and international affairs. Its membership has included senior politicians, more than a dozen Secretaries of State,
CIA directors, bankers, lawyers, professors, and senior media figures – December 18, 2013 – Modified for potentially
objectionable language - http://www.cfr.org/intelligence/us-domestic-surveillance/p9763)

The Bush administration maintained that the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) was an outdated
law-enforcement mechanism that was too time-consuming given the highly fluid, modern threat
environment. Administration officials portrayed the NSA program as an "early warning system" (PDF) with "a military nature that
requires speed and agility." Moreover, the White House stressed that the program was one not of domestic surveillance but of
monitoring terrorists abroad, and publicly referred to the operation as the "Terrorist Surveillance Program." Opponents of the program referred to
it as "domestic spying."
 Encryption
Encrypted data makes it harder to catch terrorists

Raf Sanchez, September 25, 2014, Daily Telegraph, Tech giants slammed by FBI over encrypted
smartphones;
Apple and Google's policy to encrypt their smartphones will make it more difficult to rescue kidnapping
victims and foil terror plots, US says, http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/nor DOA: 3-21-15

The FBI has warned that decisions by Apple and Google to encrypt their smartphones will make it
more difficult to rescue kidnapping victims and foil terror plots. The two Silicon Valley giants have
both decided to add new encryption systems in the face of privacy concerns sparked by Edward
Snowden's disclosure of mass government surveillance. Both Apple and Google were criticised for
allegedly handing over reams of customer data over to the National Security Agency (NSA). Now, the
companies are offering encryption software as a default on smartphones, claiming it would make it
impossible for them comply with US government searches. "It's not technically feasible for us to
respond to government warrants for the extraction of this data from devices," an Apple statement
said. The announcement has alarmed American law enforcement and on Thursday, James Comey, the
director of the FBI, added his voice to the criticism. Mr Comey cited child kidnapping and terrorism
cases as two examples of situations where quick access by authorities to phone data can save lives. He
told reporters at FBI headquarters that US officials are in talks with the two companies and accused the
companies of letting people put themselves beyond the law's reach. Law enforcement could still intercept
telephone conversations if they had a wiretap warrant from a court. However, the new encryption
systems would block access to call data, contacts, photos and email stored on the phone. Ronald Hosko,
a former assistant director of the FBI Criminal Investigative Division, said the encryption would
"protect many thousands of criminals who seek to do us great harm, physically or financially".

Encryption undermines snooping needed to stop terrorist attacks

New York Times, December 24, 2014, Why Democracy is Failing,

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/12/27/opinion/why-democracy-is-failing.html?_r=0 DOA: 3-21-15
Re ''War on surveillance'' (Turning Points, Dec. 6): Julian Assange's article on the Orwellian side of the
Internet is provocative. But the remedy for electronic tyranny -- encryption -- fails to take into account
modern terrorism. The encryption that would justifiably limit official snooping would equally frustrate
the equally justifiable attempt to short-circuit terrorist plots. One could argue about the relative
importance of the two imperatives, but not about the two-faced character of all aspects of Internet
surveillance.

Encryption makes information needed to prevent and prosecute crimes unavailable

Bloomberg, October 2, 2014, Apple's encryption will slow not stop snooping by cops and spies,
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2014-10-02/apple-s-encryption-will-slow-not-stop-cops-and-
spies DOA: 3-20-15
The companies announced in recent weeks that their new phones will automatically scramble data so that
a digital key kept by the owner is needed to unlock it, making it harder for detectives to examine the
content of suspects' phones without their knowledge or cooperation. Previously, such encryption was an
option that required users to endure a time-consuming process to activate. "This is going to have a very
big impact on law enforcement," said Stewart Baker, a former general counsel for the NSA and now a
partner at the law firm Steptoe and Johnson in Washington. "There will be crimes that people get away
with because this information is not available."

Encryption decimates effective law enforcement. The impact is rampant terrorism

and crime.
Glasser 14 — Ellen Glasser, President of the Society of Former Special Agents of the Federal Bureau
of Investigation, Adjunct Professor in the Criminology & Criminal Justice Department at the University
of North Florida, served as an FBI Agent for 24 years, 2014 (“Tech companies are making it harder for
the nation's law enforcement,” The Baltimore Sun, November 6th, Available Online at
http://www.baltimoresun.com/news/opinion/oped/bs-ed-fbi-apple-20141106-story.html, Accessed 07-05-
2015)
FBI Director Comey has been on the job for just over a year and is working to change perceptions. In
addressing the myriad challenges that face our nation, he brings a positive, reasoned approach to the
public discussion of privacy versus safety. While appreciating the public's concern over privacy, he has
been very clear that the marketing of these new devices will seriously impede law enforcement's ability to
protect Americans. Put simply, legal access to unencrypted mobile device information is needed to keep
our citizens and our country safer.
Here is some FBI reality. We live in an apocalyptic, post-9/11 world, where the FBI is confronted with a
dizzying array of threats from terrorist bombings to beheadings of innocent victims. Over the years,
the FBI has also responded to anthrax attacks, shoe and underwear bombers, White House fence
jumpers, child molesters, school shootings, human trafficking, kidnappings and massive fraud
schemes. The FBI investigates these matters within the scope of the law and with great, abiding
respect for the right of individuals to privacy.
Let me bring this close to home. What if your child was abducted, and the FBI developed mobile device
information and had a court order, but FBI agents were unable to access the critical, time-sensitive,
unencrypted information that was necessary to save your child's life? Thankfully, most people will never
be in a life-or-death situation like this, but it does happen. When it does — any FBI agent can tell you
from experience — people want help. Let's start by helping them now.
Public perception needs to change so the focus is on handcuffing the bad guys, not tying the hands of
the good guys. Please contact your elected representatives to tell them that corrective legislation is
necessary to require companies like Apple and Google to work with law enforcement and find a solution
to this problem.
Law enforcement can’t break strong encryption. ISIS loves this.
Wittes 15 — Benjamin Wittes, Senior Fellow in Governance Studies at the Brookings Institution,
Editor in Chief of Lawfare, Member of the Task Force on National Security and Law at the Hoover
Institution, 2015 (“Thoughts on Encryption and Going Dark: Part I,” Lawfare—a national security blog
curated by the Brookings Institution, July 9th, Available Online at http://www.lawfareblog.com/thoughts-
encryption-and-going-dark-part-i, Accessed 07-13-2015)
FBI Director James Comey has been on a public offensive of late, arguing against end-to-end encryption
that prevents law enforcement access to communications even when authorities have appropriate legal
process to capture those communications. The offensive began with a speech at Brookings some months
ago. More recently, Comey made these comments on CNN, these comments in a private conversation
with me, and wrote this piece for Lawfare.
Yesterday, he was on Capitol Hill, testifying both before the Senate Judiciary Committee (video at this
link, prepared statement here) and before the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence (video below):
[Video Omitted]
Comey made some news yesterday. For one thing, he stated very clearly to the Judiciary Committee—and
with evident reluctance—that some of the encryption the bureau is now facing is beyond its capacity to
crack:
[I]f we intercept data in motion between two encrypted devices or across an encrypted mobile
messaging app and it's strongly encrypted, we can't break it.
Now, this is sometimes—I hate that I'm here saying this, but I actually think the problem is severe
enough that I need to let the bad guys know that. That's the risk in what we're talking about here.
The bad—I'm just confirming something for the bad guys.
Sometimes people watch TV and think, "Well, the FBI must have some way to break that strong
encryption." We do not, which is why this is such an important issue.
At another point, he stated that while some companies have designed systems that they lack the capacity
to decrypt, in other instances, some companies have simply declined to assist investigators in decrypting
signal even where decryption was possible—a matter on which at least one senator fought further
information. (See Comey's comments at 1:17:00 and his subsequent exchange with Senator Sheldon
Whitehouse at 1:20:00 of the Judiciary Committee hearing.)
All in all, Comey's reception on the Hill was significantly warmer than I expected. The Bureau has clearly
done a lot of quiet behind-the-scenes work with members to familiarize them with the problem as the FBI
sees it, and many members yesterday seemed to require little persuasion.
But Comey has a very heavy lift ahead of him if he is to make progress on the "Going Dark" problem. For
one thing, it's not entirely clear what constitutes progress from the Bureau's perspective. The
administration is, at this stage, not asking for legislation, after all. It's merely describing an emergent
problem.
But this is a bit of a feint. The core of that emergent problem, at least as Comey's joint statement with
Deputy Attorney General Sally Yates frames it, is that CALEA—which mandates that
telecommunications providers retain the capacity for law enforcement to get access to signal for lawful
wiretapping—does not reach internet companies. So even if Apple and Google were to voluntarily retain
encryption keys, some other actor would very likely not do so. Absent a legal requirement that companies
refrain from making true end-to-end encrypted services available without a CALEA-like stop-gap, some
entity will see a market hole and provide those services. And it's fair to assume that ISIS and the most
sophisticated bad actors will gravitate in the direction of that service provider.
In other words, I think Comey and Yates inevitably are asking for legislation, at least in the longer term.
The administration has decided not to seek it now, so the conversation is taking place at a somewhat
higher level of abstraction than it would if there were a specific legislative proposal on the table. But the
current discussion should be understood as an effort to begin building a legislative coalition for some sort
of mandate that internet platform companies retain (or build) the ability to permit, with appropriate legal
process, the capture and delivery to law enforcement and intelligence authorities of decrypted versions of
the signals they carry.

The plan risks catastrophic terrorism.

Weissmann 14 — Andrew Weissmann, Senior Fellow at the Center for Law and Security and the
Center on the Administration of Criminal Law at New York University, former General Counsel for the
Federal Bureau of Investigation, holds a J.D. from Columbia Law School, 2014 (“Apple, Boyd, and
Going Dark,” Just Security, October 20th, Available Online at http://justsecurity.org/16592/apple-boyd-
dark/, Accessed 07-05-2015)
To my mind – although, as in many areas of the law, there is no perfect solution — the cost of a system
where we may be more at risk to illegal hacking is outweighed by the vital role lawful electronic
interception plays in thwarting crime – including devastating terrorist attacks. Law enforcement and
intelligence officials, including most recently FBI Director James Comey, have noted that we all –
including criminals — increasingly use non-telephonic means to communicate. The ability to monitor
electronic communications is decreasing with every new encryption tool on such communication
systems. Law enforcement authorities in the US and overseas rightfully note how such data is critical to
solving everyday crimes, such as kidnapping, fraud, child pornography and exploitation, among
many others. And at least as important, preventing terrorist attacks requires such ability, as intelligence
agencies note (although due to the Snowden leaks, resulting in the public perception that the intelligence
community has too much, not too little, access to information, the ramifications from encryption on
traditional law enforcement is likely to be relied on by the government in the public debate on this issue).
This is a judgment Congress needs to make, and soon. In weighing the interests, however, it is no answer
to say that the government should revert to means other than lawful intercepts obtained through court
orders based on probable cause to prevent crimes. The reality of electronic communications is here to
stay and plays a vital role in how crimes are perpetrated by allowing people to communicate with
conspirators and to carry out their nefarious plans. In this regard, the government and privacy advocates
both need to be consistent in their arguments: it is the latter who usually remind us that the advent of
smartphones and “big data” makes traditional Fourth Amendment line-drawing obsolete. And they have a
point, as the Supreme Court is starting to recognize. But by the same token, it is increasingly important
to have an ability to monitor such communications, after meeting the necessary Fourth Amendment
standard upon a showing to an independent Article III court.
The plan substantially increases the risk of catastrophic crime and terrorism.
Rubin 14 — Jennifer Rubin, Columnist and Blogger for the Washington Post, holds a J.D. from the
University of California-Berkeley, 2014 (“Silicon Valley enables terrorists and criminals,” Right Turn—a
Washington Post blog, October 19th, Available Online at http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/right-
turn/wp/2014/10/19/silicon-valley-enables-terrorists-and-criminals/, Accessed 07-05-2015)
Google chairman Eric Schmidt likes to brag that his company is “on the right side of history.” He pats
himself on the back for pulling out of China because of that country’s censoring practices. His company
even has a slogan, “Don’t be evil,” meant to remind Google employees that they aspire to the highest
ethical standards. But, to be blunt, Google is violating its own “don’t be evil” rule by insisting on
encryption technology which locks out anti-terrorist and law enforcement agencies . That gives
terrorists and common criminals alike huge protection and puts their fellow Americans at risk.
Benjamin Wittes of the Brookings Institution explains this is not about “encryption,” as some reports
characterize it. No one is talking about eliminating encryption, he explains, “Without it, you couldn’t
have electronic commerce. Nobody wants to get rid of encryption.” He explains, “The only question is
whether there should be government access with lawful process — or not.”
In a scantly covered speech this week, FBI Director James Comey explained:
The issue is whether companies not currently subject to the Communications Assistance for Law
Enforcement Act should be required to build lawful intercept capabilities for law enforcement.
We aren’t seeking to expand our authority to intercept communications. We are struggling to
keep up with changing technology and to maintain our ability to actually collect the
communications we are authorized to intercept.
And if the challenges of real-time interception threaten to leave us in the dark, encryption
threatens to lead all of us to a very dark place.
Encryption is nothing new. But the challenge to law enforcement and national security officials is
markedly worse, with recent default encryption settings and encrypted devices and networks—all
designed to increase security and privacy.
With Apple’s new operating system, the information stored on many iPhones and other Apple
devices will be encrypted by default. Shortly after Apple’s announcement, Google announced
plans to follow suit with its Android operating system. This means the companies themselves
won’t be able to unlock phones, laptops, and tablets to reveal photos, documents, e-mail, and
recordings stored within.
That is a problem that is not solved, as Apple claims, by providing access to the cloud. “But uploading to
the cloud doesn’t include all of the stored data on a bad guy’s phone, which has the potential to create a
black hole for law enforcement,” Comey said. “And if the bad guys don’t back up their phones routinely,
or if they opt out of uploading to the cloud, the data will only be found on the encrypted devices
themselves. And it is people most worried about what’s on the phone who will be most likely to avoid the
cloud and to make sure that law enforcement cannot access incriminating data.”
In fact, the blocked phones are simply part of a marketing pitch to cater to young people who are
misinformed and paranoid about what information the government has access to. Comey observed that “it
will have very serious consequences for law enforcement and national security agencies at all levels.
Sophisticated criminals will come to count on these means of evading detection. It’s the equivalent of a
closet that can’t be opened. A safe that can’t be cracked. And my question is, at what cost?”
Well, some terrorists will use it to plan and execute murderous schemes, organized crime will use it to
hide from law enforcement and the American people will be less safe and less secure.
Maybe the president (whose party benefits from liberal high-tech donors) should call these people in for a
chat and explain why they should stop this. Alternatively, Congress should hold open hearings and have
these execs explain why they want to give terrorists an e-hideout. Then again, maybe concerned
Americans who want to combat terrorists should simply not use these products. (Hang onto your old
phone until they drop the “locked safe,” for example.) What President Obama, Congress and the
American people should not do is sit idly by while they put us at risk for pecuniary gain.
Comey went out of his way to be nice to these companies: “Both companies are run by good people,
responding to what they perceive is a market demand.” Too nice, in my mind. Instead he should have just
told them flat out, “Don’t be evil.”

Especially true of ISIS.

AP 15 — Associated Press, 2015 (“US Officials: Encryption Hinders Monitoring Extremists,” Byline
Eric Tucker, June 4th, Available Online at http://www.forensicmag.com/news/2015/06/us-officials-
encryption-hinders-monitoring-extremists, Accessed 07-06-2015)
The growing use of encrypted communications and private messaging by supporters of the Islamic State
group is complicating efforts to monitor terror suspects and extremists , U.S. law enforcement officials
said Wednesday.
Appearing before the House Homeland Security Committee, the officials said that even as thousands of
Islamic State group followers around the world share public communications on Twitter, some are
exploiting social media platforms that allow them to shield their messages from law enforcement .
"There are 200-plus social media companies. Some of these companies build their business model around
end-to-end encryption," said Michael Steinbach, head of the FBI's counterterrorism division. "There is no
ability currently for us to see that" communication, he said.

Encryption helps terrorists — Zazi proves.

Crovitz 14 — L. Gordon Crovitz, Columnist and Former Publisher of The Wall Street Journal, former
Executive Vice-President of Dow Jones, 2014 (“Terrorists Get a Phone Upgrade,” Wall Street Journal,
November 23rd, Available Online at http://www.wsj.com/articles/gordon-crovitz-terrorists-get-a-phone-
upgrade-1416780266, Accessed 07-20-2015)
It’s a good thing Najibullah Zazi didn’t have access to a modern iPhone or Android device a few years
ago when he plotted to blow up New York City subway stations. He was caught because his email was
tapped by intelligence agencies—a practice that Silicon Valley firms recently decided the U.S.
government is no longer permitted.
Apple, Google, Facebook and others are playing with fire, or in the case of Zazi with a plot to blow up
subway stations under Grand Central and Times Square on Sept. 11, 2009. An Afghanistan native living
in the U.S., Zazi became a suspect when he used his unencrypted Yahoo email account to double-check
with his al Qaeda handler in Pakistan about the precise chemical mix to complete his bombs. Zazi and his
collaborators, identified through phone records, were arrested shortly after he sent an email announcing
the imminent attacks: “The marriage is ready.”
The Zazi example (he pleaded guilty to conspiracy charges and awaits sentencing) highlights the risks
that Silicon Valley firms are taking with their reputations by making it impossible for intelligence
agencies or law enforcement to gain access to these communications. In September, marketers from
Apple bragged of changes to its operating system so that it will not comply with judicial orders in
national-security or criminal investigations.
“Unlike our competitors,” Apple announced, “it’s not technically feasible for us to respond to government
warrants.” This encryption was quickly matched by Google and the WhatsApp messaging service owned
by Facebook.
In a private meeting last month, Deputy Attorney General James Cole asked the general counsel of Apple
why the company would want to market to criminals. As the Journal reported last week, Mr. Cole gave
the hypothetical of the police announcing that they would have been able to rescue a murdered child if
only they could have had access to the killer’s mobile device. Apple’s response was that the U.S. can
always pass a law requiring companies to provide a way to gain access to communications under court
orders.
Since then, U.S. and British officials have made numerous trips to Silicon Valley to explain the dangers.
FBI Director James Comey gave a speech citing the case of a sex offender who lured a 12-year-old boy in
Louisiana in 2010 using text messages, which were later obtained to get a murder conviction. “There
should be no one in the U.S. above the law,” Mr. Comey said, “and also no places within the U.S. that are
beyond the law.”
Robert Hannigan, the head of Britain’s electronic-intelligence agency, Government Communications
Headquarters, warned in a Financial Times op-ed earlier this month: “However much they may dislike it,”
Silicon Valley firms “have become the command-and-control networks of choice for terrorists and
criminals.”
Even without terrorism attacks that could have been prevented, Mr. Hannigan said, he thought Internet
users may be “ahead” of Silicon Valley: “They do not want the media platforms they use with their
friends and families to facilitate murder or child abuse.”
It looks like Silicon Valley has misread public opinion. The initial media frenzy caused by the Edward
Snowden leaks has been replaced by recognition that the National Security Agency is among the most
lawyered agencies in the government. Contrary to initial media reports, the NSA does not listen willy-
nilly to phone and email communications.
Last week, the Senate killed a bill once considered a sure thing. The bill would have created new barriers
to the NSA obtaining phone metadata to connect the dots to identify terrorists and prevent their attacks.
Phone companies, not the NSA, would have retained these records. There would have been greater risks
of leaks of individual records. An unconstitutional privacy advocate would have been inserted into
Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court proceedings.
The lesson of the Snowden accusations is that citizens in a democracy make reasonable trade-offs
between privacy and security once they have all the facts. As people realized that the rules-bound NSA
poses little to no risk to their privacy, there was no reason to hamstring its operations. Likewise, law-
abiding people know that there is little to no risk to their privacy when communications companies
comply with U.S. court orders.
Finding no willingness by Silicon Valley to rethink its approach without being required by law, FBI
Director Comey recently asked Congress to update the Communications Assistance for Law Enforcement
Act of 1994. This requires traditional phone companies to comply with court orders to provide access to
records. He wants the law updated to cover Apple, Google and other digital companies.
Silicon Valley firms should find ways to comply with U.S. court orders or expect Congress to order them
to do so. They also shouldn’t be surprised if their customers think less of companies that go out of their
way to market technical solutions to terrorists and criminals.

Strong encryption greatly increases chance of successful terror attack

RT 15 (RT, “Apple, Google helping terrorists with encryption- Manhattan DA” 04/21/15,
http://www.rt.com/usa/251469-apple-google-encryption-terrorists/)
Allowing users to take advantage of advanced
encryption in order to keep their messages and mobile communication
out of the government’s hands will only help terrorists plot future attacks, a top New York law enforcement official
said. The new encryption services offered by Apple and Google will make it harder to protect New Yorkers, Manhattan District Attorney Cyrus
Vance Jr. told local AM970 radio host John Cats. He mentioned built-in encryption – which Apple claims its own engineers cannot break
– means that federal and local law enforcement bodies won’t be able to intercept communications between
potential criminals and terrorists, even if they acquire a warrant. When Cats suggested, “terrorists are running out to buy
iPhones,” Vance responded by saying, he was “absolutely right.” “If individuals who are seeking to do serious harm to our
citizenry know they have a device that they can use with impunity and that the contents of their messages
and images on their phones cannot be accessed by law enforcement that's going to be the terrorists’
community device of choice,” he added, according to the Daily Dot. In addition to Apple, Google is also incorporating encryption into
its mobile devices. The two tech giants’ smartphones comprise 96 percent of the global market, the New York Post mentions. “Apple has
created a phone that is dark, that cannot be accessed by law enforcement even when a court has
authorized us to look at its contents,” Vance said.In response, Vance wants police departments around the country to register their
opposition with politicians and for hearings on the issue to take place. On its website, Apple says that encryption is enabled “end-to-end” on its
devices and that it has “no way to decrypt iMessage and FaceTime data when it’s in transit between devices.” Additionally, the company states,
“We wouldn’t be able to comply with a wiretap order even if we wanted to .” Other features such as iCloud and Mail
also offer some encryption protections. READ MORE: FBI director lashes out at Apple, Google for encrypting smartphones Vance isn’t the only
law enforcement official to come out against widespread encryption. In October, New York Police Department Commissioner Bill Bratton
heavily criticized Apple and Google for the move, and FBI Director James Comey also blasted the development. "There will come a day
-- well it comes every day in this business -- when
it will matter a great, great deal to the lives of people of all kinds
that we be able to with judicial authorization gain access to a kidnapper's or a terrorist or a criminal's
device,” Comey said. “I just want to make sure we have a good conversation in this country before that day comes.” In a blog post at the Wall
Street Journal, Amy Hess of the FBI clarified the bureau’s position on the issue, which has seen a surge in support since former government
contractor Edward Snowden revealed a massive domestic and international surveillance operation. She said law
enforcement officials
will need “some degree of access” to encrypted messages in order to stop criminal and violent plots in the
future. “No one in this country should be beyond the law,” she wrote. “The notion that electronic devices and
communications could never be unlocked or unencrypted – even when a judge has decided that the public interest requires accessing this data to
find evidence — is troubling. It may be time to ask: Is that a cost we, as a society, are prepared to pay?”

Encryption decks counter-terror effectiveness

Hess 15 (Amy Hess, Executive Assistant Director Federal Bureau of Investigation,
Before the Subcommittee on Information Technology Oversight and Government
Reform U.S. House of Representatives Concerning Encryption and Cybersecurity
for Mobile Electronic Communication Devices, page 6-7, April 29, 2015.)\\mwang
Examples

The more we as a society rely on electronic devices to communicate and store information, the more likely it is that
evidence that was once found in filing cabinets, letters, and photo albums will now be available only in electronic
storage. We have seen case after case – from homicides and kidnappings, to drug trafficking, financial
fraud, and child exploitation – where critical evidence came from smart phones, computers, and online
communications. Each of the following examples demonstrates how important information stored on electronic devices
can be to prosecuting criminals and stopping crime. As encryption solutions become increasingly
inaccessible for law enforcement, it is cases like these that could go unsolved, and criminals like these that
could go free. Another investigation in Clark County, Nevada, centered on allegations that a woman and her
boyfriend conspired together to kill the woman’s father who died after being stabbed approximately 30 times. Text
messages which had been deleted from the phone and recovered by investigators revealed the couple’s
plans in detail, clearly showing premeditation. Additionally, the communications around the time of the
killing proved that both of them were involved throughout the process and during the entire event, resulting in both
being charged with murder and conspiracy to commit murder. Following a joint investigation conducted by the FBI and
Indiana State Police, a pastor pleaded guilty in Federal court to transporting a minor across state lines
with intent to engage in illicit sexual conduct in connection with his sexual relationship with an underage girl who was a student
at the church’s high school. During this investigation, information recovered from the pastor’s smart phone proved to be
crucial in showing the actions taken by the pastor in the commission of his crimes. Using forensic software, investigators
identified Wi-Fi locations, dates, and times when the pastor traveled out of state to be with the victim. The
analysis uncovered Internet searches including, “What is the legal age of consent in Indiana”, “What is the legal age of consent in
Michigan”, and “Penalty for sexting Indiana.” In addition, image files were located which depicted him in compromising positions with the
victim. These are examples of how important evidence that resides on smart phones and other devices can
be to law enforcement – evidence that might not have been available to us had strong encryption been in
place on those devices and the user’s consent not granted. The above examples serve to show how critical electronic
evidence has become in the course of our investigations and how timely, reliable access to it is imperative to ensuring public
safety. Today’s encryption methods are increasingly more sophisticated, and pose an even greater challenge
to law enforcement. We are seeing more and more cases where we believe significant evidence resides on
a phone, a tablet, or a laptop – evidence that may be the difference between an offender being convicted
or acquitted – but we cannot access it. Previously, a company that manufactured a communications
device could assist law enforcement in unlocking the device . Today, however, upon receipt of a lawful court
order, the company might only be able to provide information that was backed up in the cloud – and there is
no guarantee such a backup exists, that the data is current, or that it would be relevant to the investigation. If this becomes the norm,
it will be increasingly difficult for us to investigate and prevent crime and terrorist threats.

Encryption is getting stronger—cloaks terrorists.

Hess 15 (Amy Hess, Executive Assistant Director Federal Bureau of Investigation,
Before the Subcommittee on Information Technology Oversight and Government
Reform U.S. House of Representatives Concerning Encryption and Cybersecurity
for Mobile Electronic Communication Devices, page 4-5, April 29, 2015.)\\mwang
Court-Ordered Access to Stored Encrypted Data Encryption
of stored data is not new, but it has become increasingly
prevalent and sophisticated. The challenge to law enforcement and national security officials has
intensified with the advent of default encryption settings and stronger encryption standards on both
devices and networks. In the past, a consumer had to decide whether to encrypt data stored on his or her device and take some action to
implement that encryption. With today’s new operating systems, however, a device and all of a user’s
information on that device can be encrypted by default – without any affirmative action by the consumer.
In the past, companies had the ability to decrypt devices when the Government obtained a search warrant and a court order. Today,
companies have developed encryption technology which makes it impossible for them to decrypt data on
devices they manufacture and sell, even when lawfully ordered to do so . Although there are strong and appropriate
cybersecurity and other reasons to support these new uses of encryption, such decisions regarding system design have a
tremendous impact on law enforcement’s ability to fight crime and bring perpetrators to justice .
Evidence of criminal activity used to be found in written ledgers, boxes, drawers, and file cabinets, all of which could be searched pursuant to a
warrant. But like the general population, criminal actors are increasingly storing such information on electronic
devices. If these devices are automatically encrypted, the information they contain may be unreadable to
anyone other than the user of the device. Obtaining a search warrant for photos, videos, email, text
messages, and documents can be an exercise in futility . Terrorists and other criminals know this and
will increasingly count on these means of evading detection. Additional Considerations Some assert that
although more and more devices are encrypted, users back-up and store much of their data in “the cloud,”
and law enforcement agencies can access this data pursuant to court order. For several reasons, however, the
data may not be there. First, aside from the technical requirements and settings needed to successfully back up data to the cloud, many
companies impose fees to store information there – fees which consumers may be unwilling to pay. Second,
criminals can easily avoid putting information where it may be accessible to law enforcement. Third, data backed up to the cloud
typically includes only a portion of the data stored on a device, so key pieces of evidence may reside
only on a criminal’s or terrorist’s phone , for example. And if criminals do not back up their phones
routinely, orif they opt out of uploading to the cloud altogether, the data may only be found on the
devices themselves – devices which are increasingly encrypted.

Strong encryption facilitates terrorist recruitments and plots

Ybarra 15 (Maggie Ybarra, military affairs and Pentagon correspondent for the Washington Times,
Washington Times, “FBI director James Comney flags dangers of encryption services, 07/7/15,
http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2015/jul/7/fbi-encryption-fosters-furtive-terrorism/)
FBI Director James B. Comey will be arguing for a robust debate on message-encryption technology to lawmakers Wednesday, as
he takes to Capitol Hill to plead his case that terrorist groups such as the Islamic State could take advantage of such
technology to recruit Americans into their organization . The technology, commonly referred to as “going dark” allows
people to send messages to one another that cannot be traced by the government . Google has reported about 80 percent of its Gmail messages
to other addresses in the last month were encrypted, and Apple has said it uses encryption on its iMessage and FaceTime tools which is so secure
that even the company can’t read or decode the communications. But for all the good encryption services provide — protecting innovation,
private thoughts and other things of value — the technology can also be used for nefarious purposes, Mr. Comey wrote in a blog posting Monday.
“There is simply no doubt that bad people can communicate with impunity in a world of universal strong
encryption,” Mr. Comey wrote. The Senate Judiciary Committee is prepared to hear Mr. Comey’s testimony about the technology, along
with the testimony of Sally Quillian Yates, the deputy attorney general at the Department of Justice. “Today’s hearing is intended to start a
conversation in the Senate about whether recent technological changes have upset the balance between public safety
and privacy,” Sen. Chuck Grassley, Iowa Republican and the panel, said in prepared remarks. “In particular, Director Comey has talked
about the challenges this issue presents the FBI in the national security context. According to the Director, ISIS is recruiting
Americans on-line and then directing them to encrypted communication platforms that are beyond the
FBI’s ability to monitor, even with a court order. If this is accurate, it obviously represents a dangerous state of affairs.” Despite
the danger, a group of computer scientists and security experts are trying to counter Mr. Comey’s message by defending the need for encrypted
technology. The same day that FBI director made a rare social media effort to flag the dangers of “going dark,” the Computer Science and
Artificial Intelligence Laboratory released a 34-page technical report that advocates against providing federal authorities access to encrypted
conversations. “We have found that the damage that could be caused by law enforcement exceptional access requirements would be even greater
today than it would have been 20 years ago,” the report states. “In the wake of the growing economic and social cost of the fundamental
insecurity of today’s Internet environment , any proposals that alter the security dynamics online should be approached with caution.” President
Obama has been trying to ease the concerns of Mr. Comey and the other heads of U.S. government intelligence agencies by searching for a
middle ground solution that protects the privacy of U.S. citizens while providing federal agencies with the tools they need to track down and halt
potential terrorist threats. Mr. Obama said during a joint January press conference with British Prime Minister David Cameron that his
administration has been communicating with companies about how to provide agencies with legal access to conversations that might be taking
place via technologies that are constantly evolving. “If
we get into a situation in which the technologies do not allow us
at all to track somebody that we’re confident is a terrorist, if we … have specific information, we are confident that this
individual or this network is about to activate a plot and, despite knowing that information, despite having a phone number or despite having a
social media address or a e-mail address, that we can’t penetrate that, that’s a problem,” he said. The solution to that problem will likely be
complicated and involve consideration of legislation, regulation, cooperation among lawmakers and with private companies, Mr. Comey said
during a June 18 press conference at the Department of Justice. “The companies that are providing communication services don’t want folks
killed by people using their platforms,” he said. “So we’re having good conversations with them. I’m sure a big part of it’s going to be
international cooperation.”

Backdoor searches protect privacy and are key to law enforcement

Vance 7/8 <Cyrus R., New York District Attorney, 7/8/15, “Going Dark: Encryption, Technology, and
the Balance Between Public Safety and Privacy”, p.2-3, http://www.judiciary.senate.gov/meetings/going-
dark-encryption-technology-and-the-balance-between-public-safety-and-privacy >//wx
As you know, the Fourth Amendment of the United States Constitution authorizes reasonable searches and seizures ,
providing law enforcement agencies access to places where criminals hide evidence of their crimes – from car trunks, to storage facilities, to
computers, mobile devices, and digital networks. In order to safeguard Fourth Amendment rights, these searches are conducted
pursuant
to judicial warrants, issued upon a neutral judge’s finding of probable cause. The probable cause standard
represents a balance between privacy and public safety carefully calibrated by centuries of jurisprudence, and it guides
individuals and companies in developing their expectations of privacy. Through this judicial process, my Office obtains smartphone evidence to
support all types of cases – homicides, sex crimes, child abuse, fraud, assaults, robberies, cybercrime, and identity theft. Many
perpetrators, particularly those who commit sexual offenses, take photos and videos of their acts, and store them on
computers and smartphones. Between October 2014 and June 2015, 35 percent of the data extracted from all phones by my Office was
collected from Apple devices; 36 percent was collected from Android devices.2 That means that when smartphone encryption is
fully deployed by Apple and Google, 71 percent of all mobile devices examined —at least by my Office’s lab—
may be outside the reach of a search warrant. I want to emphasize I am testifying from a state and local perspective. I am not
advocating bulk data collection or unauthorized surveillance. Instead, I am concerned about protecting local law
enforcement’s ability to conduct targeted requests for information, scrutinized by an impartial judge for his or her
evaluation as to whether probable cause has been established. Importantly, and by Apple’s own admission, governmental request for
information have affected only .00571 percent of Apple’s customers .

Strong encryption decks law enforcement abilities – can’t obtain any data
Vance 7/8 <Cyrus R., New York District Attorney, 7/8/15, “Going Dark: Encryption, Technology, and
the Balance Between Public Safety and Privacy”, p.3-5,
http://www.judiciary.senate.gov/imo/media/doc/07-08-15%20Vance%20Testimony.pdf>//wx
Last fall, Apple and Google, whose operating systems run 96 percent of smartphones worldwide, announced with some fanfare, but
without notice to my Office or other law enforcement offices I have spoken to, that they had engineered their new mobile operating
systems such that they can no longer assist law enforcement with search warrants written for passcode-
protected smartphones. According to Apple’s website: On devices running iOS 8.0 and later versions, your personal data such as
photos, messages (including attachments), email, contacts, call history, iTunes content, notes, and reminders is placed under the
protection of your passcode. . . Apple will not perform iOS data extractions in response to government search warrants because
the files to be extracted are protected by an encryption key that is tied to the user’s passcode , which Apple does
not possess. [Emphasis added.]5 Apple’s announcement led to an immediate response by law enforcement officials who pointed out that
allowing a phone or tablet to be locked such that it would be beyond the reach of lawful searches and seizures was
unprecedented and posed a threat to law enforcement efforts – in effect, a boon to criminals. Unless law
enforcement officials can obtain the passcode from the user, which will be difficult or impossible in many cases,
or can use “brute force” to obtain the passcode (again, difficult or impossible, and attempts to do this would likely lead to the destruction of
evidence on the iPhone), the search warrant would be of no consequence, because no one will be able to unlock the phone,
notwithstanding the court order. Law enforcement’s warnings are hardly idle . Recently, a father of six was murdered
in Evanston, Illinois. City of Evanston Police believe that prior to his murder, the victim was robbed of a large sum of money. There were
no eyewitnesses to or surveillance footage of the killing. Found alongside the body of the deceased were an iPhone 6 and a
Samsung Galaxy S6 Edge running Google Android. Cook County prosecutors served Apple and Google with judicial warrants
to unlock the phones, believing that relevant evidence might be stored on them. Apple and Google replied, in
substance, that they could not, because they did not know the user’s passcode. Information that might be crucial to solving
the murder, therefore, had effectively died with the victim . His homicide remains unsolved. His killer remains at large. It
is not hyperbole to say that beginning in September 2014, Americans conceded a measure of their protection
against everyday crimes to Apple and Google’s new encryption policies. Yet, I would note that, before the changes, neither
company, to our knowledge, ever suggested that their encryption keys, held by the companies, were vulnerable to hacking or theft. Fully one-
quarter of our felony cases now involve cybercrime or identity theft, so I am keenly aware of the dangers and impact of these
crimes on our community (which happens to be situated in a world financial center and is the number one target for terrorism in the world).
Because of this, my Office has invested heavily in becoming highly proficient and active in the prosecution of these crimes, and in the promotion
of best cybersecurity practices for New York consumers and companies. From my vantage point, and in my opinion, for reasons set forth later in
my testimony, Apple and Google’s new encryption policies seem to increase protection for consumers from
hackers only minimally, if at all. But those policies create serious new risks for my constituents and the millions of
visitors and workers passing through Manhattan every day.

Access to smartphone data is key to law enforcement – numerous cases prove

Vance 7/8 <Cyrus R., New York District Attorney, 7/8/15, “Going Dark: Encryption, Technology, and
the Balance Between Public Safety and Privacy”, p.3-5,
http://www.judiciary.senate.gov/imo/media/doc/07-08-15%20Vance%20Testimony.pdf>//wx
The Cost of Evidence Made Inaccessible Through Apple’s Encryption Although encryption has been often discussed in the context of
international terrorism, the NSA, and the CIA,
the greatest cost of these new encryption policies may well be borne by
local law enforcement. Smartphones are ubiquitous, and there is almost no kind of case in which prosecutors have
not used evidence from smartphones. My Office (and, I expect, every other local prosecutor’s office) has used evidence from
cellphones in homicides, rape cases, human trafficking, assaults, domestic violence cases, narcotics cases, kidnappings, larcenies, frauds, identity
theft, cybercrime, and robberies. Indeed, it is the rare case in which information from a smartphone is not useful. The
following list of recent cases is representative : • Homicide: People v. Hayes, Indictment Number 4451/12: The victim was
filming a video using his iPhone when he was shot and killed by the defendant. The video captured the shooting. Because the iPhone was not
locked, the video was recovered and admitted into evidence at trial. The video corroborated eyewitness testimony. The defendant was convicted
of murder and sentenced to 35 years to life. • Sex Trafficking: People v. Brown , Indictment Numbers 865/12, 3908/12, and 3338/13:
The defendant directed a sex trafficking operation involving at least four women, using physical violence, threats of force, and psychological
manipulation to coerce the women to engage in prostitution. Evidence recovered from electronic devices lawfully seized from the defendant’s
home proved crucial to his conviction at trial. In particular, the defendant’s cellular phones contained photographs showing him posing his
victims for online prostitution advertisements, and showing that he had “branded” multiple women, with his 14 nickname tattooed onto their
bodies; text messages between him and several victims confirmed that he had engaged in acts of violence against the testifying witness and
others. The defendant was convicted of multiple counts of sex trafficking and promoting prostitution and was sentenced to 10-20 years in prison.
• Cybercrime and Identity Theft: People v. Jacas et al., Indictment Number 42/12 and People v. Brahms et al., Indictment
Number 5151/11: This case involved the successful prosecution of a 29-member identity theft ring, which was able to be investigated and
prosecuted, in large part, because of evidence obtained early in the investigation from an iPhone, pursuant to a search warrant. An iPhone was
recovered from a waiter who was arrested for stealing more than 20 customers’ credit card numbers by surreptitiously swiping those credit cards
through a card reader that stored the credit card number and other data. When the phone was lawfully searched, law enforcement officials
discovered text messages between members of the group regarding the ring’s crimes. Investigators were able to obtain an eavesdropping warrant,
and ultimately arrested 29 people, including employees of high-end restaurants who stole credit card numbers, shoppers who made purchases
using counterfeit credit cards containing the stolen credit card numbers, and managers who oversaw the operation. The group compromised over
100 American Express credit card numbers and stole property worth over $1,000,000. All of the defendants pleaded guilty, and more than
$1,000,000 in cash and merchandise were seized and forfeited. • Sex Offenses: United States v. Juarez , Case No. 12-CR-59: The
defendant was arrested for unlawful surveillance by an NYPD officer after the officer observed the defendant using a cell phone to film up
women’s skirts. My Office obtained a search warrant for the phone. 15 During the subsequent search of the phone’s micro SD card, forensic
analysts discovered a series of images, taken by the defendant, showing a seven-year-old girl lying down on a bed and an adult man pushing aside
her underwear, revealing her genitals. The case was referred to the United States Attorney’s Office for the Eastern District of New York, which
charged the defendant with producing child pornography. • Physical
and Sexual Abuse of a Child: U.S. v. Patricia and
Matthew Ayers, Case No. 5:14 CR 0117 LSC SGC: In case after case, law enforcement has been able to discover and prosecute child abuse
by using video or photographic evidence taken by the abuser. This case is illustrative: From 2010 to 2013, the defendants abused and exploited a
young child in their care who, during that period, was six to nine years old. The couple took photographs of the child in lewd poses, as well as of
each other engaged in sexual acts with the child. The defendants recorded the abuse with their smartphones and downloaded the images to a
computer. In at least one instance, one of the defendants transmitted images to another individual, indicating that she would travel interstate with
the child to the individual’s home so the individual could also have sexual relations with the child. The federal judge overseeing the case
described it as the worst case he has personally dealt with, including murders, in his 16 years on the bench. The defendants were ultimately
convicted of producing child pornography, in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 2251(a), and were sentenced to 1,590 and 750 years, respectively, in
federal prison. There
are many other cases—almost too many to count —that I might have selected, but the point is
clear: We would risk losing crucial evidence in all of these cases if the contents of passcode-protected
smartphones were unavailable to us, even with a warrant. 16 The enormity of the loss is fully appreciated by
wrongdoers who use smartphones. Recently, a defendant in a serious felony case told another individual on recorded jailhouse call
that “Apple and Google came out with these softwares that can no longer be encrypted [sic: decrypted] by the police. . . . If our phones is running
on the i0[S]8 software, they can’t open my phone. That might be another gift from God.” This defendant’s appreciation of the safety that the iOS
8 operating system afforded him, is surely shared by criminal defendants in every jurisdiction in America charged with all manner of crimes,
including rape, kidnapping, robbery, promotion of child pornography, larceny, and presumably by those interested in committing acts of
terrorism. Criminal
defendants across the nation are the principal beneficiaries of iOS 8, and the safety of all
American communities is imperiled by it.

Data on encrypted devices is crucial to law enforcement and counterterrorism

Yates and Comey 7/8 <Sally Quillian Yates, Deputy Attorney General, and James B. Comey,
Director of the FBI, 7/8/2015, “Going Dark: Encryption, Technology, and the Balance Between Public
Safety and Privacy”, p.3-4, http://www.judiciary.senate.gov/imo/media/doc/07-08-15%20Yates%20and
%20Comey%20Joint%20Testimony1.pdf>//wx
The more we as a society rely on electronic devices to communicate and store info rmation, the more likely it is
that information that was once found in filing cabinets, letters, and photo albums will now be stored only in electronic form.
We have seen case after case – from homicides and kidnappings, to drug trafficking, financial fraud, and child exploitation – where
critical evidence came from smart phones, computers, and online communications. When changes in
technology hinder law enforcement’s ability to exercise investigative tools and follow critical leads, we may not be
able to identify and stop terrorists who are using social media to recruit, plan, and execute an attack in our country. We may not
be able to root out the child predators hiding in the shadows of the Internet, or find and arrest violent criminals who are targeting our
neighborhoods. We may not be able to recover critical information from a device that belongs to a victim who cannot
provide us with the password, especially when time is of the essence. These are not just theoretical concerns. We continue to identify
individuals who seek to join the ranks of foreign fighters traveling in support of the Islamic State of Iraq and the
Levant, commonly known as ISIL, and also homegrown violent extremists who may aspire to attack the United States from within.
These threats remain among the highest priorities for the Department of Justice, including the FBI, and the United States government as a whole.
Of course, encryption is not the only technology terrorists and criminals use to further their ends. Terrorist groups, such as ISIL, use the
Internet to great effect. With the widespread horizontal distribution of social media, terrorists can spot, assess, recruit, and radicalize
vulnerable individuals of all ages in the United States either to travel or to conduct a homeland attack. As a result, foreign terrorist organizations
now have direct access into the United States like never before. For example, in recent arrests, a group of individuals was contacted by a known
ISIL supporter who had already successfully traveled to Syria and encouraged them to do the same. Some of these conversations occur in
publicly accessed social networking sites, but others take place via private messaging platforms. These encrypted
direct messaging
platforms are tremendously problematic when used by terrorist plotters . Outside of the terrorism arena we see
countless examples of the impact changing technology is having on our ability to affect our court authorized investigative tools. For example, last
December a long-haul trucker kidnapped his girlfriend, held her in his truck, drove her from State to State and repeatedly sexually assaulted her.
She eventually escaped and pressed charges for sexual assault and kidnapping. The trucker claimed that the woman he had kidnapped engaged in
consensual sex. The trucker in this case happened to record his assault on video using a smartphone, and law enforcement was able to access the
content stored on that ‐ 4 - phone pursuant to a search warrant, retrieving video that revealed that the sex was not consensual. A jury subsequently
convicted the trucker. In a world where users have sole control over access to their devices and communications, and so can easily block all
lawfully-authorized access to their data, the jury would not have been able to consider that evidence, unless the truck driver, against his own
interest, provided the data. And the
theoretical availability of other types of evidence , irrelevant to the case, would have
made no difference. In that world, the grim likelihood that he would go free is a cost that we must forthrightly acknowledge and consider.
We are seeing more and more cases where we believe significant evidence resides on a phone, a tablet, or
a laptop—evidence that may be the difference between an offender being convicted or acquitted . If we cannot
access this evidence, it will have ongoing, significant impacts on our ability to identify, stop, and prosecute these offenders. Legal Framework

Encryption blocks successful investigation – Investigators locked out

Ellen Nakashima and Barton Gellman ’15 (Ellen Nakashima is a national security reporter for The
Washington Post. Gellman writes for the national staff. He has contributed to three Pulitzer Prizes for The
Washington Post. He is a senior fellow at the Century Foundation and visiting lecturer at Princeton’s
Woodrow Wilson School. https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/as-encryption-
spreads-us-worries-about-access-to-data-for-investigations/2015/04/10/7c1c7518-d401-11e4-a62f-
ee745911a4ff_story.html)CK
Bitkower cited a case in Miami in December in which a long-haul trucker kidnapped his girlfriend, held
her in his truck, drove her from state to state and repeatedly sexually assaulted her. She eventually
escaped and pressed charges for sexual assault and kidnapping. His defense, Bitkower said, was that she
engaged in consensual sex. As it turned out, the trucker had video-recorded his assault, and the phone did
not have device encryption enabled. Law enforcement agents were able to get a warrant and retrieve the
video. It “revealed in quite disturbing fashion that this was not consensual,” Bitkower said. The jury
convicted the trucker. Officials and former agents say there will be cases in which crimes will go
unsolved because the data was unattainable because only the phone owner held the key. “I just look at the
number of cases I had where, if the bad guy was using one of these [locked] devices, we never would
have caught him,” said Timothy P. Ryan, a former FBI supervisory special agent who now leads Kroll
Associates’ cyber-investigations practice.

Encryption decks efforts to combat ISIS- online recruiting

Clare Hopping 7/8/15---Freelance editor and journalist as well as editorial editor for Longneck and
Thunderfoot. Cites FBI. (Hopping, “FBI director complains encryption makes his job harder”, ITpro.
http://www.itpro.co.uk/security/24943/fbi-encryption-helps-isis-recruit-new-members.)//ET
Universal encryption will help terrorists spread their creeds through secure messaging services, according
to the FBI. James Comey, director of the agency, claimed in a blog post that worldwide encryption will help groups like
ISIS ahead of his appearance at the Senate Intelligence Committee. He wrote that secure messaging services and social media
will help ISIS recruit new members online. "When the government's ability—with appropriate predication and court
oversight—tosee an individual's stuff goes away , it will affect public safety," he wrote on pro surveillance website
Lawfare. "That tension
is vividly illustrated by the current ISIL threat, which involves ISIL operators in Syria
recruiting and tasking dozens of troubled Americans to kill people , a process that increasingly takes part
through mobile messaging apps that are end-to-end encrypted, communications that may not be intercepted,
despite judicial orders under the Fourth Amendment."

Backdoors would allow criminals to bypass encryption

Phys.org 15 (“Security experts warn against encryption 'backdoors'”, 7/7/15, http://phys.org/news/2015-07-
experts-encryption-backdoors.html)

A group of computer code experts said Tuesday that law

enforcement cannot be given special access to encrypted
communications without opening the door to "malicious" actors. A research report published by the Massachusetts
Institute of Technology challenges claims from US and British authorities that such access is the policy response needed to fight crime and
terrorism. Providing
this kind of access "will open doors through which criminals and malicious nation-
states can attack the very individuals law enforcement seeks to defend ," said the report by 13 scientists. The paper was
released a day after FBI Director James Comey called for public debate on the use of encrypted communications, saying Americans may not
realize how radical groups and criminals are using the technology. Comey argued in a blog post that Islamic State militants are among those using
encryption to avoid detection. The New York Times, which reported earlier on the study, said Comey was expected to renew a call at a
congressional hearing for better access to encrypted communications to avoid "going dark." The computer
scientists said, however, that
any effort to build in access for law enforcement could be exceedingly complex and lead to "unintended
consequences," such as stifling innovation and creating hostility toward new tech products. "The costs would be substantial, the
damage to innovation severe, and the consequences to economic growth difficult to predict ," the report said.
"The costs to developed countries' soft power and to our moral authority would also be considerable." In the 1990s, there was a similar debate on
the "clipper chip" proposal to allow "a trusted third party" to have access to encrypted messages that could be granted under a legal process. The
clipper chip idea was abandoned, but the authors said that if it had been widely adopted, "it
is doubtful that companies like
Facebook and Twitter would even exist." The computer scientists said the idea of special access would create
numerous technical and legal challenges, leaving unclear who would have access and who would set standards.
NSA decryption is vital to counterterrorism – international consensus
Robertson 13 (Adi Robertson, tech policy correspondent for The Verge, “Intelligence chief says the
US attacks encryption because the bad guys use it”, 10/4/13,
http://www.theverge.com/2013/10/4/4803646/james-clapper-justifies-tor-breaking-as-necessary-to-fight-
terrorists) -LL
Director of National Intelligence James Clapper has responded to leaks showing how the NSA tried (and
largely failed) to break through Tor's encryption network. While his statement doesn't shed much new
light on the situation, it encapsulates the intelligence community's general response to criticism since the
first leaks were published: that the threat of terrorism or other threats to national security makes any
arguably legal tactic not only ethical, but vital. Recently published news articles discuss the intelligence
community's interest in tools used to facilitate anonymous online communication. The articles accurately
point out that the intelligence community seeks to understand how these tools work and the kind of
information being concealed. However, the articles fail to make clear that the intelligence community's
interest in online anonymity services and other online communication and networking tools is based on
the undeniable fact that these are the tools our adversaries use to communicate and coordinate attacks
against the United States and our allies. Clapper accuses the articles' authors (unnamed, but likely
journalist Glenn Greenwald and security expert Bruce Schneier) of painting an "inaccurate and
misleading picture of the intelligence community. “The reality is that the men and women at the National
Security Agency and across the intelligence community are abiding by the law, respecting the rights of
citizens and doing everything they can to help keep our nation safe," he says. To do this, they must "use
every intelligence tool available to understand the intent of our foreign adversaries." In the modern
telecommunications era, our adversaries have the ability to hide their messages and discussions among
those of innocent people around the world. They use the very same social networking sites, encryption
tools and other security features that protect our daily online activities. These are promises and warnings
we've heard many times, and they're all valid defenses of the overall surveillance apparatus. What they
don't do, unfortunately, is address the implicit questions that Greenwald and Schneier have posed: should
one wing of the US government attempt to undermine the very tools that other branches have helped
create? And is it valuable to be able to keep some communications almost completely private, even if
terrorists can also exercise this privacy? If the dismissive GCHQ comments of "pseudo-legitimate" Tor
uses are any indication, the international intelligence community's answer may be a resounding "No."

Decryption Methods Prevent Terrorism

Peterson 6/4-15(Andrea Reporter for Washington Post, “FBI official: Companies should help us
‘prevent encryption above all else’”, Washington Post, “http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/the-
switch/wp/2015/06/04/fbi-official-companies-should-help-us-prevent-encryption-above-all-else/”
The debate over encryption erupted on Capitol Hill again Wednesday, with an FBI official testifying that
law enforcement's challenge is working with tech companies "to build technological solutions to prevent
encryption above all else." At first glance the comment from Michael B. Steinbach, assistant director in the FBI's Counterterrorism
Division, might appear to go further than FBI Director James B. Comey. Encryption, a technology widely used to secure digital information by
scrambling data so only authorized users can decode it, is "a good thing," Comey has said, even if he wants the government to have the ability get
around it. [Special report: The Internet’s founders saw its promise but didn’t foresee users attacking one another] But Steinbach's
testimony also suggests he meant that companies shouldn't put their customers' access to encryption ahead
of national security concerns -- rather than saying the government's top priority should be preventing the use of the technology that
secures basically everything people do online. "Privacy, above all other things, including safety and freedom from
terrorism, is not where we want to go," Steinbach said. He also disputed the "back door" term used by
experts to describe such built-in access points. "We're not looking at going through a back door or being
nefarious," he argued, saying that the agency wants to be able to access content after going through a
judicial process.

Decryption is effective for counter-terrorism

Ataide 2/7/-13(Rui As a security conscious individual, I’ve learned to educate people on the advantages
of encryption, “The Man in the Middle: Advantages of SSL Decryption “,
RSA“https://blogs.rsa.com/author/rui-ataide/”
I’m currently involved on a lot of security analytics, security response, and other defensive activities.
While encryption provides a level of protection when it comes to defense, it also causes a lack of
visibility when analyzing network traffic. More and more, even the “bad guys” are using encryption to
cover their tracks and avoid detection. It’s therefore no surprise that more and more organizations are
using SSL inspection devices to monitor their traffic and infrastructure. I actually find myself
recommending that they do use the technology and how to best implement it. SSL inspection devices are nothing
more than a well designed man-in-the-middle attack that breaks the encryption into two separate encrypted streams.
Therefore, they still provide an adequate level of protection to end-users while allowing security analysts and devices to properly monitor and
alert when malicious or unwanted activity takes place. This could be something as simple as a user uploading a confidential document to his/her
personal webmail account or more elaborate as someone using an SSL VPN to connect back to a host using a Dynamic DNS name service (a
technique commonly used by current malware and advanced attackers).
Decryption is crucial to fighting cyberattacks
Butler 13 (J. Michael Butler, Associate Professor of Humanities at Flagler College, “Finding Hidden
Threats by Decrypting SSL”, November 2013, http://www.sans.org/reading-
room/whitepapers/analyst/finding-hidden-threats-decrypting-ssl-34840)
SSL encryption is crucial to protecting data in transit during web transactions, email communications and
the use of mobile apps. Data encrypted with this common method can sometimes pass uninspected
through almost all the components of your security framework, both inbound and outbound. As such, SSL
encryption has become a ubiquitous tool for the enemy to hide sensitive data transfers and to obfuscate
their command and control communications. For example, suppose a user has succumbed to one of the
many phishing emails she receives every day, has followed a bad URL link and inadvertently downloaded
encrypted Zeus malware to the financial officer’s computer used for ACH bank transfers. Under the cover
of encryption, Zeus sends that password information and other sensitive data to an external user, making
it possible for the remote attacker to capture a login session, use the transmitted password and deposit the
organization’s money in an offshore account. With all commands and traffic transmitted into and out of
the network via SSL, the company’s security tools were blind to these activities. Now companies are
accepting even more encrypted traffic as they shift toward greater use of cloud services. This means
malware will find more innovative ways to take advantage of this common form of transport encryption.
For example, attackers can use cloud services to bypass the firewall and synchronize malware from one
computer to another, as described in an August 2013 article in “Technology Review News.” 1 With the
good guys and bad guys both using encryption, making malicious traffic visible through decryption—and
inspecting it—becomes essential. The decryption must be conducted in a way that doesn’t interfere with
legitimate network traffic, while working with other security systems for optimum accuracy and
performance. Then, the traffic must be re-encrypted before sending it on to its destination to protect
sensitive information that might be caught up in the packets being decrypted. This whitepaper describes
the role of SSL, the role SSL decryption/inspection tools play in security, options for deploying
inspection tools, and how the information generated by such inspection can be shared with other security
monitoring systems.

NSA decryption Program Works

Insider Surveillance 12/30/-14(“NSA Decryption: New Snowden Leak is Ancient History “,Insider
surveilance“https://insidersurveillance.com/nsa-decryption-new-snowden-leak-is-ancient-history/”)
Well-known for many months now is that the NSA views encryption as a threat to national security, and
classifies five types of network communications challenges ranging from “trivial,” “minor” and
“moderate” on the low end to the most serious, “major” and “catastrophic.” Small time stuff for NSA
Decryption experts: Peer-to-Peer. Skype, still touted as a “secure” form of voice & video communication
by owner Microsoft, has been an open book to NSA analysts since at least 2011. Secure Socket Layer —
Not so Much. Web connections via https — with the “s” standing for secure, and using secure socket
layer (SSL) for encryption, are a snap to break into. NSA routinely captures untold number of SSL
handshakes, then analyzes metadata about the connections and metadata from the encryption protocols to
break the keys and decrypt any traffic on the Internet via man-in-the-middle attacks. Virtual Private
Networks. Long considered highly secure, and still used to connect mediation devices/routers with law
enforcement end points, VPNs have for quite some time been readily opened and their contents reviewed
by NSA analysts. “Major” encryption challenges deemed difficult but not impossible: Zoho and Tor. As
of 2012 the NSA had problems cracking messages sent through encrypted email service providers Zoho.
Monitoring users of the Tor network was also a challenge. Truecrypt. The leaked files point to Truecrypt,
a program for “on the fly encruption,” as a major headache for the NSA several years ago. Truecrypt was
discontinued in May 2014 and developers urged site visitors to find another source for encryption. Read:
The NSA figured it out. Off-the-Record (OTR). OTR is an open source protocol for encrypting instant
messaging in an end-to-end encryption process. OTR once proved a formidable challenge by combining
AES symmetric key algorithm,the Diffie-Hellman method of securely exchanging cryptographic keys
over a public channel, and SHA-1 (secure hash algorithm) cryptographic hash function developed by the
NSA itself in the mid-1990s. Any combination of encryption modes raises the bar for network
penetration. In addition, open source software is harder to attach back doors to without the public
noticing. Back in 2011 – 2012, released documents showed that OTR occasionally created problems for
NSA. One internal comment reads, “No decrypt available for this OTR encrypted message.” However,
tech moves on. The NSA — being a significant user of encryption itself — is often directly behind new
developments in the field like SHA-1. Like all honest brokers in the field, NSA likes to crack its own
work, find the weak spots, fix them and move on. New and improved versions of the hash function
include SHA-2 and SHA-3. Companies are following NSA’s lead. Microsoft announced in Nov 2013 its
“depracation” policy for discontinuing use of SHA-1. Google followed suit for Chrome in Sept 2014.
Does this mean that the SHA-1 component of OTR is no longer a head-scratcher for NSA? Yep. What
earns the moniker “catastrophic” at NSA? At the head of the list, at least in 2012, was the challenge of
users combining Tor with other anonymizing services such as ZRTP, which encrypts VoIP voice and text
chats on mobile phones. The “Z” stands for its author, Phil Zimmerman, and the “RTP” for Real-Time
Transport Protocol.” ZRTP uses Diffie-Hellman secure key cryptography, and auto-senses for other VoIP
clients that support ZRTP. It is common to open source programs such as Signal and Redphone. While
Tor and ZRTP penetration may have seemed insurmountable several years, the UK’s NSA equivalent —
GCHQ — has proposed methods for breaking into Tor and defeating other encryption methods.

Targeting terrorist use of encryption is key

Davis, United States representative to Palestine, Congressional aide, lawyer, 2006
(Benjamin R. , European Journal for Criminology, “ENDING THE CYBER JIHAD: COMBATING
TERRORIST EXPLOITATION OF THE INTERNET WITH THE RULE OF LAW AND IMPROVED
TOOLS FOR CYBER GOVERNANCE” 2006, HeinOnline, ES)
As law enforcement and security services' interception of terrorists' messages in some countries has
grown,92 operatives have increasingly utilized encryption technologies to communicate online via e-
mail.93 As the Washington Post reported, "Al Qaeda members have taught individuals ... how to use the
Internet to send messages and how to encrypt those communications to avoid detection."'94 For example,
Wadih El-Hage, Osama bin Laden's former personal secretary and a senior planner of the 1998 Al Qaeda
bombings of U.S. Embassies in Kenya and Tanzania, "sent en- crypted e-mails under various names to
associates in Al Qaeda.' '95 In addition, "Khalik Deek, an alleged terrorist arrested in Pakistan in 1999,
used encrypted computer files to plot bombings in Jordan at the turn of the millennium. '9' 6 The
convicted planner of the 1993 World Trade Center bombing, Ramzi Yousef, "used encrypted files to hide
details of a plot to destroy eleven U.S. airliners over the Pacific Ocean. 97

Targeting encrypted data key to countering terrorist backdoors

Barfield 6/9/15 [ Claude Barfield, a former consultant to the office of the U.S. Trade Representative,
researches international trade policy (including trade policy in China and East Asia), the World Trade
Organization (WTO), intellectual property, and science and technology policy. “Encryption: The next
battle between security and privacy”, American Enterprise Institute,
https://www.aei.org/publication/encryption-the-next-battle-between-security-and-privacy/] Schuler 20
Over the past several weeks, we have witnessed an intense debate over cybersecurity and privacy,
revolving around the USA Freedom Act. A badly divided Congress, finally—in a rebuke to Senate
Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) and other defenders of the status quo—mandated the end of
the so-called NSA metadata (bulk collection) program that swept up data on the dates, times and location
of phone calls. The battle over the NSA metadata program, however, is only the first of what are likely to
be a series of clashes over the balance between security and privacy. Looming as the next faceoff is the
conflict over encryption and the moves by a number of US technology companies to protect their
customers against hackers, whether private or public. In the US, ,the current skirmish was precipitated by
announcements from Apple and Google that they were installing encryption protection in their cellphones
that would allow only users—and no outside individual or public official—to unblock the devices. Text
messaging services such as WhatsApp and iMessage have followed suit. FBI Director James Comey has
taken the lead in strenuous opposition to the encryption moves, denouncing “companies that are
marketing something expressly to allow people to place themselves beyond the law.” Following up, last
week FBI Assistant Director Michael Steinbach warned a congressional committee that crime groups and
terrorists organizations such as ISIS were “going dark” with encryption, heightening the chance that
future attacks would go unmasked. House Homeland Security Committee Chairman Michael McCaul (R-
TX) responded by labeling the use of encryption a “threat to the homeland.” Thus far, US tech companies
are defiant and determined to increase encryption applications to their technologies. Google’s Eric
Schmidt argued that the security agencies had only themselves to blame: “The people who criticized this
are the ones who should have expected this.” And Apple CEO Tom Cook recently delivered an
impassioned defense of encryption, labeling attempts to undermine encryption “incredibly dangerous.”
The companies make two arguments. First, technologically, there is no way to introduce “backdoors” for
the government without allowing criminals or terrorists to exploit the same flaws. Second, they argue that
the government has a number of alternatives: much cellphone data is now stored in the providers’ cloud
services and can be retrieved; legal wiretaps of smartphones are not affected; and finally, officials can still
retrieve real-time phone records and logs of text messages. There is also an international dimension to the
conflict. British Prime Minister David Cameron, new re-elected, has vowed to push through legislation
that would force tech companies doing business in Great Britain to provide encryption to police and
security officials or risk being banned from that country. In France, in the wake of the Hebdo massacre,
new security legislation gives sweeping powers to the government to undertake a host of new tactics
against future terrorist attacks. And the loose language may allow similar action against encrypted
devices. Back in the United States, the resolution of the standoff is unclear. Chairman McCaul and others
have yet to push hard for legislation. And the position of the Obama administration remains
indeterminate. President Obama has been equivocal. When queried insistently by the press, he responded
that he sympathized with the tech companies: “They’re patriots.” But the president went on to note: “If
we find evidence of a terrorist plot…and despite having a phone number, despite having a social media
address or e-mail address, we can’t penetrate that, that’s a problem.” If the syntax was garbled, so was the
message.

Encryption cracking necessary to prevent terrorism

Network World, September 19, 2013, NSA wants even closer partnership with tech industry;
NSA's Debora Plunkett says NSA's now is real-time automated information sharing on a large scale,
http://www.networkworld.com/news/2013/091913-nsa-tech-industry-274011.html DOA: 2-1-15

The National Security Agency's director of information assurance today said the "way to achieve
confidence in cyberspace" is to increase collaboration between the government and the high-tech
industry -- remarks that rang ironic given former NSA contractor Edward Snowden's revelations about
how NSA works with industry. NSA documents leaked by Snowden showed that the NSA's goal is to
build backdoors into commercial products and weaken encryption to make it easier for
surveillance, allegations that the U.S. government has not even tried to refute. When asked about that
today, NSA director of information assurance Debora Plunkett, who gave the keynote address at the New
York Institute of Technology Cyber Security Conference here, flatly refused to discuss the topic. But her
keynote address was intended to get hardware and software vendors to work in ever-closer partnership
with the NSA. Cyberattacks that could take electricity grids offline and disrupt transportation
systems are possible, Plunkett said in her keynote, pointing out the destructive attack that hit Saudi
Aramco last year and impacted data systems there. [RELATED: Reported NSA actions raise serious
questions about tech industry partnerships MORE: Black Hat: Top 20 hack-attack tools] It's a simple
matter to hire hacking services to carry out attacks such as denial-of-service, she said, and the fear now is
of "integrity attacks" that would destroy or alter critical data. These are all "cyber security challenges,"
she noted, and the government today is largely dependent on commercial hardware and software for
which the NSA itself cannot "provide indemnification." NSA's needs industry's help, she said. Plunkett
said "we have to have a community come together" to collaborate on security in mobility and the cloud
especially. The NSA expects that the future of network security lies in "more automated cyber
defense" based on "large-scale automation" that would reduce the need for manpower where there
would be more real-time sharing of findings. She said there's a need for collaboration with ISPs and
hardware companies to achieve all of this. "We have to build a close partnership," she said, adding, there
can be "confidence in cyberspace" if "we stay the course." Plunkett is a 29-year veteran of the NSA who
worked her way up through the ranks to have a hand in guiding strategic direction for the agency, which
carries out surveillance to help defend the country against cyberthreats. But NSA documents recently
leaked by Snowden show that the NSA views its partnership with industry in part as a way to subvert
security in commercial products and services to make cyber-spying easier. This revelation casts NSA's
call for industry partnership and its insistence that there can be "confidence in cyberspace" in a
questionable light.

The Bullrun program is key to decrypting internet communications and data relevant to
international terrorism
Larson, Perlroth, and Shane, 9/5/13 (Jeff, Data Editor at ProPublica; Nicole, The New York Times;
Scott, The New York Times; ProPublica, the organization that Snowden gave his leaks, ” Revealed: The
NSA’s Secret Campaign to Crack, Undermine Internet Security” http://www.propublica.org/article/the-
nsas-secret-campaign-to-crack-undermine-internet-encryption, accessed 7/14/15)
Many users assume — or have been assured by Internet companies — that their data is safe from prying eyes, including those of the government,
and the N.S.A. wants to keep it that way. Theagency treats its recent successes in deciphering protected information
as among its most closely guarded secrets, restricted to those cleared for a highly classified program code-
named Bullrun, according to the documents, provided by Edward J. Snowden, the former N.S.A. contractor. Beginning in 2000, as encryption
tools were gradually blanketing the Web, the N.S.A. invested billions of dollars in a clandestine campaign to
preserve its ability to eavesdrop. Having lost a public battle in the 1990s to insert its own “back door” in all encryption, it set out to
accomplish the same goal by stealth. The agency, according to the documents and interviews with industry officials, deployed custom-built,
superfast computers to break codes, and began collaborating with technology companies in the United States and abroad to build entry points into
their products. The documents do not identify which companies have participated. The N.S.A. hacked into target computers to snare messages
before they were encrypted. And the agency used its influence as the world’s most experienced code maker to covertly introduce weaknesses into
the encryption standards followed by hardware and software developers around the world. “For the past decade ,
N.S.A. has led an
aggressive, multipronged effort to break widely used Internet encryption technologies ,” said a 2010 memo
describing a briefing about N.S.A. accomplishments for employees of its British counterpart, Government Communications Headquarters, or
GCHQ. “Cryptanalytic capabilities are now coming online. Vast amounts of encrypted Internet data which have up till now been discarded are
now exploitable.” When the British analysts, who often work side by side with N.S.A. officers, were first told about the program, another memo
said, “those not already briefed were gobsmacked!” An intelligence budget document makes clear that the effort is still going strong. “We are
investing in groundbreaking cryptanalytic capabilities to defeat adversarial cryptography and exploit Internet traffic,” the director of national
intelligence, James R. Clapper Jr., wrote in his budget request for the current year. In recent months, the documents disclosed by Mr. Snowden
have described the N.S.A.’s broad reach in scooping up vast amounts of communications around the world. The
encryption documents
now show, in striking detail, how the agency works to ensure that it is actually able to read the
information it collects. The agency’s success in defeating many of the privacy protections offered by encryption does not change the
rules that prohibit the deliberate targeting of Americans’ e-mails or phone calls without a warrant. But it shows that the agency, which was
sharply rebuked by a federal judge in 2011 for violating the rules and misleading the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court, cannot necessarily
be restrained by privacy technology. N.S.A. rules permit the agency to store any encrypted communication, domestic or foreign, for as long as the
agency is trying to decrypt it or analyze its technical features. The N.S.A., which has specialized in code-breaking since its creation in 1952, sees
that task as essential to its mission.
If it cannot decipher the messages of terrorists, foreign spies and other
adversaries, the United States will be at serious risk, agency officials say. Just in recent weeks, the Obama
administration has called on the intelligence agencies for details of communications by Qaeda leaders about
a terrorist plot and of Syrian officials’ messages about the chemical weapons attack outside Damascus. If such
communications can be hidden by unbreakable encryption, N.S.A. officials say, the agency cannot do its
work.

Without access to backdoors, law enforcement won’t have the capacity to collect intelligence data
because of increasingly complex encryption
AP 7/8 (Eric Tucker, “FBI, JUSTICE DEPT. TAKE ENCRYPTION CONCERNS TO CONGRESS”
Associated Press, http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/U/US_FBI_ENCRYPTION?
SITE=AP&amp;SECTION=HOME&amp;TEMPLATE=DEFAULT&amp;CTIME=2015-07-08-06-22-03)

WASHINGTON (AP) -- Federal law enforcement officials warned Wednesday that data encryption is
making it harder to hunt for pedophiles and terror suspects, telling senators that consumers' right to
privacy is not absolute and must be weighed against public-safety interests.¶ The testimony before the
Senate Judiciary Committee marked the latest front in a high-stakes dispute between the Obama
administration and some of the world's most influential tech companies, placing squarely before Congress
an ongoing discussion that shows no signs of an easy resolution. Senators, too, offered divided opinions. ¶
FBI and Justice Department officials have repeatedly asserted that encryption technology built into
smartphones makes it harder for them to monitor and intercept messages from criminal suspects, such as
Islamic State sympathizers who communicate online and child predators who conceal pornographic
images. They say it's critical that they be able to access encrypted communications during investigations,
with companies maintaining the key to unlock such data.¶ But they face fierce opposition from Silicon
Valley companies who say encryption safeguards customers' privacy rights and offers protections from
hackers, corporate spies and other breaches. The companies in recent months have written to the Obama
administration and used public speeches to argue for the value of strong encryption.¶ FBI Director James
Comey, who has pressed his case repeatedly over the last year before think tanks and in other settings,
sought Wednesday to defuse some of the tension surrounding the dispute. He told senators that he
believed technology companies were fundamentally on the same page as law enforcement, adding, "I am
not here to fight a war."¶ "Encryption is a great thing. It keeps us all safe. It protects innovation," Comey
said. "It protects my children. It protects my health care. It is a great thing." ¶ But he warned that criminals
were using encryption to create a safe zone from law enforcement. He said that concern was especially
acute at a time when the Islamic State has been recruiting sympathizers through social media and then
directing them to encrypted platforms that federal agents cannot access.¶ "Our job is to look at a haystack
the size of this country for needles that are increasingly invisible to us because of end-to-end encryption,"
he said.¶
 --AT metadata solves

Encryption prevents access to key communication data

Hess, Executive Assistant Director of the FBI, 15 (Amy Hess, Executive Assistant Director of
the FBI, “ENCRYPTION TECHNOLOGY POLICY ISSUES”, 4/29/15,
HTTP://congressional.proquest.com.proxy.lib.umich.edu/congressional/docview/t39.d40.04293003.d94?
accountid=14667)//EM*Edited for easier flow
Law enforcement and national security investigators need to be able to access communications and
information to obtain the evidence necessary to prevent crime and bring criminals to justice in a court of law. We do so
pursuant to the rule of law, with clear guidance and strict judicial oversight. But increasingly, even armed with a court order based
on probable cause, we are* [the FBI is] too often unable to access potential evidence. The Communications
Assistance for Law Enforcement Act (CALEA) requires telecommunication carriers to be able to
implement court orders for the purpose of intercepting communications. But that law wasn`t designed to cover many of the
new means of communication that exist today. Currently, thousands of companies provide some form of communication
service, but most do not have the ability to isolate and deliver particular information when ordered to do so
by a court. Some have argued that access to metadata about these communications - which is not encrypted - should be sufficient for law
enforcement. But metadata is incomplete information, and can be is difficult to analyze when time is of the essence. It
can take days to parse metadata into readable form, and additional time to correlate and analyze the data to
obtain meaningful and actionable information.
 --AT cloud solves

Cloud storage fails – backdoors are key

Hess, Executive Assistant Director of the FBI, 15 (Amy Hess, Executive Assistant Director of
the FBI, “ENCRYPTION TECHNOLOGY POLICY ISSUES”, 4/29/15,
HTTP://congressional.proquest.com.proxy.lib.umich.edu/congressional/docview/t39.d40.04293003.d94?
accountid=14667)//EM
Additional Considerations Someassert that although more and more devices are encrypted, users back-up and store much of
their data in ``the cloud,`` and law enforcement agencies can access this data pursuant to court order. For several
reasons, however, the data may not be there . First, aside from the technical requirements and settings needed to
successfully back up data to the cloud, many companies impose fees to store information there - fees which
consumers may be unwilling to pay. Second, criminals can easily avoid putting information where it
may be accessible to law enforcement. Third, data backed up to the cloud typically includes only a
portion of the data stored on a device, so key pieces of evidence may reside only on a criminal`s or
terrorist`s phone, for example. And if criminals do not back up their phones routinely, or if they opt out of uploading to the cloud
altogether, the data may only be found on the devices themselves devices which are increasingly encrypted.
 --AT hacking solves

Brute force attacks fail – backdoors are key

Hess, Executive Assistant Director of the FBI, 15 (Amy Hess, Executive Assistant Director of
the FBI, “ENCRYPTION TECHNOLOGY POLICY ISSUES”, 4/29/15,
HTTP://congressional.proquest.com.proxy.lib.umich.edu/congressional/docview/t39.d40.04293003.d94?
accountid=14667)//EM
But without a solution that enables law enforcement to access critical evidence, many investigations could be at a dead end. The same is true for
cyber security investigations; if there is no way to access encrypted systems and data, we may not be able to identify those who seek to steal our
technology, our state secrets, our intellectual property, and our trade secrets. A
common misperception is that we can simply
break into a device using a ``brute force`` attack - the idea that with enough computing resources devoted to the
task, we can defeat any encryption. But the reality is that even a supercomputer would have difficulty with
today`s highlevel encryption standards. And some devices have a setting that erases the encryption key if
someone makes too many attempts to break the password, effectively closing all access to that data. Finally, a
reasonable person might also ask, ``Can`t you just compel the owner of the device to produce the information in a readable form?`` Even if we
could compel an individual to provide this information, a suspected criminal would more likely choose to defy the court`s order and accept a
punishment for contempt rather than risk a 30-year sentence for, say, production and distribution of child pornography. Without access to the
right evidence, we fear we may not be able to identify and stop child predators hiding in the shadows of the Internet, violent criminals who are
targeting our neighborhoods, and terrorists who may be using social media to recruit, plan, and execute an attack in our country. We may not be
able to recover critical information from a device that belongs to a victim who can`t provide us with the password, especially when time is of the
essence.

NSA can’t crack encryption—Need encryption keys to access

The Nation ’15 (The Nation is America’s oldest continuously published weekly magazine, devoted to reporting
on politics and culture. The Nation has bureaus in Washington, D.C., London, and South Africa, with departments
covering architecture, art, corporations, defense, environment, films, legal affairs, music, peace and disarmament,
poetry, and the United Nations, http://www.nationmultimedia.com/breakingnews/NSA-cant-crack-common-
encryption-software-top-hack-30251390.html)CK
Publicly available encryption programmes are so tough that they can't be cracked by the experts at the US
National Security Agency (NSA), an authoritative expert has told one of the world's top hacker
jamborees. The assurance, delivered by Jacob Applebaum during this month's Chaos Communication
Congress (CCC) in Hamburg, Germany, ends months of speculation that the NSA may have found a
backdoor into such privacysoftware. Services like PGP for protecting emails and OTR (off the record) for
protecting messaging are pretty safe, agreed experts at CCC, which attracts some of the globe's top
hacking experts every January. "PGP and OTR are two ways to keep spies from looking through your
stuff," says US activist Applebaum. He said communications protected end to end with these services
cannot be read by the NSA. Period. Options like the SSL encryption protocol can be surmounted though,
he said. SSL is used - often by banks and internet retail - to keep prying eyes from seeing which websites
are being accessed and what's sent to them. SSH, used by system administrators to get into other
computers and run them, can also be cracked. It's not clear, though, if the NSA has actually cracked their
protocols. Instead, it seems the US electronic intelligence agency is trying to collect keys so it can crack
encrypted communication by other methods. That's according to documents released by whistleblower
Edward Snowden, a former NSA contractor, which have been published by German news magazine Der
Spiegel.
 --AT court order solves

Court orders can’t compel decryption – backdoors are key

Crocker, attorney at the Electronic Frontier Foundation, 14 (Andrew Crocker, Graduate
of Harvard Law and attorney at the Electronic Frontier Foundation in civil liberties, “Sifting Fact from
Fiction with All Writs and Encryption: No Backdoors”, 12/3/14,
https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2014/12/sifting-fact-fiction-all-writs-and-encryption-no-
backdoors)//EM*Edited for easier flow
Following recent reports in the Wall Street Journal and Ars Technica, there’s been new interest in the government’s use of a relatively obscure
law, the All Writs Act. According to these reports, the government has invoked the All Writs Act in order to compel the assistance of smartphone
manufacturers in unlocking devices pursuant to a search warrant. The reports are based on orders from federal
magistrate judges in
Oakland and New York City issued to Apple and another unnamed manufacturer (possibly also Apple) respectively,
requiring them to bypass the lock screen on seized phones and enable law enforcement access . These reports
come at an interesting time. Both Apple and Google have announced expanded encryption in their mobile
operating systems. If a device is running the latest version of iOS or Android, neither company will be
able to bypass a user’s PIN or password and unlock a phone, even if the government gets a court
order asking it to do so. The announcements by Apple and Google have in turn led to calls for “golden keys”—hypothetical backdoors
in devices intended to allow only law enforcement to access them. As we’ve explained, we think these proposals to create backdoors totally
misunderstand the technology and make for terrible policy. Amid this prospect of a second “Cryptowar” is the lurking fear that the government
might force unwilling companies to include backdoors in their products, even if they’re not required by Congress to do so. We sometimes hear
from jaded developers and others who think that all it would take to force a backdoor is one National Security
Letter. While NSLs are unconstitutional, even the government admits that they* [NSLs] can only be used to obtain
limited information, which does not include forcing anyone to backdoor a product . Nevertheless, this fear is
feeding some of the interest generated by the press reports about the government’s invocation of All Writs Act in the unlocking cases.

Court orders fail – backdoors are key

Hess, Executive Assistant Director of the FBI, 15 (Amy Hess, Executive Assistant Director of
the FBI, “ENCRYPTION TECHNOLOGY POLICY ISSUES”, 4/29/15,
HTTP://congressional.proquest.com.proxy.lib.umich.edu/congressional/docview/t39.d40.04293003.d94?
accountid=14667)//EM
Encryption of stored data is not new, but it has become increasingly prevalent and sophisticated . The challenge
to law enforcement and national security officials has intensified with the advent of default encryption settings and
stronger encryption standards on both devices and networks. In the past, a consumer had to decide whether to encrypt data stored on
his or her device and take some action to implement that encryption. With today`s new operating systems, however, a device and all of a
user`s information on that device can be encrypted by default - without any affirmative action by the consumer. In the past,
companies had the ability to decrypt devices when the Government obtained a search warrant and a court order. Today, companies have
developed encryption technology which makes it impossible for them to decrypt data on devices they
manufacture and sell, even when lawfully ordered to do so. Although there are strong and appropriate cybersecurity and
other reasons to support these new uses of encryption, such decisions regarding system design have a tremendous impact on law enforcement`s
ability to fight crime and bring perpetrators to justice. Evidence of criminal activity used to be found in written ledgers, boxes, drawers, and file
cabinets, all of which could be searched pursuant to a warrant. But like the general population, criminal
actors are increasingly
storing such information on electronic devices. If these devices are automatically encrypted, the
information they contain may be unreadable to anyone other than the user of the device. Obtaining a search warrant for
photos, videos, email, text messages, and documents can be an exercise in futility. Terrorists and other criminals know this and will
increasingly count on these means of evading detection.
Data encryption eviscerates the third party doctrine – Lack of encryption permits government
access
Christopher Soghoian Ph.D 06 (Principal Technologist with the Speech, Privacy, and Technology Project at
the American Civil Liberties Union. He is also a Visiting Fellow at Yale Law School's Information Society Project.
Caught in the Cloud: Privacy, Encryption, and Government Back Doors in the Web 2.0 Era Privacy and Law
Enforcement pg. 391 http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=1421553)CK
“The third party doctrine is the Fourth Amendment rule that scholars love to hate. It is . . . widely
criticized as profoundly misguided. Decisions applying the doctrine *top[] the chart of [the] most-
criticized Fourth Amendment cases.’”95 However, for the purposes of this article, it can be summarized
by stating that online service providers can be compelled to reveal their customers’ private documents
with a mere subpoena.96 As such, the government is not required to obtain a search warrant,97
demonstrate probable cause98 or go before a judge. While the third party doctrine is certainly the current
tool of choice for the government’s evisceration of the Fourth Amendment, is not completely to blame for
the lack of privacy online. The real and often overlooked threat to end-user privacy is not this legal rule,
but the industry-wide practice of storing customers’ data in plain text, forgoing any form of encryption.
Simply put, if encryption were used to protect users’ stored data, the third party doctrine would for the
most part be moot.
 --AT voluntary solves

Compelling fails – backdoors are key

Hess, Executive Assistant Director of the FBI, 15 (Amy Hess, Executive Assistant Director of
the FBI, “ENCRYPTION TECHNOLOGY POLICY ISSUES”, 4/29/15,
HTTP://congressional.proquest.com.proxy.lib.umich.edu/congressional/docview/t39.d40.04293003.d94?
accountid=14667)//EM
But without a solution that enables law enforcement to access critical evidence, many investigations could be at a dead end. The same is true for
cyber security investigations; if there is no way to access encrypted systems and data, we may not be able to identify those who seek to steal our
technology, our state secrets, our intellectual property, and our trade secrets. A common misperception is that we can simply break into a device
using a ``brute force`` attack - the idea that with enough computing resources devoted to the task, we can defeat any encryption. But the reality is
that even a supercomputer would have difficulty with today`s highlevel encryption standards. And some devices have a setting that erases the
encryption key if someone makes too many attempts to break the password, effectively closing all access to that data. Finally, a reasonable person
might also ask, ``Can`t you just compel the owner of the device to produce the information in a readable form?`` Even
if we could
compel an individual to provide this information, a suspected criminal would more likely choose to defy
the court`s order and accept a punishment for contempt rather than risk a 30-year sentence for , say,
production and distribution of child pornography. Without access to the right evidence, we fear we may not be able to
identify and stop child predators hiding in the shadows of the Internet, violent criminals who are targeting
our neighborhoods, and terrorists who may be using social media to recruit, plan, and execute an attack in
our country. We may not be able to recover critical information from a device that belongs to a victim
who can`t provide us with the password, especially when time is of the essence.
 Business Records/Section 2015/Email and Phone Surveillance
Restriction Links
Signals intelligence from business records needed to stop WMD attacks

Stuart Taylor, April 29, 2014, The Big Snoop: Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Terrorists,
http://www.brookings.edu/research/essays/2014/the-big-snoop-print (is an author, a freelance journalist,
and a Brookings nonresident senior fellow. Taylor has covered the Supreme Court for a variety of
national publications, including The New York Times, Newsweek, and National Journal, where he is also
a contributing editor. His published books include Mismatch: How Affirmative Action Hurts Students It's
Intended to Help, and Why Universities Won't Admit It. In addition to his work as a journalist and
scholar, he is a graduate of Harvard Law School and practiced law in a D.C. firm.) DOA: 2-25-15

Over the five years that she has been chairman of the Intelligence Committee, Feinstein has seen more
inside information on NSA activities than most of her fellow lawmakers. She is convinced that, since the
FISA reforms of the seventies put safeguards and multiple layers of oversight in place, there has been no
evidence of the NSA’s seriously violating those strictures. She is also convinced that signals intelligence
is, if anything, more indispensable than ever at a time when human intelligence—that is,
information from undercover U.S. operatives operating abroad or inside hostile organizations like
al Qaeda—is so hard to come by. That leads her to worry that curbs on the phone records program
might increase the exposure of Americans to danger from terrorists and other enemies, perhaps
including mass-casualty cyber, biological, or even nuclear attacks.

Al Qaeda activity can be detected with email and phone record surveillance

Yohn Yoo, Summer 2014, Emanuel S. Heller Professor of Law, University of California, Berkeley Law
School; Visiting Scholar, American Enterprise Institute, Harvard Journal of Law & Public Policy, THE
LEGALITY OF THE NATIONAL SECURITY AGENCY'S BULK DATA SURVEILLANCE
PROGRAMS, http://moritzlaw.osu.edu/students/groups/is/files/2013/11/Yoo1.pdf, DOA: 1-1-15, p. 908-
9
Members of the al Qaeda network can be detected, with good intelligence work or luck, by
examining phone and e-mail communications, as well as evidence of joint travel, shared assets,
common histories or families, meetings, and so on. As the time for an attack nears, "chatter" on
this network will increase as operatives communicate to coordinate plans, move and position assets,
and conduct reconnaissance of targets. When our intelligence agents successfully locate or capture an
al Qaeda member, they must be able to move quickly to follow new information to other operatives
before news of the capture causes them to disappear. The NSA database is particularly important
because it will point the way to al Qaeda agents within the United States, where they are closest to
their targets and able to inflict the most harm on civilians. The September 11 hijackers themselves
provide an example of the way that the NSA could use business record information to locate an al
Qaeda cell. Links suggested by commercially available data might have turned up ties between
every single one of the al Qaeda plotters and Khalid al Mihdhar and Nawar al Hazmi, the two
hijackers known to the CIA to have been in the country in the summer of 2001. Mihdhar and Hazmi had
rented apartments in their own names and were listed in the San Diego phone book. Both Mohammad
Atta, the leader of the September 11 al Qaeda cell, and Marwan al-Shehi, who piloted one of the planes
into the World Trade Center, had lived there with them. Hijacker Majed Moqed used the same frequent
flier number as Mihdhar; five hijackers used the same phone number as Atta when booking their
flights; the remaining hijackers shared addresses or phone numbers with one of those hijackers, Ahmed
Alghamdi, who was in the United States in violation of his visa at the time. Our intelligence agents, in
fact, had strong leads that could conceivably have led them to all of the hijackers before 9/11. CIA
agents had identified Mihdhar as a likely al Qaeda operative because he was spotted at a meeting in Kuala
Lumpur and mentioned in Middle East intercepts as part of an al Qaeda "cadre." Hazmi too was known as
likely to be al Qaeda. But in neither case was there enough evidence for a criminal arrest because they
had not violated any American laws. If our intelligence services had been able to track immediately
their cell phone calls and e-mail, it is possible that enough of the hijacking team could have been
rounded up to avert 9/11. Our task is much more difficult today, because we might not have even this
slender information in hand when the next al Qaeda plot moves toward execution.

Database needs to be broad to find terrorist cells

Yohn Yoo, Summer 2014, Emanuel S. Heller Professor of Law, University of California, Berkeley Law
School; Visiting Scholar, American Enterprise Institute, Harvard Journal of Law & Public Policy, THE
LEGALITY OF THE NATIONAL SECURITY AGENCY'S BULK DATA SURVEILLANCE
PROGRAMS, http://moritzlaw.osu.edu/students/groups/is/files/2013/11/Yoo1.pdf, DOA: 1-1-15, p. 911-
12
A critic, however, might argue that billions of innocent calling records are not "relevant" to a
terrorism investigation. Even if terrorist communications take place over the phone, that cannot justify the
collection of all phone call records in the United States, the vast majority of which have nothing to do
with the grounds for the search. The FISC rejected this argument because, to be useful, a database has
to be broad enough to find terrorist calls. "Because known and unknown international terrorist
operatives are using telephone communications, and because it is necessary to obtain the bulk
collection of a telephone company's metadata to determine those connections between known and
unknown international terrorist operatives as part of authorized investigations," the Court observed,
"the production of the information sought meets the standard for relevance under Section 215."
Aggregating calling records into a database, the court found, was necessary to find the terrorist
communications and the links between terrorists. It may not even be possible to detect the links unless
such a database is created. If a database is not comprehensive, in other words, then the government will
only be able to glimpse incomplete patterns of terrorist activity, if it can glimpse any at all.

Broad-based records approaches are often used in national security cases

Yohn Yoo, Summer 2014, Emanuel S. Heller Professor of Law, University of California, Berkeley Law
School; Visiting Scholar, American Enterprise Institute, Harvard Journal of Law & Public Policy, THE
LEGALITY OF THE NATIONAL SECURITY AGENCY'S BULK DATA SURVEILLANCE
PROGRAMS, http://moritzlaw.osu.edu/students/groups/is/files/2013/11/Yoo1.pdf, DOA: 1-1-15, P 911-
12
Relevance is a slippery concept, but it cannot require that every piece of information obtained by
subpoena must contain information related to guilt. Even when grand juries subpoena the business
records or communications of a criminal suspect, it is likely that the large majority of the items will
not have any relationship to the crime. Nonetheless, a grand jury may subpoena all of a suspect's
financial records to find those that pertain to a criminal conspiracy. A different way to view the NSA's
telephone calling record program is that the "relevant" tangible "thing" is the database itself,
rather than any individual calling record.
Of course, the NSA program differs from a subpoena to a financial institution for the records of
a known criminal suspect. The amount of data collected by the NSA program is many orders of
magnitude greater, and hence the percentage of directly involved communications much smaller.
Also, unlike a regular subpoena, it is important to have as large a searchable database as possible
because the breadth will bring into the sharpest contrast the possible patterns of terrorist activity.
On the other hand, the magnitude of harm that the government seeks to prevent exceeds by several orders
that of regular crime. The magnitude of the harm should be taken into account in judging relevance as
well as the unprecedented difficulties of locating al Qaeda operatives disguised within the United States.

Mass records collection is needed to catch terrorists because they are not all in one
place

Joshua Kapstein, May 16, 2014, “The NSA Can ‘Collect it All,’”, but what would it do with the data?,
http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2014/05/16/the-nsa-can-collect-it-all-but-what-will-it-do-with-our-
data-next.html DOA: 2-23-15

The NSA and its allies are staunch defenders of these “haystacks,” even though multiple studies
concluded the database containing millions of Americans’ phone records played little or no role in
preventing terrorist attacks. They’ve countered that it’s foolish to assume all terrorists hang out in one
isolated section of the Internet, therefore mass-collection becomes a necessary obsession to find that ever-
elusive needle.

Business record 215 program has been used to stop a terror attack

Sean M. Joyce, Deputy Director, Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), July 31, 2013, Hearing of the
Senate Judiciary Committee Subject: "Strengthening Privacy Rights and National Security: Oversight of
FISA (Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act) Surveillance Programs" https://www.hsdl.org/?
view&did=741931
(First joined the Department of Justice in 1979. He served for 13 years in the Criminal Division, later
becoming the deputy chief of the division's public integrity section, went in private practice, sworn in as
deputy attorney general on January 3rd, 2011)

As you mentioned another instance when we used the business record 215 program, as Chairman Leahy
mentioned, Basaaly Moalin. So initially the FBI opened a case in 2003 based on a tip. We investigated
that tip. We found no nexus to terrorism and closed the case. In 2007 the NSA advised us, through the
business record 215 program, that a number in San Diego was in contact with an al-Shabab and east -- al-
Qaida east -- al-Qaida East Africa member in Somalia. We served legal process to identify that
unidentified phone number. We identified Basaaly Moalin. Through further investigation, we identified
additional co-conspirators, and Moalin and three other individuals have been convicted -- and some pled
guilty -- to material support to terrorism.

Business records closes holes in intelligence in order to defeat terrorism

Sean M. Joyce, Deputy Director, Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), July 31, 2013, Hearing of the
Senate Judiciary Committee Subject: "Strengthening Privacy Rights and National Security: Oversight of
FISA (Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act) Surveillance Programs" https://www.hsdl.org/?
view&did=741931
(First joined the Department of Justice in 1979. He served for 13 years in the Criminal Division, later
becoming the deputy chief of the division's public integrity section, went in private practice, sworn in as
deputy attorney general on January 3rd, 2011)

SEN. GRASSLEY: OK.

Mr. Joyce, one part of the balance that we have to strike, protecting privacy of Americans -- the other
part, national security. Thankfully, until the Boston bombing, we had prevented large-scale terrorist
attacks on American soil. I have a few questions about how valuable the role of Section 215 and 702
programs have played in predicting (sic) our national security. Two questions, and then I'll have to stop
and go to our colleagues. Can you describe any specific situations where Section 215 and Section 702
authorities helped disrupt a terrorist attack or identify individuals planning to attack, the number
of times? And then secondly, if you didn't have the authority to collect phone records in bulk the way
that they are now under Section 215, how would you have affected those investigations?
MR. JOYCE: So to your first question, Senator, as far as a specific example of when we have utilized
both of these programs is the one I had first mentioned, the first al-Qaida-directed plot since 9/11,
in September of 2009, when Najibullah Zazi and others conspired plot to bomb the New York
subway system. We initially found out about Zazi through an NSA 702 coverage, and he was actually
talking to an al-Qaida courier who was -- he was asking for his help to perfect an explosives recipe. So
but for that, we would not have known about the plot. We followed that up with legal process and then
had FISA coverage on him and others as we fully investigated the plot. Business records 215 was also
involved, as I had previously mentioned, where we also through legal process were submitting legal
process for telephone numbers and other email addresses, other selectors. But NSA also provided
another number we are unaware of of a co-conspirator, Adis Medunjanin. So that is an instance
where a very serious plot to attack America on U.S. soil that we used both these programs.
But I say, as Chairman Leahy mentioned, there is a difference in the utility of the programs. But what I
say to you is that each and every program and tool is valuable. There were gaps prior to 9/11. And
what we have collectively tried to do, the members of the committee, other members of the other
oversight committees, the executive branch and the intelligence community, is we have tried to close
those gaps and close those seams. And the business record 215 is one of those programs that we
have closed those seams. So I respectfully say to the chairman that the utility of that specific program
initially is not as valuable. I say you are right. But what I say is it plays a crucial role in closing the gaps
and seams that we fought hard to gain after the 9/11 attacks.

Section 702 and Section 215 programs have prevented terror attacks

Sean M. Joyce, Deputy Director, Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), July 31, 2013, Hearing of the
Senate Judiciary Committee Subject: "Strengthening Privacy Rights and National Security: Oversight of
FISA (Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act) Surveillance Programs" https://www.hsdl.org/?
view&did=741931
(First joined the Department of Justice in 1979. He served for 13 years in the Criminal Division, later
becoming the deputy chief of the division's public integrity section, went in private practice, sworn in as
deputy attorney general on January 3rd, 2011)

SEN. FEINSTEIN: Good.

Now, the NSA has produced and declassified a chart, which I'd like to make available to all
members. It has the 54 total events. It includes a Section 702 authority and Section 215 authority,
which essentially work together. And it shows the events disrupted based on a combination of these
two programs, 13 in the homeland, 25 in Europe, five in Africa and 11 in Asia. Now, I remember I
was on the Intelligence Committee before 9/11, and I remember how little information we have and the
great criticism of the government because of those stovepipes, the inability to share intelligence, the
inability to collect intelligence. We had no program that could've possibly caught two people in San
Diego before the event took place. I support this program. I think, based on what I know, they will come
after us. And I think we need to prevent an attack wherever we can from happening. That doesn't mean
that we can't make some changes.

Business records program has stopped many attacks

Rep. Mike Rogers, Miami Times (Florida), June 18, 2013, (Rep. Mike Rogers, R-Mich., is chairman of
the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence,
http://www.usatoday.com/story/opinion/2013/06/18/nsa-mike-rogers-house-intelligence-committee-
editorials-debates/2436541/ , DOA: 2-24-15

The gross distortion of two vital National Security Agency [NSA] programs is dangerous and unfortunate.
Neither program authorizes NSA to read e-mails or listen to phone calls of American citizens. Both
are constitutional with numerous checks and balances by all three branches of government. They have
been authorized and overseen by Congress and presidents of both parties. And they have produced
vital intelligence, preventing dozens of terrorist attacks around the world, including plots against
New York City subways and the New York Stock Exchange. The first program allows NSA to
preserve a limited category of business records. It preserves only phone numbers and the date, time
and duration of calls. It doesn't include any names or the content of calls. These records can only be
accessed when NSA is investigating a foreign terrorist. If a foreign terrorist is found linked to an
American, the tip is passed to the FBI and requires a court order before additional action can be taken.
This is a critical tool for connecting the dots between foreign terrorists plotting attacks in the U.S.
The second program allows the NSA to target foreigners overseas to collect certain foreign intelligence
with court approval. It doesn't create a "back door" to any company's server, and doesn't authorize
monitoring of U.S. citizens. No U.S. person anywhere in the world can be intentionally monitored
without a specific order. Any comparison to government abuses in decades past is highly misleading.
Today's programs are authorized in law, with a thorough system of oversight and checks and balances in
place, and a court review not present in the past. Now each of the agencies has an inspector general and
general counsels who ensure that these authorities are exercised in accordance with the law. The House
and Senate each have Intelligence Committees charged with overseeing these authorities. Additionally,
electronic surveillance for foreign intelligence purposes occurs with approval of the Foreign Intelligence
Surveillance Court. None of these structures and protections was in place in the 1950s, '60s or '70s. These
narrowly targeted programs are legal, do not invade Americans' privacy, and are essential to detecting and
disrupting future terrorist attacks.

Metadata collection needed to cast a wide net

Yohn Yoo, Summer 2014, Emanuel S. Heller Professor of Law, University of California, Berkeley Law
School; Visiting Scholar, American Enterprise Institute, Harvard Journal of Law & Public Policy, THE
LEGALITY OF THE NATIONAL SECURITY AGENCY'S BULK DATA SURVEILLANCE
PROGRAMS, http://moritzlaw.osu.edu/students/groups/is/files/2013/11/Yoo1.pdf, DOA: 1-1-15, p. 907-
8
A. Phone Call Metadata Collection
Like business records, phone call metadata falls within Section 215's definition of tangible
items. Collection of such metadata relates to an authorized investigation to protect against
international terrorism. Several investigations into al Qaeda plots remain open, as shown by the
repeated indictments against bomb plotters in the last five years. The examination of records also helps
protect the nation against terrorist attacks. According to the NSA, only the information contained in
the billing records is collected; the content of calls is not. There can be no First Amendment violation if
the content of the calls remains untouched. A critic might argue that the terms of the search are too broad
because ninety-nine percent of the calls are unconnected to terrorism. But an intelligence search, as
Judge Richard Posner has described it, "is a search for the needle in a haystack." Rather than focus on
foreign agents who are already known, counterterrorism agencies must search for clues among
millions of potentially innocent connections, communications, and links. "The intelligence services,"
Posner writes, "must cast a wide net with a fine mesh to catch the clues that may enable the next
attack to be prevented." For this reason, the FISC approved the NSA program in 2006 and has
continued to renew it since.

Section 215 necessary to defeat terrorism

James Carafano, May 21, 2015, Section 215 of the PATRIOT Act and Metadata Collection: Responsible
Options for the Way Forward, Dr. Carafono is
Vice President for the Kathryn and Shelby Cullom Davis Institute for National Security and Foreign
Policy, and the E. W. Richardson Fellow, Charles Stimson is Manager, National Security Law Program
and Senior Legal Fellow, Dr. Steven Bucci is Director, Douglas and Sarah Allison Center for Foreign and
National Security Policy, John Malcolm is Director, Edwin Meese III Center for Legal and Judicial
Studies, and the Ed Gilbertson and Sherry Lindberg Gilbertson Senior Legal Fellow,
http://www.heritage.org/research/reports/2015/05/section-215-of-the-patriot-act-and-metadata-collection-
responsible-options-for-the-way-forward DOA: 5-24-15

The United States is in a state of armed conflict against al-Qaeda, the Afghan
Taliban, ISIS, and associated forces. It must therefore rely on all lawful tools of
national security, including but not limited to robust signals intelligence. As the 9/11
Commission Report made crystal clear, one of the key failures of the United States before
the 9/11 attacks was the government’s inability to “connect the dots” between known or
suspected terrorists. The artificial “wall” between domestic law enforcement and U.S.
intelligence agencies, enacted during the 1990s, proved to be America’s Achilles’ heel.
Some analysts believe that had America had a Section 215–type program in place
before 9/11, U.S. intelligence, along with domestic law enforcement, would have
been able to connect the dots and prevent at least some of the hijackers from
launching their devastating attack. In fact, according to a report by the House
Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, using the authorities under Section 215
and 702 of the PATRIOT Act has contributed to thwarting 54 total international
terrorist plots in 20 countries. Thirteen of those plots were directed inside the
United States.
 Section 702 Programs/PRISM Necessary to Defeat Terrorism
PRISM is key to disrupt foreign safe havens.
Dahl, Naval Postgraduate School national security affairs professor, 2013
(Erik, “Discussion Point: It’s not Big Data, but Little Data, that Prevents Terrorist Attacks”, 7-25,
http://calhoun.nps.edu/bitstream/handle/10945/35903/Discussion%20Point_%20It%E2%80%99s%20not
%20Big%20Data%2c%20but%20Little%20Data%2c%20that%20Prevents%20Terroris.pdf?sequence=1)

Research I am currently conducting for the National Consortium for the Study of Terrorism and Responses to Terrorism (START), together with my colleagues
Martha Crenshaw and Margaret Wilson, can shed some light on how this NSA data may be used. We are studying unsuccessful terrorist
plots, in hopes of finding out what tools and techniques are the most useful in preventing attacks. One
finding supports the NSA’s argument that the data they are collecting can be useful in preventing
future attacks. Opponents have suggested that the NSA data might only be useful in tracking down terrorists after the fact; because those haystacks of
information are not apparently being looked at in real time, they are unlikely to help prevent future attacks. But the history of terrorist plots and
attacks within the United States since 9/11 shows that most plots take a long time to develop. Eve n
terrorist actions involving only one or two people typically take months or even years to plan and attempt .
This is good news, because it gives law enforcement time to discover what’s going on, and it also gives
the NSA time to search those haystacks it’s been collect ing. But another one of our findings is that the most effective tools in
preventing terrorist attacks are relatively simple, old fashioned police methods, such as the use of undercover officers, informants, and tips from the public. This is
especially true for domestic plots and attacks: of the 109 failed plots within the United States since 9/11, more than 75 percent were foiled at least in part because of
traditional law enforcement methods, and not—from what we can gather—from NSA surveillance. Thus
it is not surprising that
government officials have said most of the 50 or so plots that have been foiled by the NSA
monitoring programs were overseas3. In other countries we can’t necessarily rely on local authorities,
and spying—whether conducted by the NSA or the CIA—is a critical tool for our national security. But
here in the U.S., the most important terrorism prevention tool remains the country’s 800,000 police officers, deputy sheriffs, and other local law enforcement officials,
supported by members of the public who "see something and say something," calling authorities when something doesn’t look right. These
NSA programs
do appear to be important for preventing terrorist attacks, and they make sense from an intelligence
perspective. But their greatest value concerns threats overseas, and this is probably a good thing ,
because it means that if the programs are managed properly, and if our intelligence oversight mechanisms work as they should (which are admittedly big ifs), the NSA
collection of big data will have relatively little impact on most Americans’ lives.

Program 702 has a track record of success.

Margulies, Roger Williams law professor, 2014
(Peter, “Dynamic Surveillance: Evolving Procedures in Metadata and Foreign Content Collection After
Snowden”, 9-10, http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/Papers.cfm?abstract_id=2400809)

According to the President’s Review Group, which President Obama commissioned to study surveillance
after the Snowden disclosures, § 702 has played a concrete role in keeping he nation safe.91 The Review Group’s
report asserted that § 702 was “critical” to the uncovering of the Zazi planned subway attack in New York in 2009 and led to the arrest of Zazi and his accomplices.92
The § 702 program resulted in fifty-three out of fifty-four instances in obtaining information that
“contributed in some degree” to a successful outcome regarding thwarted terrorist attacks in the
U.S. and other countries.93 According to the Review Group, § 702 “does in fact play an important role in
the nation’s effort to prevent terrorist attacks across the globe .” The Privacy and Civil Liberties Oversight
Board (PCLOB) agreed with this assessment, concluding that collection under § 702 “significantly aids
the government’s efforts to prevent terrorism… combat weapons proliferation and gather foreign
intelligence.”94

The plan enforces too much of a law enforcement paradigm on the NSA which is not
designed to disrupt national security threats.
Yoo, Berkeley law professor, 2013
(John, “The Legality of the National Security Agency's Bulk Data Surveillance Programs”, 12-1,
http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2369192)

The real problem with FISA, and even the Patriot Act, as they existed before the 2008 Amendments, is that they remained rooted in a law enforcement approach to electronic surveillance.

They tied the government’s counter-terrorism efforts to individualized suspicion . Searches and wiretaps
had to target a specific individual already believed to be involved in harmful activity. But detecting al
Qaeda members who have no previous criminal record in the United States, and who are
undeterred by the possibility of criminal sanctions, requires the use of more sweeping methods . To
successfully prevent attacks, the government has to devote surveillance resources where there is a
reasonable chance that terrorists will appear, or communicate, even if their specific identities remain
unknown. What if the government knew that there was a fifty percent chance that terrorists would use a certain communications pipeline, such as e-mails provided by a popular Pakistani
ISP, but that most of the communications on that channel would not be linked to terrorism? An approach based on individualized suspicion would

prevent computers from searching through that channel for the keywords or names that might suggest
terrorist communications, because there are no specific al Qaeda suspects, and thus no probable cause .
Rather than individualized suspicion, searching for terrorists depends on playing the probabilities, just as
roadblocks or airport screenings do. The private owner of any website has detailed access to information about the individuals who visit the site that he can exploit
for his own commercial purposes, such as selling lists of names to spammers, or gathering market data on individuals or groups. Is the government’s effort to find violent terrorists a less

legitimate use of such data? Individualized suspicion dictates the focus of law enforcement, but war demands that our
armed forces defend the country with a broader perspective. Armies do not meet a “probable cause”
requirement when they attack a position or fire on enemy troops or intercept enemy communications on a
frequency. In the criminal justice system the purpose is to hold a specific person responsible for a discrete crime that has already happened . It does not make sense
when the purpose of intelligence is to take action, such as killing or capturing members of the
enemy, to prevent future harm to the nation from a foreign threat . FISA should be regarded as a safe harbor that allows the fruits of
an authorized search to be used for prosecution. Using FISA sacrifices speed and breadth of information in favor of

individualized suspicion, but it provides a path for using evidence in a civilian criminal prosecution . If the
President chooses to rely on his constitutional authority alone to conduct warrantless searches, then he
should generally only use the information for military purposes . The primary objective of the NSA
program is to “detect and prevent” possible al Qaeda attacks on the United States, whether another
attack like September 11; a bomb in apartment buildings, bridges, or transportation hubs such as
airports; or a nuclear, biological, or chemical attack. These are not hypotheticals; they are all al
Qaeda plots, some of which U.S. intelligence and law enforcement agencies have already stopped . A
President will want to use information gathered by the NSA to deploy military, intelligence, and law enforcement personnel to stop the next attack. The price to pay for

speed, however, is foregoing any future criminal prosecution. If the President wants to use the NSA to
engage in warrantless searches, he cannot use its fruits in an ordinary criminal prosecution . Al Qaeda has launched a
variety of efforts to attack the United States, and it intends to continue them . The primary way to stop those attacks is to find and stop al

Qaeda operatives, and the best way to find them is to intercept their electronic communications. Properly
understood, the Constitution does not subject the government to unreasonable burdens in carrying out its
highest duty of protecting the nation from attack.
Speed is vital to track intelligence leads—the threshold for a burdensome delay is
low.
Yoo, Berkeley law professor, 2013
(John, “The Legality of the National Security Agency's Bulk Data Surveillance Programs”, 12-1,
http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2369192)

As the United States fought the Afghanistan and Iraq wars, and continues to pursue al Qaeda groups in
the Middle East and Africa, it captured al Qaeda laptops, cell phones, financial documents, and the other
signs of modern high-tech life. This gave intelligence officers the information on dozens or hundreds of e-mail addresses, telephones, bank and credit account numbers,
and residential and office addresses used by their network. 35 To exploit this, U.S. intelligence services must follow those leads as

fast as possible, before the network of al Qaeda operatives can migrate to a new leader. An e-mail lead
can disappear as fast as it takes someone to open a new e-mail account . FISA, and the law enforcement
mentality it embodies, creates several problems. FISA requires “probable cause” to believe that someone is an agent of a foreign power before one can get a warrant
to collect phone calls and e-mails.36 An al Qaeda leader could have a cell phone with 100 numbers in its memory, 10 of

which are in the United States and thus require a warrant. Would a FISA judge have found probable cause to think the users of those 10
numbers are al Qaeda too? Probably not. Would our intelligence agencies even immediately know who was using

those numbers at the time of captured al Qaeda leader’s calls? The same is true of his e-mail, as to which
it will not be immediately obvious what addresses are held by U.S. residents . In our world of rapidly
shifting e-mail addresses, multiple cell phone numbers, and internet communications, FISA
imposes slow and cumbersome procedures on our intelligence and law enforcement officers. 37
These laborious checks are based on the assumption that we remain within the criminal justice system,
and looking backward at crimes in order to conduct prosecutions, rather than within the national security
system, which looks forward in order to prevent attacks on the American people. 38 FISA requires a lengthy review process,
in which special FBI and DOJ lawyers prepare an extensive package of facts and law to present to the FISC. 39 The Attorney General must personally sign the application, and another high-
ranking national security officer, such as the President’s National Security Advisor or the Director of the FBI, must certify that the information sought is for foreign intelligence.40

Creating an existing database of numbers that can be quickly searched can allow the government to take
advantage of captured al Qaeda numbers abroad, before the cells within the United States break their
contacts.
 PRISM key to CT – 2NC

Collection increases efficiency

Margulies, Roger Williams law professor, 2014
(Peter, “Dynamic Surveillance: Evolving Procedures in Metadata and Foreign Content Collection After
Snowden”, 9-10, http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/Papers.cfm?abstract_id=2400809)

Both bulk collection of metadata under § 215 and foreign content collection under §702 served this
fiduciary goal. While the metadata program’s benefits were more diffuse, it allowed the government to
quickly and reliably map out the contacts of known terrorist entities and operatives.28 That capability
generated investigative leads, even granting critics’ contention that the program did not by itself foil a
specific attack.29 Moreover, the program played a useful role in allocating government resources. In
chaotic situations such as the aftermath of the Boston Marathon bombing, the program enabled
investigators to discern early on that the Tsarnaev brothers acted without foreign help, freeing officials to
concentrate on the domestic realm.30 Even critics of the metadata program have agreed that § 702
has assisted the government in obtaining information “efficiently and effectively about foreign
targets overseas.”3

Broad NSA capabilities are key to respond to adaptive threats.

Gjelten, NPR correspondent, 2013
(Tom, “The Case For Surveillance: Keeping Up With Terrorist Tactics”, 6-15,
http://www.npr.org/2013/06/15/191694315/high-tech-surveillance-targets-evolving-terrorist-tactics)

Since public revelations that the National Security Agency is collecting telephone records and reviewing
Internet communications in the U.S. and abroad, officials have been making the case that the programs
are vital. They argue that the tactics match the new ways terrorists are planning and communicating . There was a time
when America's enemies conspired face-to-face, or communicated through couriers, or by leaving messages for each other somewhere. But in the digital age, that has
changed. FBI Director Robert Mueller made that point back in 2008, as Congress considered whether to amend the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act. "In this day
and age, our ability to gain intelligence on the plans, the plots of those who wish to attack us is dependent on us obtaining information relating to cellphones, Internet,
email, wire transfers, all of these areas," he said. If
all the action was in that electronic space five years ago, it's even more
so today, as intelligence and security officials constantly point out . Speaking in February, the NSA's general counsel, Rajesh De,
threw out some figures on the explosive growth in communication data. "More data crosses the Internet every second today than
existed on the Internet 20 years ago. Global mobile traffic grew 70 percent last year alone," he said. Officials say these trends
highlight the challenge facing spy agencies: With so much communication now taking place in the
digital world, intelligence officers have to be able to follow that communication. James Bamford, the author of
several books on the NSA, says spies used to focus on getting human sources inside an organization — agents who could report on what people in the organization
were saying and doing. But human
sources no longer matter so much, Bamford says. Intelligence officers use new
approaches because their adversaries are interacting in new ways . "During the day, they're on cellphones,
or they're on email, or they're on social-networking sites . By intercepting that information, you develop
patterns and look at who these people might be involved with," he says. To justify the NSA's collection of telephone records and its
selective monitoring of online communication overseas, U.S. officials cite these "revolutionary" changes in the information space. John Negroponte was the director
of National Intelligence when wiretapping programs were expanded during the Bush administration. He defends the NSA's new emphasis. "I'd say it's a
testament to how surveillance methods have kept up with the geometric progression of these
communication methods," he says. Congressional critics of the expanded surveillance operations say they're not convinced that these programs have
really proved their value in fighting terrorism. They ask whether other types of intelligence gathering might be just as
effective. Negroponte, who served as U.S. ambassador to Iraq, says no one method is sufficient. He recalls how in 2006, the
combination of different intelligence sources led the U.S. military to the head of al-Qaida in Iraq, Abu Musab
al-Zarqawi. "I believe his phone number was detected through human intelligence. Somebody gave us his phone number. Then, that phone number was monitored
through signals intelligence. And then his movements were tracked by geo-spatial intelligence — drones and so forth," he says. "So it's actually the integration of
these different methodologies that actually give you the best results." The expanded use of telephone and Internet surveillance is in
part an adaptation to the information revolution. The NSA, the CIA and other agencies will defend these programs vigorously on that basis,
despite concerns that Americans' privacy has been put at risk. But that's not the whole story: It's also clear that the programs are popular
in the spy business simply because they're convenient and efficient. They make intelligence
gathering easier.
 PRISM Key to Cyber

PRISM is vital to securing internet communications to disrupt cyber terrorism and

foreign espionage.
Dart, CIO and ICT director veteran, 2013
(Martin, “Doing their job: in defence of PRISM”, 6-11, http://www.abc.net.au/news/2013-06-12/dart-in-
defence-of-prism/4749108)

With all developed countries hugely dependent upon electronic communications it is unthinkable to leave
these systems unmonitored and undefended, writes Martin Dart. So the NSA monitors the Internet and captures email, phone calls, SMS
message and… well whatever else travels over the internet. As soon as the 'news' broke civil libertarians were wailing about what an evil act this was, and wagging
their fingers at the NSA as they finally had their proof that the NSA is a… well, a signals interception agency. That spies on things and collects data. Secretly. Oh
come on. I can't be the only person longing for a little adult conversation about this. Surely? Don't
forget that network monitoring and data
gathering is what the NSA has done for over 60 years. Their mission is clearly up there on their website
for all to see: Executive Order 12333 delineates the NSA role…to… Collect (including through clandestine means), process, analyze… signals intelligence
information and data for foreign intelligence and counterintelligence purposes. (My emphasis - try reading just those words!) Therefore what is the NSA, this publicly
professed signals intercept agency, with a published remit to conduct counterintelligence supposed to do - where do you think their field of battle should be? With
all developed countries hugely dependent upon electronic communications it is unthinkable to leave these
systems unmonitored and undefended. The abuse and destruction that could be unleashed by
criminals and foreign intelligence services would be unprecedented and catastrophic, and to have no
visibility or functional mitigations against it would be a shocking negligence. Point #1 of my pro-PRISM defence is therefore: The internet is now the
most 'critical infrastructure' we have. It must be policed, inspected, and protected. As the NSA is funded
precisely to do this, that's what they must do, and up until now they have done so without letting the
enemy know that we had the capability to see what they were up to . And this is where you have to really stop and appreciate the
next point… Point #2: You know there are dreadful people, doing and planning horrendous things on the
internet right? They are 'the enemy' to all of us. The web isn't all about the Twitterverse bragging about the perfect latte or how cuddly their cat is in less than
140 characters. There really are terrorists who seek to use the internet to spread violence and propaganda.
There really are organised perverts sharing images of child rape for sexual and financial gain. And there really are agents working for
foreign governments who use the web to steal intellectual property or uncover our military and
intelligence capabilities. Point #3: This process only works when we ('the good guys') have an unknown
capability that they ('the bad guys') don't know about. If our enemies think we have a poor capability,
or that our laws prevent us from looking at certain traffic or sites, then guess where they are going
to hide their malware, propaganda, and stolen data?

Broad NSA authority is key to network access and the future of cyber security.
Goldsmith, Harvard law professor, 2013
(Jack, “We Need an Invasive NSA”, 10-10, http://www.newrepublic.com/article/115002/invasive-nsa-
will-protect-us-cyber-attacks)

Such cyber-intrusions threaten corporate America and the U.S. government every day. “Relentless
assaults on America’s computer networks by China and other foreign governments, hackers and criminals
have created an urgent need for safeguards to protect these vital systems ,” the Times editorial page noted last year while supporting
legislation encouraging the private sector to share cybersecurity information with the government. It cited General Keith Alexander, the director of the NSA, who had noted a 17-fold increase in

If a
cyber-intrusions on critical infrastructure from 2009 to 2011 and who described the losses in the United States from cyber-theft as “the greatest transfer of wealth in history.”

“catastrophic cyber-attack occurs,” the Timesconcluded, “Americans will be justified in asking why
their lawmakers ... failed to protect them.” The Times editorial board is quite right about the seriousness of the cyber- threat and the federal
government’s responsibility to redress it. What it does not appear to realize is the connection between the domestic NSA

surveillance it detests and the governmental assistance with cybersecurity it cherishes. To keep our
computer and telecommunication networks secure, the government will eventually need to monitor
and collect intelligence on those networks using techniques similar to ones the Timesand many others find reprehensible when done for counterterrorism
ends. The fate of domestic surveillance is today being fought around the topic of whether it is needed to stop Al Qaeda from blowing things up. But the fight tomorrow, and the more important

Anyone anywhere with a connection to the

fight, will be about whether it is necessary to protect our ways of life embedded in computer networks.

Internet can engage in cyber-operations within the United States. Most truly harmful cyber-operations,
however, require group effort and significant skill. The attacking group or nation must have clever hackers, significant computing power, and the
sophisticated software—known as “malware”—that enables the monitoring, exfiltration, or destruction of information inside a computer. The supply of all of these

resources has been growing fast for many years—in governmental labs devoted to developing these
tools and on sprawling black markets on the Internet. Telecommunication networks are the channels
through which malware typically travels, often anonymized or encrypted, and buried in the billions of
communications that traverse the globe each day. The targets are the communications networks themselves as
well as the computers they connect—things like the Times’ servers, the computer systems that monitor nuclear plants, classified documents on computers in the Pentagon, the nasdaq exchange,

To keep these computers and networks secure, the government needs

your local bank, and your social-network providers.

powerful intelligence capabilities abroad so that it can learn about planned cyber-intrusions . It also needs
to raise defenses at home. An important first step is to correct the market failures that plague cybersecurity. Through law or regulation, the government must improve incentives for individuals to
use security software, for private firms to harden their defenses and share information with one another, and for Internet service providers to crack down on the botnets—networks of
compromised zombie computers—that underlie many cyber-attacks. More, too, must be done to prevent insider threats like Edward Snowden’s, and to control the stealth introduction of
vulnerabilities during the manufacture of computer components—vulnerabilities that can later be used as windows for cyber-attacks. And yet that’s still not enough. The U.S. government can
fully monitor air, space, and sea for potential attacks from abroad. But it has limited access to the channels of cyber-attack and cyber-theft, because they are owned by private telecommunication
firms, and because Congress strictly limits government access to private communications. “I can’t defend the country until I’m into all the networks,” General Alexander reportedly told senior

government officials a few months ago. For Alexander, being in the network means having government computers scan the
content and metadata of Internet communications in the United States and store some of these
communications for extended periods. Such access, he thinks, will give the government a fighting chance to find the needle of known malware in the haystack of
communications so that it can block or degrade the attack or exploitation. It will also allow it to discern patterns of malicious activity in

the swarm of communications, even when it doesn’t possess the malware’s signature. And it will
better enable the government to trace back an attack’s trajectory so that it can discover the identity
and geographical origin of the threat.
 PRISM key to Domestic Terrorism

Key to disrupt homegrown terrorism

Sulmasy, Coast Guard academy law professor, 2013
(Glenn, “Why we need government surveillance”, 6-10,
http://www.cnn.com/2013/06/10/opinion/sulmasy-nsa-snowden/)

The current threat by al Qaeda and jihadists is one that requires aggressive intelligence collection and
efforts. One has to look no further than the disruption of the New York City subway bombers (the one
being touted by DNI Clapper) or the Boston Marathon bombers to know that the war on al Qaeda is
coming home to us, to our citizens, to our students, to our streets and our subways. This 21st century war is different and
requires new ways and methods of gathering information. As technology has increased, so has our ability to gather valuable,
often actionable, intelligence. However, the move toward "home-grown" terror will necessarily require, by
accident or purposefully, collections of U.S. citizens' conversations with potential overseas persons
of interest. An open society, such as the United States, ironically needs to use this technology to protect itself. This truth is naturally uncomfortable for a
country with a Constitution that prevents the federal government from conducting "unreasonable searches and seizures." American historical resistance towards such
activities is a bedrock of our laws, policies and police procedures. But
what might have been reasonable 10 years ago is not the
same any longer. The constant armed struggle against the jihadists has adjusted our beliefs on what we
think our government can, and must, do in order to protect its citizens.
 PRISM Speed Key

Flexibility is key to quick action and intel

Sulmasy, US Coast Guard Academy law faculty, 2009
(Glenn, “Anniversary Contributions: Use of Force: Executive Power: the Last Thirty Year”, 30 U. Pa. J.
Int'l L. 1355, lexis)

Since the attacks of 9/11, the original concerns noted by Hamilton, Jay, and Madison have been heightened. Never before in the young history of the United States has the need for an
energetic executive been more vital to its national security . The need for quick action in this arena requires an
executive response - particularly when fighting a shadowy enemy like al Qaeda - not the deliberative bodies
opining on what and how to conduct warfare or determining how and when to respond. The threats from non-state actors, such as al Qaeda, make
the need for dispatch and rapid response even greater . Jefferson's concerns about the slow and deliberative institution of Congress
being prone to informational leaks are even more relevant in the twenty-first century. The advent of the twenty-four hour media only leads to an increased need for
retaining enhanced levels of executive [*1362] control of foreign policy. This is particularly true in modern warfare. In the war on international terror, intelligence is vital to

ongoing operations and successful prevention of attacks. Al Qaeda now has both the will and the ability to strike with
the equivalent force and might of a nation's armed forces. The need to identify these individuals before they can operationalize an attack is

vital. Often international terror cells consist of only a small number of individuals - making intelligence that much more
difficult to obtain and even more vital than in previous conflicts. The normal movements of tanks, ships, and aircrafts that, in traditional armed conflict are indicia of a pending attack are
not the case in the current "fourth generation" war. Thus, the need for intelligence becomes an even greater concern for the commanders in the field as well as the Commander-in-Chief. ¶ Supporting a strong executive in foreign affairs
does not necessarily mean the legislature has no role at all. In fact, their dominance in domestic affairs remains strong. Additionally, besides the traditional roles identified in the Constitution for the legislature in foreign affairs -
declaring war, ratifying treaties, overseeing appointments of ambassadors, etc. - this growth of executive power now, more than ever, necessitates an enhanced, professional, and apolitical oversight of the executive. An active,
aggressive oversight of foreign affairs, and warfare in particular, by the legislature is now critical. Unfortunately, the United States - particularly over the past decade - has witnessed a legislature unable to muster the political will
necessary to adequately oversee, let alone check, the executive branch's growing power. Examples are abundant: lack of enforcement of the War Powers Resolution abound the executive's unchecked invasions of Grenada, Panama,
and Kosovo, and such assertions as the Authorization for the Use of Military Force, the USA Patriot Act, military commissions, and the updated Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act ("FISA"). There have been numerous grand-
standing complaints registered in the media and hearings over most, if not all, of these issues. However, in each case, the legislature has all but abdicated their constitutionally mandated role and allowed the judicial branch to serve as
the only real check on alleged excesses of the executive branch. This deference is particularly dangerous and, in the current environment of foreign affairs and warfare, tends to unintentionally politicize the Court. ¶ The Founders
clearly intended the political branches to best serve the citizenry by functioning as the dominant forces in [*1363] guiding the nation's foreign affairs. They had anticipated the political branches to struggle over who has primacy in this
arena. In doing so, they had hoped neither branch would become too strong. The common theme articulated by Madison, ambition counters ambition, n17 intended foreign affairs to be a "give and take" between the executive and
legislative branches. However, inaction by the legislative branch on myriad policy and legal issues surrounding the "war on terror" has forced the judiciary to fulfill the function of questioning, disagreeing, and "checking" the
executive in areas such as wartime policy, detentions at Guantanamo Bay, and tactics and strategy of intelligence collection. The unique nature of the conflict against international terror creates many areas where law and policy are
mixed. The actions by the Bush administration, in particular, led to outcries from many on the left about his intentions and desire to unconstitutionally increase the power of the Presidency. Yet, the Congress never firmly exercised the
"check" on the executive in any formal manner whatsoever.¶ For example, many policymakers disagreed with the power given to the President within the Authorization to Use Military Force ("AUMF"). n18 Arguably, this legislation
was broad in scope, and potentially granted sweeping powers to the President to wage the "war on terror." However, Congress could have amended or withdrawn significant portions of the powers it gave to the executive branch. This
lack of withdrawal or amendment may have been understandable when Republicans controlled Congress, but as of November 2006, the Democrats gained control of both houses of the Congress. Still, other than arguing strongly
against the President, the legislature did not necessarily or aggressively act on its concerns. Presumably this inaction was out of concern for being labeled "soft on terror" or "weak on national security" and thereby potentially suffering
at the ballot box. This virtual paralysis is understandable but again, the political branches were, and remain, the truest voice of the people and provide the means to best represent the country's beliefs, interests, and national will in the
arena of foreign affairs. It has been this way in the past but the more recent (certainly over the past thirty years and even more so in the past decade) intrusions of the judicial branch into what [*1364] was intended to be a "tug and
pull" between the political branches can properly be labeled as an unintended consequence of the lack of any real legislative oversight of the executive branch. ¶ Unfortunately, now nine unelected, life-tenured justices are deeply
involved in wartime policy decision making. Examples of judicial policy involvement in foreign affairs are abundant including Rasul v. Bush; n19 Hamdi v. Rumsfeld; n20 Hamdan v. Rumsfeld; n21 as well as last June's Boumediene
v. Bush n22 decision by the Supreme Court, all impacting war policy and interpretation of U. S. treaty obligations. Simply, judges should not presumptively impact warfare operations or policies nor should this become acceptable
practice. Without question, over the past thirty years, this is the most dramatic change in executive power. It is not necessarily the strength of the Presidency that is the change we should be concerned about - the institutional search for
enhanced power was anticipated by the Founders - but they intended for Congress to check this executive tendency whenever appropriate. Unfortunately, this simply is not occurring in twenty-first century politics. Thus, the danger
does not necessarily lie with the natural desire for Presidents to increase their power. The real danger is the judicial branch being forced, or compelled, to fulfill the constitutionally mandated role of the Congress in checking the
executive.¶ 4. PRESIDENT OBAMA AND EXECUTIVE POWER ¶ The Bush presidency was, and continues to be, criticized for having a standing agenda of increasing the power of the executive branch during its eight-year tenure.
Numerous articles and books have been dedicated to discussing these allegations. n23 However, as argued earlier, the reality is that it is a natural bureaucratic tendency, and one of the Founders presciently anticipated, that each branch

As the world becomes increasingly interdependent, technology and armament

would seek greater powers whenever and wherever possible.

become more sophisticated, and with [*1365] the rise of twenty-first century non-state actors, the need for strong
executive power is not only preferred, but also necessary . Executive power in the current world
dynamic is something, regardless of policy preference or political persuasions, that the new President must maintain in
order to best fulfill his constitutional role of providing for the nation's security. This is simply part of the reality of executive power in the twenty-first century. n24

Speed is key to the strategic advantage key to solve global crises and maintain
leadership
Berkowitz, RAND senior analyst, 2008
(Bruce, Strategic Advantage: Challengers, Competitors, And Threats To America’s Future, pg 1-4)
THIS BOOK is intended to help readers better understand the national security issues facing the United States today and offer the general outline of a strategy for
dealing with them. National
security policy—both making it and debating it — is harder today because the issues that are
involved are more numerous and varied. The problem of the day can change at a moment's notice.
Yesterday, it might have been proliferation; today, terrorism; tomorrow, hostile regional powers. Threats
are also more likely to be intertwined—proliferators use the same networks as narco-traffickers, narco-traffickers support terrorists, and terrorists
align themselves with regional powers. Yet, as worrisome as these immediate concerns may be, the long-term challenges are even harder to deal with, and the stakes
are higher. Whereas the main Cold War threat — the Soviet Union — was brittle, most of the potential adversaries and challengers
America now faces are resilient. In at least one dimension where the Soviets were weak (economic efficiency, public morale, or leadership), the new
threats are strong. They are going to be with us for a long time. As a result, we need to reconsider how we think about national security. The most
important task for U.S. national security today is simply to retain the strategic advantage. This term, from the
world of military doctrine, refers to the overall ability of a nation to control, or at least influence, the course of events.1 When you hold the strategic advantage,
situations unfold in your favor, and each round ends so that you are in an advantageous position for the next. When you do not hold the strategic advantage, they do
not. As national goals go, “keeping the strategic advantage” may not have the idealistic ring of “making the world safe for democracy” and does not sound as
decisively macho as “maintaining American hegemony.” But keeping
the strategic advantage is critical, because it is essential
for just about everything else America hopes to achieve — promoting freedom, protecting the homeland,
defending its values, preserving peace, and so on. The Changing Threat If one needs proof of this new, dynamic environment, consider the
recent record. A search of the media during the past fifteen years suggests that there were at least a dozen or so events that were considered at one time or another
the most pressing national security problem facing the United States — and thus the organizing concept for U.S. national security. What is
most interesting is how varied and different the issues were, and how many different sets of players they involved — and how each was replaced in turn by a different
issue and a cast of characters that seemed, at least for the moment, even more pressing. They included, roughly in chronological order, • regional
conflicts — like Desert Storm — involving the threat of war between conventional armies; • stabilizing “failed states” like Somalia, where
government broke down in toto; • staying economically competitive with Japan; • integrating Russia into the international community after the fall of
communism and controlling the nuclear weapons it inherited from the Soviet Union; • dealing with “rogue states,” unruly nations like
North Korea that engage in trafficking and proliferation as a matter of national policy; • combating international crime, like the scandal involving
the Bank of Credit and Commerce International, or imports of illegal drugs; • strengthening international institutions for trade as countries in Asia,
Eastern Europe, and Latin America adopted market economies; • responding to ethnic conflicts and civil wars triggered by the reemergence of culture as a political
force in the “clash of civilizations”; • providing relief to millions of people affected by natural catastrophes like earthquakes, tsunamis, typhoons, droughts, and the
spread of HIV/AIDS and malaria; • combating terrorism driven by sectarian or religious extremism; • grassroots activism on a global scale, ranging from the
campaign to ban land mines to antiglobalization hoodlums and environmentalist crazies; • border security and illegal immigration; • the worldwide ripple
effects of currency fluctuations and the collapse of confidence in complex financial securities ; and • for at least
one fleeting moment, the safety of toys imported from China. There is some overlap in this list, and one might want to group some of the events differently or add
others. The important point, however, is that when you look at these problems and how they evolved during the past fifteen years, you do not see a single lesson or
organizing principle on which to base U.S. strategy. Another way to see the dynamic nature of today's national security challenges is to consider the annual threat
briefing the U.S. intelligence community has given Congress during the past decade. These briefings are essentially a snapshot of what U.S. officials worry most
about. If one briefing is a snapshot, then several put together back to back provide a movie, showing how views have evolved.2 Figure 1 summarizes these
assessments for every other year between 1996 and 2006. It shows when a particular threat first appeared, its rise and fall in the rankings, and in some cases how it fell
off the chart completely. So, in 1995, when the public briefing first became a regular affair, the threat at the very top of the list was North Korea. This likely reflected
the crisis that had occurred the preceding year, when Pyongyang seemed determined to develop nuclear weapons, Bill Clinton's administration seemed ready to use
military action to prevent this, and the affair was defused by an agreement brokered by Jimmy Carter. Russia and China ranked high as threats in the early years, but
by the end of the decade they sometimes did not even make the list. Proliferation has always been high in the listings, although the particular countries of greatest
concern have varied. Terrorism made its first appearance in 1998, rose to first place after the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, and remains there today. The
Balkans appeared and disappeared in the middle to late 1990s. A few of the entries today seem quaint and overstated. Catastrophic threats to information systems like
an “electronic Pearl Harbor” and the “Y2K problem” entered the list in 1998 but disappeared after 2001. (Apparently, after people saw an airliner crash into a
Manhattan skyscraper, the possible loss of their Quicken files seemed a lot less urgent.) Iraq first appeared in the briefing as a regional threat in 1997 and was still
high on the list a decade later—though, of course, the Iraqi problem in the early years (suspected weapons of mass destruction) was very different from the later one
(an insurgency and internationalized civil war). All
this is why the United States needs agility. It not only must be able to
refocus its resources repeatedly; it needs to do this faster than an adversary can focus its own resources.

Speed key to solve terrorism-prefer specific evidence

Li, Georgetown JD, 2009
(Zheyao, “NOTE: War Powers for the Fourth Generation: Constitutional Interpretation in the Age of
Asymmetric Warfare”, Winter, 7 Geo. J.L. & Pub. Pol'y 373, lexis)
By now it should be clear just how different this conflict against the extremist terrorists is from the type of warfare that occupied the minds of the Framers at the time
of the Founding. Rather than maintaining the geographical and political isolation desired by the Framers for the new country, today's United States is an international
power targeted by individuals and groups that will not rest until seeing her demise. The
Global War on Terrorism is not truly a war
within the Framers' eighteenth-century conception of the term, and the normal constitutional provisions
regulating the division of war powers between Congress and the President do not apply. Instead, this "war" is a
struggle for survival and dominance against forces that threaten to destroy the United States and her allies, and the fourth-generational nature of the conflict,
highlighted by an indiscernible distinction between wartime and peacetime, necessitates an evolution of America's traditional constitutional warmaking scheme. As
first illustrated by the military strategist Colonel John Boyd, constitutional decision-making in the realm of war powers in the fourth generation should [*399] consider
the implications of the OODA Loop: Observe, Orient, Decide, and Act. n144 In the
era of fourth-generational warfare, quick reactions,
proceeding through the OODA Loop rapidly, and disrupting the enemy's OODA loop are the keys to
victory. "In order to win," Colonel Boyd suggested, "we should operate at a faster tempo or rhythm than our
adversaries." n145 In the words of Professor Creveld, "[b]oth organizationally and in terms of the equipment at their disposal, the armed forces of the world
will have to adjust themselves to this situation by changing their doctrine, doing away with much of their heavy equipment and becoming more like police." n146
Unfortunately, the existing constitutional understanding, which diffuses war power between two branches
of government, necessarily (by the Framers' design) slows down decision-making . [*400] In circumstances where war
is undesirable (which is, admittedly, most of the time, especially against other nation-states), the deliberativeness of the existing decision-making process is a positive
attribute. InAmerica's current situation, however, in the midst of the conflict with al-Qaeda and other
international terrorist organizations, the existing process of constitutional decision-making in warfare may
prove a fatal hindrance to achieving the initiative necessary for victory . As a slow-acting, deliberative body, Congress
does not have the ability to adequately deal with fast-emerging situations in fourth-generational warfare. Thus, in order to combat transnational
threats such as al-Qaeda, the executive branch must have the ability to operate by taking offensive
military action even without congressional authorization, because only the executive branch is capable of
the swift decision-making and action necessary to prevail in fourth-generational conflicts against fourth-
generational opponents.

Section 702 critical to fight terrorism

Washington Post, June 20, 2013, Reprinted in South China Morning Post, US Defends Surveillance
Tactics in War on Terrorism, http://www.scmp.com/news/world/article/1264602/us-defends-surveillance-
tactics-war-terrorism DOA: 4-1-15

In November 2008, Abid Naseer, a Pakistani student living in Manchester, England, began to e-mail a
Yahoo account ultimately traced to his home country. The young man's e-mails appeared to be about four
women - Nadia, Huma, Gulnaz and Fozia - and which one would make a "faithful and loving wife".
British investigators later determined that the four names were code for types of explosives. And they
ascertained that a final April 2009 e-mail announcing a "marriage to Nadia" between the 15th and the
20th was a signal that a terrorist attack was imminent, according to British court documents. It is unclear
exactly how British intelligence linked the Pakistani e-mail address to a senior al-Qaeda operative who
communicated in a kind of code to his distant allies. But the intelligence helped stop the plot in England,
and the address made its way to the US National Security Agency (NSA). A few months later, the NSA
was monitoring the Yahoo user in Pakistan when a peculiar message arrived from a man named
Najibullah Zazi, an Afghan American living in Colorado. He asked about "mixing of [flavour and ghee
oil] and I do not know the amount, plz right away." Soon after, on September 9, 2009, a second message
arrived that echoed the code used in the British plot: "The marriage is ready," Zazi wrote. The e-mails led
the NSA to alert the FBI, which obtained a court order to place Zazi under more extensive surveillance.
Officials learned that he had visited Pakistan in 2008, the same time as one of the British plotters. In the
end, the e-mails and additional surveillance foiled a plot by Zazi and two others to conduct suicide
bombings in the New York subway system just days after he sent the "marriage is ready" e-mail. In
recent days, US intelligence and law enforcement officials, as well as congressional officials, have
pointed to the authority that allowed them to target the Yahoo account - Section 702 of the Foreign
Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) - as a critical tool in identifying and disrupting terrorist plots in the
US and abroad. But some critics of NSA surveillance suggested that the collection of data under a
programme called Prism was not essential to Zazi's capture because the British first obtained the critical
e-mail address. Still, the case study provides a rare glimpse of how the broad surveillance practices of the
United States, often in concert with allies, are deployed. "The 702 programme has been enormously
useful in a large number of terrorist cases," said a US official who has access to classified records
on NSA programmes. "It's beyond dispute that it is highly effective. It operates exactly as anyone
paying attention would have expected it to operate based on floor debate and plain reading of law."
Passage of Section 702 as an amendment to FISA in 2008 gave the government the authority to
request information from US telecommunications companies on foreign targets located overseas
without a court order for each individual case.
The broad authority is reviewed and renewed annually by the FISA court, although the law does not
preclude making a specific request for surveillance. "It appears the NSA did not need any of the expanded
authorities conferred by Section 702 to monitor the communications at issue," said Elizabeth Goitein, co-
director of the Brennan Centre for Justice's Liberty and National Security Programme. "The government
easily could have met this standard if it certified that the targets were al-Qaeda terrorists in Pakistan." But
US officials argue that, given the flood of leads in today's interconnected world, the system would get
bogged down and they could miss plots if they had to go before the court every time they got
information about potential foreign suspects. The officials said they used material from multiple
sources - allies, agents, informants and other investigations - to provide rolling targeting information for
the Prism program.
They also said if the Yahoo address had not been included, Zazi might not have been identified just days
before the attacks were set to occur. In testimony before Congress on Tuesday, senior intelligence and
law enforcement officials said that recently revealed surveillance programmes have disrupted more
than 50 "potential terrorist events", including at least 10 plots with a connection in the US. The Zazi
case was one of four that officials used in recent days to defend the effectiveness of the surveillance
programmes. One of the others was a planned attack on a Danish newspaper that involved a Pakistani
American, David Headley.
Sean Joyce, the deputy director of the FBI, described the other two potential attacks on Tuesday in
testimony before the House Intelligence Committee. In one, Joyce said, the NSA was monitoring "a
known extremist in Yemen" when it learned that the individual was in contact with a man in Kansas City,
Missouri. Joyce said Khalid Ouazzani and two co-conspirators were plotting to bomb the New York
Stock Exchange. Ouazzani pleaded guilty in 2010 to supporting a terrorist organisation, bank fraud and
overseas money laundering. His co-conspirators also pleaded guilty to terrorism charges. In the other
incident, phone records helped identify a San Diego man who was financing a terrorist group overseas,
apparently al-Shabab in Somalia. "Investigating terrorism is not an exact science. It's like a mosaic,"
Joyce said. "We try to take these disparate pieces and bring them together to form a picture. There are
many different pieces of intelligence. "We have assets. We have physical surveillance. We have
electronic surveillance through a legal process, phone records through additional legal process, financial
records. "Also, these programmes that we're talking about here today, they're all valuable pieces to bring
that mosaic together." General Keith Alexander, head of the National Security Agency, said details of the
two programmes disclosed by Snowden were not closely held within the secretive agency. Alexander said
after the hearing that most of the documents accessed by Snowden, a former systems analyst on contract
to the NSA, were on a web forum available to NSA employees. Others were on a site that required a
special credential to access. Alexander said investigators were studying how Snowden did that. He told
lawmakers Snowden's leaks had caused "irreversible and significant damage to this nation". He also said
the internet programme had helped stop 90 per cent of the 50-plus plots he cited. He said more than 10 of
the plots thwarted had a link inside the US. Still, little was offered to substantiate claims that the
programmes had been successful in stopping acts of terrorism that would not have been caught with
narrower surveillance. In the New York subway bombing case, Barack Obama conceded the would-be
bomber might have been caught with less sweeping surveillance. Committee chairman Congressman
Mike Rogers said the programmes were vital to the intelligence community and blasted Snowden's
actions as criminal. "It is at times like these where our enemies within become almost as damaging as our
enemies on the outside," Rogers said. Officials acknowledged that intelligence collected from US phone
records under a programme authorised by the USA Patriot Act is less compelling and the case for that
extensive surveillance is harder to make. The NSA's ability to intercept "the contents of e-mail
communications of bad guys overseas provides a more lucrative set of information" about terrorist
activity than its access to phone records of millions of Americans, one US official said.

Section 702 programs necessary to defeat terrorism

Sean M. Joyce, Deputy Director, Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), July 31, 2013, Hearing of the
Senate Judiciary Committee Subject: "Strengthening Privacy Rights and National Security: Oversight of
FISA (Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act) Surveillance Programs" https://www.hsdl.org/?
view&did=741931
(First joined the Department of Justice in 1979. He served for 13 years in the Criminal Division, later
becoming the deputy chief of the division's public integrity section, went in private practice, sworn in as
deputy attorney general on January 3rd, 2011)

SEN. GRASSLEY: OK.

Mr. Joyce, one part of the balance that we have to strike, protecting privacy of Americans -- the other
part, national security. Thankfully, until the Boston bombing, we had prevented large-scale terrorist
attacks on American soil. I have a few questions about how valuable the role of Section 215 and 702
programs have played in predicting (sic) our national security. Two questions, and then I'll have to stop
and go to our colleagues. Can you describe any specific situations where Section 215 and Section 702
authorities helped disrupt a terrorist attack or identify individuals planning to attack, the number of times?
And then secondly, if you didn't have the authority to collect phone records in bulk the way that they are
now under Section 215, how would you have affected those investigations?
MR. JOYCE: So to your first question, Senator, as far as a specific example of when we have utilized
both of these programs is the one I had first mentioned, the first al-Qaida-directed plot since 9/11,
in September of 2009, when Najibullah Zazi and others conspired plot to bomb the New York
subway system. We initially found out about Zazi through an NSA 702 coverage, and he was actually
talking to an al-Qaida courier who was -- he was asking for his help to perfect an explosives recipe. So
but for that, we would not have known about the plot. We followed that up with legal process and then
had FISA coverage on him and others as we fully investigated the plot. Business records 215 was also
involved, as I had previously mentioned, where we also through legal process were submitting legal
process for telephone numbers and other email addresses, other selectors. But NSA also provided
another number we are unaware of of a co-conspirator, Adis Medunjanin. So that is an instance
where a very serious plot to attack America on U.S. soil that we used both these programs.
But I say, as Chairman Leahy mentioned, there is a difference in the utility of the programs. But what I
say to you is that each and every program and tool is valuable. There were gaps prior to 9/11. And
what we have collectively tried to do, the members of the committee, other members of the other
oversight committees, the executive branch and the intelligence community, is we have tried to close
those gaps and close those seams. And the business record 215 is one of those programs that we
have closed those seams. So I respectfully say to the chairman that the utility of that specific program
initially is not as valuable. I say you are right. But what I say is it plays a crucial role in closing the gaps
and seams that we fought hard to gain after the 9/11 attacks.

Section 702 critical to defeat terrorism

Benjamin Wittes, Brookings, 2014, Senior Fellow in Governance Studies at the Brookings Institution.
I co-founded and am Editor in Chief of Lawfare, a website devoted to sober and serious discussion of
“Hard National Security Choices.” I am the author or editor of several books on subjects related to
law and national security: Detention and Denial: The Case for Candor After Guantánamo (2011),
Law and the Long War: The Future of Justice in the Age of Terror (2008), and Legislating the War
on Terror: An Agenda for Reform (2009). I have written extensively both on the AUMF and on NSA
collection under various provisions of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA). 3 The views I
am expressing here are my own, April 8, Prepared Statement, Is Al Qaeda Winning the
Administration’s Counterterrorism Policy,”
http://docs.house.gov/meetings/FA/FA18/20140408/102109/HHRG-113-FA18-Wstate-WittesB-
20140408.pdf DOA: 5-1-15

President Obama has announced that he wants to end the AUMF conflict, raising profound questions
both about the plausibility and timeframe of that objective and about what legal instrument—if any—
will replace the AUMF. Meanwhile, serial leaks have generated enormous political anxiety about
NSA programs and persistent calls for reform in the press, in the general public, among allies, and in
this body. Section 702 will sunset in 2017 absent action by Congress to renew this important
collection authority.4 So major pillars of the legal architecture of America’s conflict with Al Qaeda
have been placed—in different ways and for very different reasons—on the table. This body thus
cannot avoid the question of how much, if at all, it wants to alter the most fundamental architecture
of the conflict.

In my view, as I will lay out, the critical task facing the Congress is different with respect to these
two laws. With respect to the AUMF, the Congress should legislate to clearly authorize, and establish
proper oversight of, the conflict the United States is likely to continue fighting after its withdrawal
from Afghanistan. With respect to Section 702, the task is simpler: to maintain the intelligence
community’s capacity to support both the broad national security objectives of the United States and
the conflict’s prosecution under whatever legal authorities may succeed the AUMF.

CONTINUES

As I said at the outset of this statement, the question of intelligence collection under Section 702 of
the FAA may seem connected to the AUMF’s future in only the most distant fashion. In fact, the
connection between intelligence collection authorities and the underlying regime authorizing the
conflict itself is a critical one. Good intelligence is key to any armed conflict and good technical
intelligence is a huge U.S. strength in the fight against Al Qaeda. Yet ironically, the more one
attempts to narrow the conflict, the more important technical intelligence becomes. The fewer boots
on the ground we have in Afghanistan, for example, the greater our reliance will become on technical
collection. The more we rely on drone strikes, rather than large troop movements, in areas where we
lack large human networks, the more we rely on technical intelligence. Particularly if one imagines
staying on offense against a metastasizing Al Qaeda in the context of a withdrawal from Afghanistan
and a narrowing—or a formal end—of the AUMF conflict, the burden on technical intelligence
collection to keep us in the game will be huge even ignoring the many other foreign intelligence and
national security interests Section 702 surveillance supports.

Section 702 is a complicated statute, and it is only one part of a far more complicated, larger
statutory arrangement. But broadly speaking, it permits the NSA to acquire without an individualized
warrant the communications of non-US persons reasonably believed to be overseas when those
communications are transiting the United States or stored in the United States. Under these
circumstances, the NSA can order production of such communications from telecommunications
carriers and internet companies under broad programmatic orders issued by the Foreign Intelligence
Surveillance Court (FISC), which reviews both targeting and minimization procedures under which
the collection then takes place. Oversight is thick, both within the executive branch, and in reporting
requirements to the congressional intelligence committees.

Make no mistake: Section 702 is a very big deal in America’s counterterrorism arsenal. It is far more
important than the much debated bulk metadata program, which involves a few hundred queries a
year. Section 702 collection, by contrast, is vast, a hugely significant component not only of
contemporary counterterrorism but of foreign intelligence collection more generally. In 2012, the
Senate Select Committee on Intelligence wrote that “[T]he authorities provided [under section 702]
have greatly increased the government’s ability to collect information and act quickly against
important foreign intelligence targets. . . . [The] failure to reauthorize [section 702] would ‘result in a
loss of significant intelligence and impede the ability of the Intelligence Community to respond
quickly to new threats and intelligence opportunities.’” 8 The President’s Review Group on
Intelligence and Communications Technologies, after quoting this language, wrote that “Our own
review is not inconsistent with this assessment. . . . [W]e are persuaded that section 702 does in fact
play an important role in the nation’s effort to prevent terrorist attacks across the globe.” 9 The
Washington Post has reported that 702 was in 2012 the single most prolific contributor to the
President’s Daily Brief.10

Yet we have seen enormous anxiety about Section 702 collection, along with its close cousin,
collection overseas against non-US person targets under Executive Order 12333. Sometimes, these
anxieties have been rooted in the supposed effects of this collection on U.S. persons. 11 Sometimes,
however, the complaints have stemmed from broader concerns about infringement of privacy
worldwide. Europeans have expressed shock, for example, that a U.S. spy agency would presume to
collect against an allied foreign leader like German Chancellor Angela Merkel 12—surveillance that
now seems forward-thinking and reasonable given later reports that Merkel has been on the phone
frequently during the Crimea crisis with Vladimir Putin. 13 Major news organizations have considered
it front-page news that NSA has pursued intelligence targets on online gaming platforms and
smartphone apps,14 that NSA has collected contact lists in large numbers around the world, 15 even
that foreign countries spy on one another, collect attorney-client communications involving U.S.
lawyers along the way, and may share that material with NSA subject to U.S. law and minimization
requirements.16 Whether one considers these stories important journalism or reckless blowing of
valuable surveillance activities, they both reflect and further stoke a deep concern about the scope of
U.S. surveillance practices. And that concern is creating inexorable pressures for reforms we may
regret in the counterterrorism space.

The legal regime here is one that this body knowingly and deliberatively created in an iterative set of
interactions with the intelligence community and the courts. It requires no apology. Rather, it
requires an active defense. And while there are certainly areas in which the regime could benefit
from reform, the big risk here is that overreaction and panic in the face of exposure will lead to a
burdening of the core signals intelligence capacity of the United States with legal processes designed
to protect civil liberties domestically. This could happen either because reform efforts go too far or
because Congress fails to reauthorize 702 and thus applies the terms of core FISA—which require an
individualized warrant based on probable cause— to a wide swath of overseas collection.

Broadly then, the legislative task with respect to Section 702 is something of the opposite of the task
with respect to the AUMF. To the extent that members of this committee continue to believe, as I do,
in the essential integrity and value of the existing legal authorities for intelligence collection and
oversight, the task in the current political environment is to defend that architecture—publicly and
energetically—rather than to race to correct imagined deficiencies, or even real structural
deficiencies that, however real they may be, bear little relation to the outcomes that disquiet us.

Section 702 and Section 215 programs have prevented terror attacks
Sean M. Joyce, Deputy Director, Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), July 31, 2013, Hearing of the
Senate Judiciary Committee Subject: "Strengthening Privacy Rights and National Security: Oversight of
FISA (Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act) Surveillance Programs" https://www.hsdl.org/?
view&did=741931
(First joined the Department of Justice in 1979. He served for 13 years in the Criminal Division, later
becoming the deputy chief of the division's public integrity section, went in private practice, sworn in as
deputy attorney general on January 3rd, 2011)

SEN. FEINSTEIN: Good.

Now, the NSA has produced and declassified a chart, which I'd like to make available to all
members. It has the 54 total events. It includes a Section 702 authority and Section 215 authority,
which essentially work together. And it shows the events disrupted based on a combination of these
two programs, 13 in the homeland, 25 in Europe, five in Africa and 11 in Asia.
Now, I remember I was on the Intelligence Committee before 9/11, and I remember how little
information we have and the great criticism of the government because of those stovepipes, the inability
to share intelligence, the inability to collect intelligence. We had no program that could've possibly
caught two people in San Diego before the event took place. I support this program. I think, based on
what I know, they will come after us. And I think we need to prevent an attack wherever we can from
happening. That doesn't mean that we can't make some changes.

Accessing foreign data stored in the US is crucial to deter terrorism

The Washington Post 13 ("US Defends Surveillance Tactics in War on Terrorism")
A few months later, the NSA was monitoring the Yahoo user in Pakistan when a peculiar message
arrived from a man named Najibullah Zazi, an Afghan American living in Colorado . He asked
about "mixing of [flavour and ghee oil] and I do not know the amount, plz right away."¶ Soon after, on
September 9, 2009, a second message arrived that echoed the code used in the British plot: "The marriage
is ready," Zazi wrote.¶ The e-mails led the NSA to alert the FBI, which obtained a court order to place
Zazi under more extensive surveillance. Officials learned that he had visited Pakistan in 2008, the same
time as one of the British plotters.¶ In the end, the e-mails and additional surveillance foiled a plot by
Zazi and two others to conduct suicide bombings in the New York subway system just days after he sent
the "marriage is ready" e-mail. In recent days, US intelligence and law enforcement officials, as well as
congressional officials, have pointed to the authority that allowed them to target the Yahoo account -
Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) - as a critical tool in identifying and
disrupting terrorist plots in the US and abroad.¶ But some critics of NSA surveillance suggested that the
collection of data under a programme called Prism was not essential to Zazi's capture because the British
first obtained the critical e-mail address.¶ Still, the case study provides a rare glimpse of how the broad
surveillance practices of the United States, often in concert with allies, are deployed.¶ "The 702
programme has been enormously useful in a large number of terrorist cases ," said a US official
who has access to classified records on NSA programmes. "It's beyond dispute that it is highly
effective. It operates exactly as anyone paying attention would have expected it to operate based
on floor debate and plain reading of law." Passage of Section 702 as an amendment to FISA in
2008 gave the government the authority to request information from US telecommunications
companies on foreign targets located overseas without a court order for each individual case .
Authority for PRISM is in section 702

James Carafano, 8-6, 13 Heritage Foundation, The Examiner (Washington, DC)m August 6, 2013,
PRISM is essential to U.S. security in war against terrorism (Vice President for Defense and Foreign
Policy Studies at The Heritage Foundation, PRISM is Essential to US Security in the War on Terrorism,
http://www.heritage.org/research/commentary/2013/8/prism-is-essential-to-us-security-in-war-against-
terrorism DOA: 2-1-13

"Our intelligence professionals must be able to find out who the terrorists are talking to, what they
are saying, and what they're planning," said the president. "The lives of countless Americans depend
on our ability to monitor these communications." He added that he would cancel his planned trip to Africa
unless assured Congress would support the counterterrorism surveillance program. The president was not
, Barack Obama. It was George W. Bush, in 2008, pressing Congress to extend and update reforms to the
Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA). He was speaking directly to the American public, in an
address broadcast live from the Oval Office. How times have changed. Back then, the President of the
United States willingly led the fight for the programs he thought necessary to keep the nation safe. Now,
our president sends underlings to make the case. In distancing himself from the debate over PRISM (the
foreign intelligence surveillance program made famous by the world- travelling leaker , Edward
Snowden), , President Obama followed the precedent he established in May at the National Defense
University. There, he spoke disdainfully of drone strikes, the authorization to use military force against
terrorists, and the detention facilities at Guantanamo Bay. All three are essential components of his
counterterrorism strategy. In distancing himself from his own strategy, , Obama hoped to leave the
impression that he is somehow above it all. He has dealt with the Snowden case the same way. When
asked while traveling in Africa if he would take a role in going after the leaker, the president replied "I
shouldn't have to." The White House's above-it-all attitude sends seriously mixed messages to the
American people, who are trying to figure if the government's surveillance programs are legal and
appropriate. Congress has not been much better. The authority for PRISM is in FISA Section 702.
Congress debated these authorities in 2007 and again when the program was reauthorized in 2008. Senate
Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., surely remembers the controversy. He wrote President Bush: "There
is no crisis that should lead you to cancel your trip to Africa. But whether or not you cancel your trip,
Democrats stand ready to negotiate a final bill, and we remain willing to extend existing law for as short a
time or as long a time as is needed to complete work on such a bill." Evidently, Reid must have felt the
authorities granted under Section 702 received a full and sufficient hearing. Most current members of
Congress were seated under the dome during the 2008 debates. They had every opportunity not just to
read the law, but to be briefed on the program by intelligence officials before voting on the bill. For them
to act shocked at the scope of the program today rings about as hollow as , Obama's expressed disdain for
the operations he oversees. The reality is that Congress and the administration share responsibility for
these programs. If they want to change or modify them, who's stopping them? If changes are made,
however, they should to be made for the right reason. Leaders must never compromise our security for
political expediency. At least 60 Islamist-inspired terrorist plots have been aimed at the U.S. since
the 9/11 attacks. The overwhelming majority have been thwarted thanks to timely, operational
intelligence about the threats. Congress should not go back to a pre-/11 set of rules just to appeal to
populist sentiment. Congress and the White House have an obligation to protect our liberties and to
safeguard our security -- in equal measure. Meeting that mission is more important than winning
popularity polls.
NSA mass surveillance is critical – we’re drawing down in every other area of intelligence gathering
which means it’s essential to preventing terrorism
Wittes 14 (Benjamin, Senior Fellow @ the Brookings Institute, April 8th 2014, "Is Al Qaeda Winning: Grading
the Administration's Counter terrorism Policy, Brookings Institute)

As I said at the outset of this statement, the question of intelligence collection under Section 702 of the
FAA may seem connected to the AUMF’s future in only the most distant fashion. In fact, the connection
between intelligence collection authorities and the underlying regime authorizing the conflict
itself is a critical one. Good intelligence is key to any armed conflict and good technical intelligence
is a huge U.S. strength in the fight against Al Qaeda . Yet ironically, the more one attempts to narrow
the conflict, the more important technical intelligence becomes. The fewer boots on the ground we have
in Afghanistan, for example, the greater our reliance will become on technical collection. The more we
rely on drone strikes, rather than large troop movements, in areas where we lack large human networks,
the more we rely on technical intelligence. Particularly if one imagines staying on offense against a
metastasizing Al Qaeda in the context of a withdrawal from Afghanistan and a narrowing—or a formal
end—of the AUMF conflict, the burden on technical intelligence collection to keep us in the game will be
huge even ignoring the many other foreign intelligence and national security interests Section 702
surveillance supports.¶ Section 702 is a complicated statute, and it is only one part of a far more
complicated, larger statutory arrangement. But broadly speaking, it permits the NSA to acquire
without an individualized warrant the communications of non-US persons reasonably believed
to be overseas when those communications are transiting the United States or stored in the
United States. Under these circumstances, the NSA can order production of such communications from
telecommunications carriers and internet companies under broad programmatic orders issued by the
Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court (FISC), which reviews both targeting and minimization
procedures under which the collection then takes place. Oversight is thick, both within the executive
branch, and in reporting requirements to the congressional intelligence committees.¶ Make no mistake:
Section 702 is a very big deal in America’s counterterrorism arsenal . It is far more important than
the much debated bulk metadata program, which involves a few hundred queries a year. Section 702
collection, by contrast, is vast, a hugely significant component not only of contemporary
counterterrorism but of foreign intelligence collection more generally. In 2012, the Senate Select
Committee on Intelligence wrote that “[T]he authorities provided [under section 702] have greatly
increased the government’s ability to collect information and act quickly against important foreign
intelligence targets. . . . [The] failure to reauthorize [section 702] would ‘result in a loss of
significant intelligence and impede the ability of the Intelligence Community to respond quickly
to new threats and intelligence opportunities.’”[8] The President’s Review Group on Intelligence
and Communications Technologies, after quoting this language, wrote that “Our own review is not
inconsistent with this assessment. . . . [W]e are persuaded that section 702 does in fact play an
important role in the nation’s effort to prevent terrorist attacks across the globe .”[9] The
Washington Post has reported that 702 was in 2012 the single most prolific contributor to the
President’s Daily Brief.[10]

PRISM is the most effective way to combat terror domestic and abroad — prefer
empirics
Mattise 13 — graduate of Syracuse University with a BA in Economics and Newspaper Journalism and
a Master's in Magazine, Newspaper and Online Journalism
(Nathan Mattise, 6-16-2013, "PRISM helped stop terrorism in US and 20-plus countries, NSA document
argues," http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2013/06/prism-helped-stop-terrorism-in-us-and-20-plus-
countries-nsa-document-argues/, Date Accessed: 6-23-2015) //NM
US intelligence officials sent Congress a new declassified document on Saturday, which the Senate
Intelligence Committee then made public. Outlets such as CNN and the Associated Press received the document and revealed
a number of interesting statistics related to the government's use of the NSA's controversial PRISM
program. However, this document has not yet been published on the Senate Intelligence Committee's website (and does not seem to be easily
obtained through basic Internet search). The new document is part of an intelligence official's effort to "show
Americans the value of the program," according to the AP. The report's primary supporting stat? Intelligence officials said that
information gleaned from these NSA initiatives helped prevent terrorist plots in the US and more than
20 other countries. Additionally, the release stated that phone metadata was searched for less than 300 times within
the secretive database last year. The document also added details to the public's growing picture of the PRISM program. CNN
reported that the NSA must delete these records after five years . The AP wrote that the NSA programs are reviewed every 90
days by a secret court authorized by the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA), and that the metadata records (which includes a call's time
and length) can only be inspected for "suspected connections to terrorism." Despite all the public attention, the Obama Administration continues
to insist that no privacy violations took place. According to White House Chief of Staff Denis McDonough (speaking Sunday on Face The
Nation), the president plans to further clarify this "in the days ahead." On Friday, TechDirt also published a set of two documents described as
"talking points about scooping up business records (i.e., all data on all phone calls) and on the Internet program known as PRISM." One of the
talking points' main arguments is that Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act authorizes actions similar to those described
above. This is despite the fact that no member of the public has ever been able to see the FISA court's ruling of the government's interpretation.
Section 702 is a vital legal tool that Congress reauthorized in December 2012, as part of the FISA
Amendments Act Reauthorization Act, after extensive hearings and debate. Under Section 702, the Foreign Intelligence
Surveillance Court (FISA Court) certifies foreign intelligence collection. There is no secret program involved—it is strictly authorized by a US
statute.

PRISM decimates Al Qaeda’s ability to conduct mass attacks

Etzioni 15 [Amitai Etzioni, Director of the Institute for Communitarian Policy Studies at George
Washington University, former President of the American Sociological Association, former Professor at
Harvard Business School, former Senior Adviser to the White House, “
NSA: National Security vs. Individual Rights,” Intelligence and National Security, Volume 30, Issue 1,
2015, pages 100-136]
One telling piece of evidence regarding the effectiveness of the
electronic surveillance programs is the way they hobbled bin
Laden. He found out that he was unable to use any modern communication device to run his terror
organizations that had branches in three continents .54 He was reduced to using the same means of communication
employed 5000 years ago – a messenger, a very slow, low-volume, cumbersome, and unreliable way of
communication and command; in effect, preventing bin Laden from serving as an effective commander-in-chief
of Al Qaeda. Moreover, once the CIA deduced that using a messenger was the only way left for him to communicate – tracking the
messenger led to bin Laden's downfall.55 Additional evidence publically available that the NSA programs
forced terrorists to limit their communications is gleaned from reports that following the revelation that
the United States intercepted the communications of Ayman al-Zawahiri, there was a sharp decline in Al
Qaeda's electronic communications.56 In short, we have seen that there continues to be a serious threat of
terrorism to national security; that terrorists cannot be handled like other criminals and to counter them distinct
measures are best employed; and that surveillance programs like PRISM and the phone surveillance programs make a
significant contribution to curbing terrorism. In short these programs do enhance one core element of the liberal
communitarian balance. The next question the article addresses is the extent they undermine the other core element.

PRISM roadblocks terrorists – guts them of the tools necessary to pull off an attack
Arquilla 2013 (John [Professor and Chair Department of Defense Analysis @ Naval postgrad school];
In Defense of PRISM; Jun 7; foreignpolicy.com/2013/06/07/in-defense-of-prism/; kdf)
Prior to TIA, and well before 9/11, there were other ancestors of our current big data efforts. At the National Security Agency, and in other parts
of the extensive American intelligence community, search systems known by such evocative names as "Echelon" and "Semantic Forests," among
others, were in use, striving relentlessly to detect patterns of communication that might open up golden seams of information from the most secret
caches of the world’s various malefactors. Often enough, these and other tracking tools did distinguish the pattern from the noise, and national
security was well served. And in the early days of the war against al Qaeda, the enemy was still using means of
communication that American intelligence had the ability to monitor — including satellite phones and such —
leading to several counterterror coups and high-level captures. But the network learned quickly and adjusted, becoming
far more elusive, more dispersed, its cells increasingly attuned to operating independently, its nodes and links ever less visible. It was
against this shift that something like PRISM had to be mobilized to improve our ability to find the foe
whose best, and only real defense against us is his capacity for concealment. Thus, the tantalizing prospect
of PRISM, and of the whole "finding effort," is to deny the terrorists the virtual haven that they enjoy
throughout the world’s telecommunications spaces — indeed, throughout the whole of the "infosphere," which includes
cyberspace. The piercing of this veil would mark a true turning point in the war on terror, for al Qaeda and
other networks simply cannot function with any kind of cohesion, or at any sort of reasonable operational
tempo if their communications become insecure. Cells and nodes would be ripped up, operatives killed or captured, and each
loss would no doubt yield information that imperiled the network further. Even if al Qaeda resorted to the drastic measure of moving messages,
training, and financial information by courier, operations would be so slowed as to cripple the organization. And even couriers can be flagged on
"no fly" lists or caught boarding tramp steamers and such. So for all the furor caused by the PRISM revelations, my simple recommendation is to
take a deep breath before crying out in protest. Think first about how the hider/finder dynamic in the war on terror has
driven those responsible for our security to bring to bear the big guns of big data on the problem at hand.
Think also about whether a willingness to allow some incursions into our privacy might lead to an
improved ability to provide for our security, and where that equilibrium point between privacy and
security might be. And last, think about the world as it might be without such a sustained effort to find the
hidden — to detect, track, and disrupt the terrorists. That would be a world in which they stay on their feet and fighting, and in
which they remain secure enough, for long enough, to acquire true weapons of mass destruction. Those of us in the national security
business, who know that networks so armed will be far harder to deter than nations ever were, believe that
big data approaches like PRISM and its forebears, have been and remain essential elements in the
unrelenting and increasingly urgent effort to find the hidden.

Section 702 has empirically led the NSA to detecting and preventing terror attacks
- Section 702 — PRISM
- Metadata good
- Prevented 50 attacks

Hines 13 — Defense council member of the Truman National Security Project

(Written By, 6-19-2013, "Here’s how metadata on billions of phone calls predicts terrorist attacks,"
http://qz.com/95719/heres-how-metadata-on-billions-of-phone-calls-predicts-terrorist-attacks/, Date
Accessed: 6-23-2015) //NM
Yesterday, when NSA Director General Keith Alexander testified before the House Committee on Intelligence, he declared
that the NSA’s surveillance programs have provided “critical leads to help prevent over 50 potential
terrorist events.” FBI Deputy Director Sean Boyce elaborated by describing four instances when the NSA’s surveillance
programs have had an impact: (1) when an intercepted email from a terrorist in Pakistan led to foiling a
plan to bomb of the New York subway system; (2) when NSA’s programs helped prevent a plot to bomb
the New York Stock Exchange; (3) when intelligence led to the arrest of a U.S. citizen who planned to
bomb the Danish Newspaper office that published cartoon depictions of the Prophet Muhammad; and (4)
when the NSA’s programs triggered reopening the 9/11 investigation . So what are the practical applications of internet
and phone records gathered from two NSA programs? And how can “metadata” actually prevent terrorist attacks ? Metadata does not
give the NSA and intelligence community access to the content of internet and phone communications .
Instead, metadata is more like the transactional information cell phone customers would normally see on their billing statements— metadata
can indicate when a call, email, or online chat began and how long the communication lasted . Section 215 of
the Patriot Act provides the legal authority to obtain “business records” from phone companies. Meanwhile, the NSA uses Section 702 of the
Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act to authorize its PRISM program. According the figures provided by Gen. Alexander, intelligence
gathered based on Section 702 authority contributed in over 90% of the 50 cases . One of major benefits of metadata
is that it provides hindsight—it gives intelligence analysts a retrospective view of a sequence of events. As Deputy Director Boyce discussed, the
ability to analyze previous communications allowed the FBI to reopen the 9/11 investigation and determine who was linked to that attack. It is
important to recognize that terrorist attacks are not orchestrated overnight; they take months or years to plan.
Therefore, if the intelligence community only catches wind of an attack halfway into the terrorists’ planning cycle, or even after a terrorist attack
has taken place, metadata might be the only source of information that captures the sequence of events leading
up to an attack. Once a terrorist suspect has been identified or once an attack has taken place, intelligence analysts can use powerful
software to sift through metadata to determine which numbers, IP addresses, or individuals are associated with the suspect. Moreover, phone
numbers and IP addresses sometimes serve as a proxy for the general location of where the planning has
taken place. This ability to narrow down the location of terrorists can help determine whether the
intelligence community is dealing with a domestic or international threat . Even more useful than hindsight is a crystal
ball that gives the intelligence community a look into the future. Simply knowing how many individuals are in a chat room, how many
individuals have contacted a particular phone user, or how many individuals are on an email chain could serve as an indicator of how many
terrorists are involved in a plot. Furthermore, knowing when a suspect communicates can help identify his patterns of
behavior. For instance, metadata can help establish whether a suspect communicates sporadically or on a set
pattern (e.g., making a call every Saturday at 2 p.m.). Any deviation from that pattern could indicate that the plan changed at a certain point;
any phone number or email address used consistently and then not at all could indicate that a suspect has stopped communicating with an
associate. Additionally, a rapid increase in communication could indicate that an attack is about to happen. Metadata
can provide all of
this information without ever exposing the content of a phone call or email. If the metadata reveals the
suspect is engaged in terrorist activities, then obtaining a warrant would allow intelligence officials to
actually monitor the content of the suspect’s communication. In Gen. Alexander’s words, “These programs have
protected our country and allies . . . [t]hese programs have been approved by the administration, Congress, and the courts.” Now,
Americans will have to decide whether they agree.

Prism necessary to get to emails to counter threats

Michael Hayden, former director of the NSA and the CIA, May 5, 2014, “Michael Hayden’s Unwitting
Case Against Secret Surveillance,” ihttp://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2014/05/michael-
haydens-unwitting-case-against-secret-surveillance/361689/ DOA: 2-19-15
Actually, you need to go back and look at the whole movie. You need to see what went on before. Because if you
know what went on before you may have a different interpretation of what you think the butler is guilty of. There
are three or four things that happen that NSA and all these organizations have tried to solve. Enormous volume.
How do you conduct signals intelligence to keep you safe in a tsunami of global communications? Well, the
answer to that is bulk collection of metadata. Another issue that's out there prominently is NSA is mucking about
in those global telecommunication grids that have your emails. No one complained when NSA was doing Soviet
strategic microwave rocket signals. Well, the equivalent of those Soviet microwave signals are proliferator,
terrorist, narco-trafficker, money-launderer emails, coexisting with yours and mine, out there in Gmail. And
if you want NSA to continue to do what it was doing, or CSEC to continue to do what it's doing, what it had been
doing to keep you safe, it's got to be in the stream where your data is. There's a couple other things too. After 9/11,
the enemy was inside my country. That's the 215 program, metadata. Who might be affiliated with terrorists
inside the United States? And finally, when the enemy wasn't in my country his communications were. It's an
accident of history, but it's a fact, most emails reside on servers in the United States. They should not deserve
constitutional protection if the email's from a bad man in Pakistan communicating to a bad man in Yemen. And the
Prism program is what allowed us to get those emails to keep everyone safe. There's a lot more to talk about but
you're going to start clapping in about nine seconds. So I'm going to go back to the podium.
PRISM has contributed to actionable intelligence in the fight against terrorism

Stuart Taylor, April 29, 2014, The Big Snoop: Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Terrorists,
http://www.brookings.edu/research/essays/2014/the-big-snoop-print (is an author, a freelance journalist,
and a Brookings nonresident senior fellow. Taylor has covered the Supreme Court for a variety of
national publications, including The New York Times, Newsweek, and National Journal, where he is also
a contributing editor. His published books include Mismatch: How Affirmative Action Hurts Students It's
Intended to Help, and Why Universities Won't Admit It. In addition to his work as a journalist and
scholar, he is a graduate of Harvard Law School and practiced law in a D.C. firm.)

The PRISM program poses an even trickier version of the cost/benefit question: it is easier to justify its
efficacy, but because it goes after the contents of messages, not just their origin and destination, it is
more intrusive on the liberties of the people whose communications it scoops up. Moreover, while
PRISM is more restrictive in its formal mandate (i.e., it is targeted only at foreign bad actors), in practice
it does pry “incidentally” into the Internet traffic of many law-abiding U.S. citizens.
Yet there’s no denying that PRISM’s mining of emails and other Internet messages has produced a
mother lode of useful information. An internal NSA document leaked by Snowden described the
program as “the most prolific contributor to the President’s Daily Brief” and the NSA’s “leading
source of raw material, accounting for nearly one in seven [of all the intelligence community’s
secret] reports.” More to the point, PRISM has often contributed to the collection of actionable
intelligence used in the fight against terrorism. Even Wyden, the NSA’s strongest congressional critic,
acknowledges as much. He and his ally on the surveillance issue, Senator Mark Udall (D-Colo.), said in a
joint statement last summer that “multiple terrorist plots have been disrupted at least in part because of
information obtained under Section 702.”

PRISM important method of data collection – easy to find potential threats

Thompson, Ph.D., ’13 (Loren B. [prof at Harvard and Georgetown University]; “Why NSA’s
PRISM Program Makes Sense”, Forbes, http://www.forbes.com/sites/lorenthompson/2013/06/07/why-
nsas-prism-program-makes-sense/)
President Obama’s firm defense of the National Security Agency’s “domestic” surveillance program on Friday should calm
some of the more extravagant fears provoked by public disclosure of its existence. I put the word “domestic” in quotes because the effort to
monitor Internet and other communications traffic isn’t really about listening in on Americans, or even foreign nationals living here, but rather
intercepting suspicious transmissions originating overseas that just happen to be passing through the United States. That is
an eminently
sensible way of keeping up with terrorists, because it is so much easier than tapping into network conduits in
other countries or under the seas (not that we don’t do that). In order to grasp the logic of the NSA program, which is code-named
PRISM, you have to understand how the Internet evolved. It was a purely American innovation at its inception, with most of the infrastructure
concentrated in a few places like Northern Virginia. I live a few miles from where the Internet’s first big East Coast access point was located in
the parking garage of an office building near the intersection of Virginia’s Routes 7 and 123, an area that some people refer to as Internet Alley.
Because the Worldwide Web grew so haphazardly in its early days, it was common until recently for Internet traffic between two European
countries to pass through my neighborhood. There were only a few major nodes in the system, and packet-switching sends messages through
whatever pathway is available. The Washington Post story on PRISM today has a graphic illustrating my point about how bandwidth tends to be
allocated globally. Like a modern version of ancient Rome’s Appian Way, all digital roads lead to America. It isn’t hard to see why
Director of National Intelligence James R. Clapper could say on Thursday that “information collected under this program is
among the most important and valuable foreign intelligence information we collect.” No kidding: PRISM
generated an average of four items per day for the President’s daily intelligence briefing in 2012.

Reducing surveillance would make us blind to terrorists; keeping the efficiency of

the program is necessary
Yoo ’13, law professor ("Ending NSA Surveillance Is Not the Answer", 8-16-2013, National Review
Online, http://www.nationalreview.com/corner/356027/ending-nsa-surveillance-not-answer-john-yoo)
We should be careful not to put the NSA in an impossible position. Of course, we should be vigilant against the administrative state in all of its
tangled tendrils, especially its collection of taxes (the IRS scandal) and enforcement of the laws (Obama’s refusal to enforce Obamacare and
immigration law). The problem here, however, is that we are placing these kinds of domestic law-enforcement
standards on a foreign intelligence function. With domestic law enforcement, we want the Justice
Department to monitor one identified target (identified because other evidence gives probable cause that he or she has already
committed a crime) and to carefully minimize any surveillance so as not to intrude on privacy interests. Once we impose
those standards on the military and intelligence agencies, however, we are either guaranteeing failure or we must
accept a certain level of error. If the military and intelligence agencies had to follow law-enforcement standards, their mission
would fail because they would not give us any improvement over what the FBI could achieve anyway. If the
intelligence community is to detect future terrorist attacks through analyzing electronic communications ,
we are asking them to search through a vast sea of e-mails and phone-call patterns to find those few which, on the surface, look innocent but are
actually covert terrorist messages. If we give them broader authority, we
would have to accept a level of error that is inherent
in any human activity. No intelligence agency could perform its mission of protecting the nation’s
security without making a few of these kinds of mistakes. The question is whether there are too many, not whether there will be
any at all. Domestic law enforcement makes these errors too. Police seek warrants for the wrong guy, execute a search in the
wrong house, arrest the wrong suspect, and even shoot unarmed suspects. We accept these mistakes because we understand that no law-
enforcement system can successfully protect our communities from crime with perfection. The question is the error rate, how much it would cost
to reduce it, the impact on the effectiveness of the program, and the remedies we have for mistakes. Consider those questions in the context of the
NSA surveillance program. The more important question is not the top of the fraction but the bottom — not just how many mistakes occurred, but
how many records were searched overall. If there were 2,000 or so mistakes, as the Washington Post suggests, but
involving billions of communications, the error rate is well less than 1 percent . Without looking at the latest figures,
I suspect that is a far lower error rate than those turned in by domestic police on searches and arrests. To end the NSA’s efforts to
intercept terrorist communications would be to willfully blind ourselves to the most valuable
intelligence sources on al-Qaeda (now that the president won’t allow the capture and interrogation of al-Qaeda leaders). The
more useful question is whether there is a cost-effective way to reduce the error rate without detracting
from the effectiveness of the program, which, by General Keith Alexander’s accounting, has been high.

PRISM is necessary and effective – newer electronic communication requires a

wider net for surveillance, different from before.
Kempa ’13  (Darcy Kempa, political writer and ex-Marine Corps, "NSA PRISM Program: Big Brother
is Watching, and That's a Good Thing", 7-2-2013, http://mic.com/articles/52379/nsa-prism-program-big-
brother-is-watching-and-that-s-a-good-thing)
Publicized information on the U.S. government’s PRISM program has created a new debate on security. The debate is broadly one
between national security and individual security , specifically a right to privacy. While Americans want terrorist acts
prevented, they also want the government not to collect information on them. The biggest question is, if programs like PRISM work
then why stop them? Early in 2013, a Gallup poll revealed that the majority of respondents (67%) felt satisfied with
the nation’s security from terrorism. That number increased from the 53% noted in 2007, the year that PRISM started. A recent
Galluppoll shows that a majority of Americans disapprove of government surveillance programs. This poll was taken after reports of the PRISM
program were published. Former President George W. Bush defended PRISM and stated that “civil liberties were
guaranteed” in the program. President Obama also defended the program as necessary to combat
terrorism. National Security Agency Director Keith Alexander stated that PRISM prevented 11 terrorist
attacks in the U.S. and over 50 “potential terrorist events” abroad. While these statements support the idea
that the surveillance program is legal and effective, most Americans still reject them . Why? One reason is
that Americans do not understand how the internet and cellular phones have changed the nature of
surveillance activities. The old protocols of following people, tapping into phone lines, and taking pictures have changed. Today,
terrorists can communicate instantaneously through email or cellular phone s. The accounts can be created, changed,
or closed just as quickly as the information is transmitted. Governments need to modify their methods since the criminals
and terrorists have changed theirs. Another reason is that Americans prefer to be “people-savvy” and not “tech-savvy.” The idea that
America can negotiate with terrorists by finding common ground doesn’t make sense. Terrorists, and criminals for that matter, don’t care about
building rapport. Instead, they care about winning whether that is destroying an ideology or emptying a bank account. Maybe the Transportation
Security Administration can create a “terrorists only” line at airports to help identify people who should be monitored. Until that happens or
works, technological surveillance can help protect this nation . A third reason may be that Americans do not trust their
government. Almost 50% of Americans disapprove of President Obama’s performance. The disapproval rate for Congress is even worse at 78%
of those polled. Americans may be fed up with Obama and his “trust me” rhetoric, or may be tired of a dysfunctional Congress. While
testimony about PRISM may be factual, Americans may not believe nor care that it works . The final analysis is
that most Americans are more worried about their privacy than national security. Those concerns are not as important as
protecting the nation from terrorism. If “Big Brother” is watching then it is a good thing. Preventing terrorism in the
U.S. is more important than wondering if anyone cares about your internet or cellular phone activities.

The NSA needs current surveillance capabilities to fight terrorism, not further
restrictions
Thiessen et al. ’13 (Bill Harlow, an author specializing in the legality of the NSA; Diana West, author
of “New America”; Marc Thiessen, an associate at the American Enterprise Institute; DR. EMANUELE
OTTOLENGHI, member of the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, "Experts Explain Why the NSA
Program Is Necessary", 6-13-2013, Center for Security Policy,
http://www.centerforsecuritypolicy.org/2013/06/13/arguing-for-the-nsa/)
Thiessen also stressed how vital the PRISM program and the phone-data collection programs are to
national security. “I think we should be celebrating the fact that the NSA is doing this…The fact is we are still
facing a terrorist enemy who is trying to attack us. They don’t have armies, navies, and air forces that we
can track with satellites. They send 19 men with box cutters to hijack planes and fly them into buildings.
So there are only three ways we can find out what their plans are, and in each case they have to tell us. The first case is interrogation. Getting
them to tell us their plans. Thanks to Barack Obama we don’t do that any more. Second way to do it is penetration–which is incredibly hard to
do–by infiltrating Al Qaeda, either just recruiting double agents or getting someone placed in there….When we have done it we’ve been
fooled….So that leaves signaled intelligence. The only way that we have to find out what the terrorists are planning
and disrupt their plans is to listen to their communications, monitor their e-mails, monitor them
electronically. So if we get rid of this program, if this were to disappear, we would be flying blind. On the
initial outcry over the programs made public by the leaks, Harlow says that “Just six weeks ago when the Boston bombings
happened many people were saying ‘Why were we let down by the intelligence community? Why didn’t they collect the
information that would allow us to stop incidences like that ?’ And now just six weeks later we have people
crying ‘Why are you trying to connect so many dots? Why are you trying to get information?’ I think people can be genuinely
concerned about the potential invasion of privacy, but you have to also understand that the only way to collect much of this potential
information about threats from overseas is to have access to information which may pass through US
servers.”
ONLY PRISM bulk collection can provide access to necessary communications –
empirics
Schmitt, Sanger, and Savage, B.A. in Political Sciences, Pulitzer Winning NYT globalization
specialist, Master’s from Yale Law School, 2013 (Eric, David, Charlie, “Administration Says Mining of
Data Is Crucial to Fight Terror” New York Times, http://www.nytimes.com/2013/06/08/us/mining-of-
data-is-called-crucial-to-fight-terror.html?_r=0)
To defenders of the N.S.A., the Zazi case underscores how the agency’s Internet surveillance system, called
Prism, which was set up over the past decade to collect data from online providers of e-mail and chat
services, has yielded concrete results. “We were able to glean critical information,” said a senior intelligence
official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity. “It was through an e-mail correspondence that we had access to only
through Prism.” John Miller, a former senior intelligence official who now works for CBS News, said on “CBS This Morning,” “That’s
how a program like this is supposed to work.” Veterans of the Obama intelligence agencies say the large collections of digital data
are vital in the search for terrorists. “If you’re looking for a needle in the haystack, you need a haystack ,”
Jeremy Bash, chief of staff to Leon E. Panetta, the former C.I.A. director and defense secretary, said on MSNBC on Friday. Under the program,
intelligence officials must present Internet companies with specific requests for information on a case-by-case basis, showing that the target is a
foreigner and located outside the United States, a senior law enforcement official said Friday. If the N.S.A. comes across information about an
American citizen during the search, it turns over that material to the F.B.I. for an assessment, the official said. An administration official said
Friday that agencies were evaluating whether they could publicly identify particular terrorism cases that came to the government’s attention
through the telephone or Internet programs. Representative Mike Rogers, the Michigan Republican who is chairman of the House intelligence
committee, said Thursday that the phone program “was used to stop a terrorist attack.” He did not identify the plot, or explain whether the call
logs in the case would have been unavailable by ordinary subpoenas. Two Democratic senators on the Intelligence Committee who have been
warning about the bulk collection of records under the Patriot Act, Ron Wyden of Oregon and Mark Udall of Colorado, said Friday that their
study of the calling log program has convinced them that it was not worth its cost to privacy. “As far as we can see, all of the useful information
that it has provided appears to have also been available through other collection methods that do not violate the privacy of law-abiding
Americans,” they said. In
contrast to the call log program, there appears to be greater public evidence that
programs like Prism have led to specific useful information . The Prism program relies on a 2008 law, the FISA
Amendments Act, that allows surveillance without individualized warrants if it is targeted at foreigners abroad, even if it takes place on domestic
soil. Last December, when Congress was preparing to vote on extending the law, Senator Dianne Feinstein, Democrat of California, who is
chairwoman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, linked
the law to eight recent terrorism-related cases, saying, “these
cases show the program has worked.” The cases included plots to bomb the New York Federal Reserve
Bank, the United States Capitol, locations in Tampa, Fla., and New York City and troops returning from
combat overseas. She also listed a plot to assassinate the Saudi ambassador in the United States; plans by
three men to travel to Afghanistan “to attend terrorist training and commit violent jihad”; and a
conspiracy to provide support to a terrorist group in Uzbekistan called the Islamic Jihad Union . While most of
those accused in those cases pleaded guilty — and therefore much of the evidence against them was not publicly disclosed — a case involving
two Pakistani-American brothers in Florida accused of planning to set off a bomb in New York is still active, as is one involving a Chicago-area
teenager accused of planning to bomb a bar.

PRISM has successfully curbed global terrorist threats because of intensive

surveillance and extraordinary oversight.
Gernstein ’13, a specialist in national security (Josh Gernstein, White House reporter, specialist in
national legal and security issues, "NSA: PRISM stopped NYSE attack", 6-18-2013, POLITICO,
http://www.politico.com/story/2013/06/nsa-leak-keith-alexander-92971.html)
Recently leaked communication surveillanceprograms have helped thwart more than 50 “potential terrorist
events” around the world since the Sept. 11 attacks, National Security Agency Director Keith Alexander said Tuesday.
Alexander said at least 10 of the attacks were set to take place in the United States , suggesting that most of the terrorism
disrupted by the program had been set to occur abroad. The NSA also disclosed that counterterrorism officials targeted fewer than 300 phone
numbers or other “identifiers” last year in the massive call-tracking database secretly assembled by the U.S. government. Alexander said the
programs were subject to “extraordinary oversight .” ”This isn’t some rogue operation that a group of guys up at NSA are
running,” the spy agency’s chief added. The data on use of the call-tracking data came in a fact sheet released to reporters in connection with
a public House Intelligence Committee hearing exploring the recently leaked telephone data mining program and another surveillance effort
focused on Web traffic generated by foreigners. Alexander said 90 percent of the potential terrorist
incidents were disrupted by the Web traffic program known as PRISM . He was less clear about how many
incidents the call-tracking effort had helped to avert. Deputy FBI Director Sean Joyce said the Web traffic program had contributed
to arrests averting a plot to bomb the New York Stock Exchange that resulted in criminal charges in 2008 .
Joyce also indicated that the PRISM program was essential to disrupting a plot to bomb the New York City
subways in 2009. “Without the [Section] 702 tool, we would not have identified Najibullah Zazi,” Joyce
said. However, President Barack Obama acknowledged in an interview aired Monday that it is impossible to know whether the subway plot
might have been foiled by other methods. ”

PRISM has shut down multiple terrorist plots

Ackerman, National Security writer for Guardian U.S., 6/19/13 (Spencer, (2012 National Magazine
Award for Digital Awarding) “NSA chief claims “focused” surveillance disrupted more than 50 terror plots”,
The Guardian, http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/jun/18/nsa-surveillance-limited-focused-hearing)

Some of the most senior

intelligence and law enforcement officials in the United States strongly defended the
National Security Agency's broad surveillance efforts on Tuesday, saying they had disrupted more than 50
terrorist plots around the world. General Keith Alexander, the director of the NSA, told a rare public hearing of
the House intelligence committee in Washington that the programs were "critical" to the ability of the
intelligence community to protect the US. Offering the most extensive defence yet on the efficacy of secret surveillance programs
reported by the Guardian and the Washington Post, Alexander said they were "limited, focused and subject to rigorous oversight". During the
hearing, members of Congress criticised the source of the leaks, Edward Snowden, who remains free in Hong Kong. On Tuesday, Iceland said it
had received an informal approach from an intermediary claiming that Snowden, a 29-year-old former NSA contractor, wanted to seek asylum
there. Asked at the congressional hearing about what was next for Snowden, Alexander said: "justice". Flanked by senior officials from the FBI,
Justice Department and the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, Alexander
said that two surveillance programs
revealed by the Guardian and the Washington Post had "helped prevent more than 50" terrorist attacks in
over 20 countries. Most of those prevention efforts, Alexander said, came from the NSA's monitoring of
foreigners' internet communications under a program known as Prism. He conceded that only 10 related to domestic
terror plots. The Obama administration officials gave more details about four cases in which information taken
from the NSA's databases of foreign internet communications and millions of Americans' phone records had contributed to
stopping attacks. Two of them have been previously disclosed, especially that of the 2009 arrest of would-be New
York subway bomber Najibullah Zazi. That case has been sharply challenged thanks to court records as more attributable to
traditional police surveillance. Referring to the statutory authority for Prism, known as Section 702 of the 2008 Fisa Amendments Act, FBI
deputy director Sean Joyce said: "Without the 702 tool, we would not have identified Najibullah Zazi." Joyce identified
two previously unknown cases that he said the surveillance efforts helped unravel. In one , a Kansas City, Missouri, man named
Khalid Ouazzani was found communicating with a "known extremist" in Yemen, information that helped
detect what Joyce called "nascent plotting" to bomb the New York Stock Exchange. The other, described more vaguely,
allowed the US government, using the NSA's phone-records database of Americans, to revisit a case closed shortly after 9/11 for lack of
evidence. Ouazzani, however, was never convicted of plotting to bomb the stock exchange. Andrew Ames, a Justice Department spokesman, later
clarified that he was convicted of "sending funds" to al-Qaida. The other case, Joyce said, involved an American who provided "financial
support" to extremists in Somalia.

PRISM has prevented multiple terrorist attacks

Mattise, Staff Editor at Ars Technica, 6/16/13 (Nathan, (B.A. in Economics and Newspaper Journalism
and a Master’s in Magazine, Newspaper and Online Journalism), “Prism helped stop terrorism in US and 20-
plus countries, NSA document argues”. Ars Technica, http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2013/06/prism-
helped-stop-terrorism-in-us-and-20-plus-countries-nsa-document-argues/)

[Intelligence
officials said that information gleaned from these NSA initiatives helped prevent terrorist plots in the
US and more than 20 other countries. Additionally, the release stated that phone metadata was searched for less
than 300 times within the secretive database last year. The document also added details to the public's growing picture of the PRISM
program. CNN reported that the NSA must delete these records after five years. The AP wrote that the NSA programs are reviewed every 90 days
by a secret court authorized by the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA), and that the
metadata records (which includes a call's
time and length) canonly be inspected for "suspected connections to terrorism ."Despite all the public attention,
the Obama Administration continues to insist that no privacy violations took place. According to White House Chief of Staff Denis
McDonough (speaking Sunday on Face The Nation), the president plans to further clarify this "in the days ahead." On Friday, TechDirt also
published a set of two documents described as "talking points about scooping up business records (i.e., all data on all phone calls) and on the
Internet program known as PRISM." One of the talking points' main arguments is that Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act
authorizes actions similar to those described above. This is despite the fact that no member of the public has ever been able to see the FISA
court's ruling of the government's interpretation.]

NSA bulk data collection stopped a number of potentially deadly attacks.

Simeone, American Forces Press Service, 2013 (Nick, “NSA Chief: Surveillance Stopped More Than
50 Terror Plots”, U.S. Department of Defense News, http://www.defense.gov/news/newsarticle.aspx?
id=120318)
WASHINGTON, June 18, 2013 – The director of the National Security Agency told Congress today more than 50
terrorist plots
worldwide have been prevented since the 9/11 attacks through the classified surveillance programs the
government uses to gather phone and Internet data, programs he said are legal and do not compromise the privacy and civil
liberties of Americans. Army Gen. Keith B. Alexander, who also commands U.S. Cyber Command, told the House Intelligence Committee he
plans as early as tomorrow to provide lawmakers with classified details about the plots that were foiled in an effort to show how valuable the
programs are to national security. Alexander and other senior U.S. officials were called to testify in response to unauthorized disclosures to the
media by former NSA contractor Edward Snowden, who revealed details about the agency’s gathering of telephone numbers and the monitoring
of Internet activity by foreigners overseas, leaks that Alexander said have caused irreversible and significant damage to the security of the United
States and its allies. Testifying alongside Alexander, Deputy FBI Director Sean Joyce
discussed two terrorist plots that he said
the surveillance programs helped to prevent. In one, emails intercepted from a terrorist in Pakistan helped
to stop a plot to bomb New York City’s subway system. Another involved a failed attempt by a known
extremist in Yemen who conspired with a suspect in the United States to target the New York Stock
Exchange. Both cases led to arrests and convictions, Joyce said. “These programs are immensely valuable for
protecting our nation and the security of our allies,” Alexander said, and added that they may have helped to prevent the 9/11
attacks themselves if the government had the legal authority, as granted by the Patriot Act, to use them at the time. The disclosure of the NSA
programs has generated a nationwide debate over what techniques the government can legally use to monitor phone and Internet data to prevent
terrorism without violating the privacy and civil liberties of Americans. Alexander and other senior U.S officials emphasized that the gathering of
phone numbers that already are being collected by service providers as well as the tracking of U.S-based Internet servers used by foreigners are
legal and repeatedly have been approved by the courts and Congress. “Theseprograms are limited, focused and subject to
rigorous oversight,” and their disciplined operation “protects the privacy and civil liberties of the American people,” Alexander said.

The PRISM program is necessary to prevent terrorist attacks globally – empirics prove
Kelly, reporter for CNN, 8/1/13 – (Heather, CNN, August 1, 2013, “NSA chief: Snooping is crucial to
fighting terrorism” http://www.cnn.com/2013/07/31/tech/web/nsa-alexander-black-hat/, accessed 7/15/15
JH @ DDI)
The National Security Agency's controversial intelligence-gathering programs have prevented 54 terrorist
attacks around the world, including 13 in the United States, according to Gen. Keith Alexander, NSA director.
Speaking before a capacity crowd of hackers and security experts Wednesday at the Black Hat computer-security conference, Alexander
defended the NSA's embattled programs, which collect phone metadata and online communications in an effort to root out
potential terrorists. The secret programs have come under fire since their existence was revealed in June by former CIA contractor Edward
Snowden, who leaked details about them to several newspapers. "I promise you the truth -- what we know, what we're doing, and what I cannot
tell you because we don't want to jeopardize our future defense," Alexander told the audience, which included a few hecklers who shouted
profanities and accused him of lying. He then gave a partial recap, using PowerPoint slides, of how the two intelligence programs work.
Alexander said the NSA can collect metadata on phone calls in the United States, including the date and time of the call, the numbers involved
and the length of the conversations. He made a special point of saying the NSA does not have access to the content of citizens' calls or text
messages. Alexander said the
NSA's PRISM surveillance program, which probes digital activity such as e-mail,
instant messaging and Web searches, focuses on foreign actors and does not apply to people in the United States. He said
the phone and Internet data is necessary to "connect the dots" and identify potential terrorists before they act. Alexander
attempted to reassure the audience that NSA officials are not abusing access to the databases to intrude on Americans' privacy. "The assumption
is that people are out there just wheeling and dealing (users' information), and nothing could be further from the truth," he said. "We have
tremendous oversight and compliance in these programs." Congress and courts make sure the programs operate within the bounds of the Foreign
Intelligence Surveillance Act, and internal auditing systems are in place to prevent any abuse by employees, Alexander said. He added that only
35 analysts are authorized to run queries on the phone metadata.

Data gathered by PRISM is some of the most useful foreign intelligence gathered and is essential to
prevent terror attacks
Thompson, contributor to Forbes on National Security and Business, 6/7/13 – (Loren, Forbes, June 7,
2013, “Why NSA's PRISM Program Makes Sense”
http://www.forbes.com/sites/lorenthompson/2013/06/07/why-nsas-prism-program-makes-sense/, accessed
7/15/15)
President Obama’s firm defense of the National Security Agency’s “domestic” surveillance program on Friday should calm some of the more
extravagant fears provoked by public disclosure of its existence. I put the word “domestic” in quotes because the
effort to monitor
Internet and other communications traffic isn’t really about listening in on Americans , or even foreign nationals
living here, but rather intercepting suspicious transmissions originating overseas that just happen to be
passing through the United States. That is an eminently sensible way of keeping up with terrorists, because it
is so much easier than tapping into network conduits in other countries or under the seas (not that we don’t do that). In order to grasp the logic of
the NSA program, which is code-named PRISM, you have to understand how the Internet evolved. It was a purely American innovation at its
inception, with most of the infrastructure concentrated in a few places like Northern Virginia. I live a few miles from where the Internet’s first big
East Coast access point was located in the parking garage of an office building near the intersection of Virginia’s Routes 7 and 123, an area that
some people refer to as Internet Alley. Because the Worldwide Web grew so haphazardly in its early days, it was common until recently for
Internet traffic between two European countries to pass through my neighborhood. There were only a few major nodes in the system, and packet-
switching sends messages through whatever pathway is available. The Washington Post story on PRISM today has a graphic illustrating my point
about how bandwidth tends to be allocated globally. Like a modern version of ancient Rome’s Appian Way, all digital roads lead to America. It
isn’t hard to see why Director of National Intelligence James R. Clapper could say on Thursday that “ information
collected under this
program is among the most important and valuable foreign intelligence information we collect. ” No kidding:
PRISM generated an average of four items per day for the President’s daily intelligence briefing in 2012 .
The key point to recognize, though, is that this really is foreign intelligence. The architecture of the Internet enables NSA to collect it
within U.S. borders, but there is no intention to spy on U.S. citizens. A few elementary algorithms used in narrowing the analysis of traffic should
be sufficient to assure that the privacy of American citizens is seldom compromised. President Obama stressed in his comments today that
safeguards have been put in place to prevent the scope of NSA surveillance from expanding beyond its original purpose.
 Materiality requirement

A materiality requirement for a connection to a foreign power wrecks counter-

terrorism investigations
Cordero, 13 – professor of law at Georgetown (Carrie, “Continued Oversight of U.S. Government
Surveillance Authorities : Hearing Before the S. Committee on the Judiciary, 113th Cong., December 11,
2013 (Statement by Professor Carrie F. Cordero, Geo. U. L. Center)”
http://scholarship.law.georgetown.edu/cong/118

I would next like to highlight four components of S.1599. The first three would, in my view, significantly
limit the effectiveness of the U.S. Government to conduct foreign intelligence activities to protect the
nation from the national security threats of today, and, tomorrow. The fourth is a brief comment on
competing proposals to add an adversarial component to the FISA process.
First, sections 101 and 201 would change the legal standards to obtain business records and implement
pen register/trap and trace devices by requiring a connection to an agent of a foreign power. The sections
also add a “materiality” requirement in addition to relevance. The likely intended effect of these
provisions is to eliminate the utility of these provisions for large scale collection, such as the 215
telephony metadata program. But the proposed changes would likely have far more dramatic, and
harmful, consequences to more traditional, day-to-day, national security investigations. The standards are
currently aligned with investigative authorities in the criminal investigative context, such as subpoenas
and pen register/trap and trace surveillance conducted under Title 18. Both of those criminal authorities
operate on a relevance standard. By raising the standard to requiring a connection to an agent of a foreign
power, these sections would render these investigative techniques nearly useless in the early stages of an
investigation, which is precisely when they are most useful. Investigators may never get to determine
whether a target rises to the agent of a foreign power standard, if they cannot conduct the less intrusive
records request or pen register/trap and trace surveillance as part of an investigation. These changes, if
made law, would return us to the days prior to September 11, 2001, when it was harder for an investigator
to request records or conduct pen register/trap and trace surveillance in an international terrorism case
than it was in an everyday drug or fraud case.
 Third Party Doctrine: FISA
Third Party Doctrine justifies warrantless searches and is key to clarify legal
application issues
Peikoff, philosophy prof. @ Texas , 14 (Amy L., St. John’s Law Review, “Of Third-
Party Bathwater: How to Throw out the Third-Party Doctrine While Preserving
Government's Ability to Use Secret Agents,” HeinOnline, p. 355-7)//ES
Without the doctrine, criminals could use third-party agents to fully enshroud their criminal
enterprises in Fourth Amendment protection. A criminal could plot and execute his entire crime from
home knowing that the police could not send in undercover agents, record the fact of his phone calls,
or watch any aspect of his Internet usage without first obtaining a warrant. He could use third parties
to create a bubble of Fourth Amendment protection around the entirety of his criminal activity.34
With no third-party doctrine, Kerr argues, it would be nearly impossible for the police to gain enough
evidence to support a search warrant, particularly when a criminal is clever at substituting private, third-
party-assisted actions and transactions for those that were once, of necessity, amenable to public
viewing.35 The doctrine, therefore, in Kerr's terms, avoids the "substitution effect" and thereby preserves
the "technological neutrality" intended by the Court in Katz.36 "Just as the new technologies can bring
'intimate occurrences of the home' out in the open, so can technological change and the use of third
parties take transactions that were out in the open and bring them inside."37
If it is right to understand the Fourth Amendment from this perspective of technological neutrality, Kerr
argues, then "it must be a two-way street."" So, just as the "reasonable expectation of privacy" test of
Katz addresses the problem of technology exposing intimate details of one's life, the third-party doctrine
addresses the problem of criminals substituting private, third-party transactions for actions conducted out
in the open. Kerr notes that the doctrine thus provides another type of neutrality, in that a criminal enjoys
"roughly the same degree of privacy protection regardless of whether [the] criminal commits crimes on
his own or uses third parties."39
Kerr's second argument in defense of the third-party doctrine is that it helps to ensure the clarity of Fourth
Amendment rules.4 ° The need for clarity, says Kerr, comes from the exclusionary rule's evidence-
suppression remedy:
The severe costs of the exclusionary rule require ex ante clarity in the rules for when a reasonable
expectation of privacy exists. The police need to know when their conduct triggers Fourth
Amendment protection. Uncertainty can both overdeter police from acting when no protection exists
and can lead them to inadvertently trample on Fourth Amendment rights. 41
The third-party doctrine achieves the necessary clarity, says Kerr, by "guarantee [ing] that once
information is present in a location it is treated just like everything else located there."42 So, for example:
[A] letter that arrives in the mail, is opened, and sits on the recipient's desk at home ....[It] is treated
just like all the other papers on the desk .... [T]he Fourth Amendment rules [that the police] must
follow will be set by the usual rules of home searches rather than special rules for each piece of paper
defined by the history of each page.43
Third Party Doctrine is used by FISC to justify it’s activities
Ombres 15 (Devon, JD from Stetson, “NSA Domestic Surveillance from the Patriot
Act to the Freedom Act: The Underlying History, Constitutional Basis, and the
Efforts at Reform,” Seton Hall Legislative Journal, HeinOnline, p. 33-4)//ES
There is little doubt that the collection of content data, absent probable cause, violates the Fourth
Amendment as an unreasonable search.2' However, whether the mass collection of domestic metadata
violates the Fourth Amendment is a question that is still being wrestled with due to the historical approval
of the Third Party Doctrine ("TPD") arising from the seminal opinion of Smith v. Maryland2
In Smith, a PR was used to assist in a conviction of a burglary. 30 The Supreme Court held that using a
PR did not constitute an unreasonable search because individuals are aware that phone companies
maintain permanent records of dialed phone numbers, thereby abrogating any expectation of privacy." As
Smith has not been overruled, it maintains its standing as a guiding principle under stare decisis and is
being utilized, at least in part, as a basis for conducting domestic surveillance as discussed below.
The FISC cites directly to the Smith reasoning, in a heavily redacted opinion/order, in noting that there is
no reasonable expectation of privacy in the collection of metadata.32 The FISC notes that Congress
relaxed requirements to collect "non-content addressing information through [PR] and [TT] devices"
through the PATRIOT Act and FISA Amendments and that "such information is not protected by the
Fourth Amendment."33 Like phone calls under Smith, the FISC held that email users, due to the same
reasoning, also do not have an expectation of privacy. 34 The FISC recognized the need for only a
relevance standard, rather than reasonable suspicion, in approving the government's requests for
widespread surveillance.
 Third Party Doctrine: Undercover Informant
The third party doctrine allows government use of Undercover Informants
Thompson, Legislative Attorney, 14 (Richard M., written for the Congressional
Research Service, June 5 2014, “The Fourth Amendment Third-Party Doctrine,” p.
7-8)//ES
In a series of five cases throughout the 2 0th century, the Supreme Court assessed the constitutionality of
the use of undercover agents or informants under the Fourth Amendment. In On Lee v. United States, the
government wired an "undercover agent" with a microphone and sent him into On Lee's laundromat to
engage him in incriminating conversation. 49 An agent of the Bureau of Narcotics sat outside with a
receiving set to hear the conversation. In the course of these conversations, On Lee made incriminating
statements, which the agent later testified to at On Lee's trial. On Lee argued that this evidence was
obtained in violation of the Fourth Amendment. In an opinion authored by Justice Jackson, the Court
disagreed, noting that On Lee was "talking confidentially and indiscreetly with one he trusted" and that
the agent was let into his shop "with the consent, if not implied invitation" of On Lee.5
In a similar case, Lopez v. United States, the defendant attempted to bribe an internal revenue agent, who
during some of these conversations was wearing a recording device." At trial, Lopez moved to suppress
evidence of the wire recordings as fruits of an unlawful search. Relying on the On Lee decision, the Court
rejected this argument on the grounds that the defendant consented to the agent being in his office and
"knew full well" that the statements he made to the agent could be used against him.5 2 Further, the Court
noted that the listening device was not used to intercept conversations the agent could not have otherwise
heard, but "instead, the device was used only to obtain the most reliable evidence possible of a
conversation in which the Government's own agent was a participant and which that agent was fully
entitled to disclose.,53
In Lewis v. United States, the government sent an undercover federal narcotics agent to the defendant's
home several times to purchase marijuana.54 Over the defendant's objections, the agent was permitted to
recount the conversations at trial. Upon review, the Supreme Court held that the conversations were not
protected under the Fourth Amendment as the defendant had invited the federal agent into his home and
that the statements were "willingly" made to the agent. 55
Finally, in Hoffa v. United States, a government informant relayed to federal law enforcement agents the
many conversations he had with Jimmy Hoffa about Hoffa's attempt to tamper with a jury.56 Because the
informant did not enter Hoffa's hotel room by force, was invited to participate in the conversations by
Hoffa, and was not a "surreptitious eavesdropper," the Court concluded that the Fourth Amendment had
not been violated.

Katz didn’t change the precedent, White said this is still permissible, but overturning
the third party doctrine would cause a shift in justified action
Thompson, Legislative Attorney, 14 (Richard M., written for the Congressional
Research Service, June 5 2014, “The Fourth Amendment Third-Party Doctrine,” p.
9)//ES
Note that these cases came before Katz shifted the Fourth Amendment focus from property to privacy.
Whether Katz would disturb this line of cases was a matter of "considerable speculation" 62 until the
Court decided United States v. White four years later. In White, an undercover informant wearing a radio
transmitter engaged the defendant in several incriminating conversations, four of which took place at the
informant's house, and several other conversations took place in the defendant's home, a restaurant, and in
the informant's car.6 1 The court of appeals in White interpreted Katz as implicitly overruling this line of
cases as it was based on a trespass doctrine that was "squarely discarded" in Katz.64 The Supreme Court
disagreed, however, and upheld the surreptitious surveillance. The opinion accepted that the trespass
rationale could not survive after Katz, but that the undercover informant cases were also supported by a
"second and independent ground"-that the informant was not an uninvited eavesdropper, but a party to the
conversation who was free to report what he heard to the authorities. 65 For the Court, White had
assumed the risk that information he shared with the informant could be shared with the police 66
 Third Party Doctrine: Bank Records
Third Party doctrine justifies tracking of financial records – Miller decision proves
Thompson, Legislative Attorney, 14 (Richard M., written for the Congressional
Research Service, June 5 2014, “The Fourth Amendment Third-Party Doctrine,” p.
9-10)//ES
In 1976, the Court took up its first maj or third-party doctrine case to deal with transactional documents in
Miller v. United States. In that case, agents of the Treasury Department's Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms
Bureau were investigating Mitch Miller for his participation in an illegal whiskey distillery.69 The agents
subpoenaed the presidents of several banks in which Miller had an account to produce all records of
accounts including savings, checking accounts, and any loans he may have had. The banks never
informed Miller that the subpoenas had been served, but ordered their employees to comply with the
subpoenas. At one bank, an agent was shown microfilm of Miller's account and provided copies of "one
deposit slip and one or two checks."7 ° At the other bank, the agent was shown similar records and was
given copies of "all checks, deposit slips, two financial statements, and three monthly statements.",71
Copies of the checks were later introduced into evidence at Miller's trial.
The lower court held that the government had unlawfully circumvented the Fourth Amendment by first
requiring the banks to maintain the customer's records for a certain period of time and second by using
insufficient legal process to obtain those records from the bank. In a 7-2 ruling, the Supreme Court
reversed and held that subpoenaing the bank records without a warrant did not violate the Fourth
Amendment. The opinion by Justice Powell discarded the first argument by noting that previous case law
held that merely requiring the bank to retain its customers' records did not constitute a Fourth Amendment
search.72 That previous case, however, did not resolve whether a subpoena was sufficient to access those
documents.73 Miller argued that the bank kept copies of personal records that he gave to the bank for a
limited purpose and in which he retained a reasonable expectation of privacy under Katz. The Court,
applying language from Katz, noted that "[w]hat a person knowingly exposes to the public ..i.s not a
subject of Fourth Amendment protection.' 7 The Court concluded that banking documents were not
"confidential communications," but rather negotiable instruments that were required to transact business
between the customer and the bank. All of the documents contained information "voluntarily conveyed to
the banks and exposed to their employees in the ordinary course of business., 75 As with the undercover
agent cases, once documents were shared with the bank, they could then be given to the government
without requiring a search warrant. Citing to White, Justice Powell instructed that a bank customer "takes
the risk, in revealing his affairs to another, that the information will be conveyed by that person to the
government., 76 Looking to both this assumption of the risk theory and the secrecy model, the Court then
included the following sentence which would come to encapsulate the third-party doctrine:
This Court has held repeatedly that the Fourth Amendment does not prohibit the obtaining of information
revealed to a third party and conveyed by him to Government authorities, even if the information is
revealed on the assumption that it will be used only for a limited purpose and the confidence placed in the
third party will not be betrayed.7
 Third Party Doctrine: Telephone Calls
Wiretaps are justified by the third party doctrine – latest precedent
Thompson, Legislative Attorney, 14 (Richard M., written for the Congressional
Research Service, June 5 2014, “The Fourth Amendment Third-Party Doctrine,” p.
11-2)//ES
Several years later, the Court took up the second major third-party doctrine case, Smith v. Maryland, 7
which would have maj or implications for government collection of transactional records, especially those
held by third-party companies.
In Smith, the police were investigating the robbery of a young woman, who gave the police a description
of her assailant and the vehicle seen near the scene of the crime. 79 The police later spotted a man
matching the victim's description driving an identical vehicle in her neighborhood, which they traced back
to Michael Smith. Upon police request, the telephone company installed a pen register at its central office
to record the telephone numbers dialed from Smith's home. The device was installed without a warrant or
court order. Through the pen register, the police learned that a call was placed from Smith's home to the
victim's phone, which would eventually connect Smith to the robbery. At trial, Smith claimed that any
evidence obtained from the pen register violated his Fourth Amendment rights as the police failed to
obtain a warrant before installing it. This motion was denied, Smith was later convicted of robbery, and
the appeals court affirmed his conviction, holding that the installation of the pen register was not a Fourth
Amendment search.80
In line with Justice Harlan's formulation of the Katz privacy test, the Supreme Court asked the following
questions: first, whether Smith had a subjective expectation of privacy in the numbers he dialed, and
second, whether that expectation was reasonable.8 ' As to the former, the Court "doubt[ed] that people in
general entertain any actual expectation of privacy in the numbers they dial . 82 The Court assumed that
people, in the main, know and understand that they must convey the dialed numbers to the company to
complete the call; that the company has a process of recording those numbers; and that the company
actually does record those numbers for various business reasons. It deduced this partially from the fact
that phone books inform consumers that the telephone companies "can frequently help in identifying to
authorities the origin of unwelcome and untroublesome calls" and that customers see a list of their calls
recorded on their monthly phone bills.83
Even if Smith did harbor a subjective expectation of privacy, the Court found that "this expectation is not
'one society is prepared to recognize as 'reasonable.' 84 Justice Blackmun cited to Miller, White, Hoffa,
and Lopez for the proposition that "a person has no legitimate expectation of privacy in information that
he voluntarily turns over to third parties. 85 Because Smith "voluntarily conveyed" the telephone numbers
to the company in the process of making the call, he had "exposed" that information to the company's
equipment in the "ordinary course of business" and thus could not reasonably expect privacy in that
information. 6 Moreover, the Court found that Smith "assumed the risk" that the telephone company
would reveal to the police the numbers he dialed.87
Although Smith was the Court's last significant pronouncement on the parameters of the thirdparty
doctrine, the lower federal courts have applied it in various contexts, with a significant number of these
cases dealing with the transfer of electronic information.
 Third Party Doctrine: Metadata
The Third Party Doctrine justifies metadata collection through the Smith decision
Yoo 14 (John, UC Berkeley law prof, Harvard Journal of Law and Public Policy,
“The Legality of the National Security Agency's Bulk Data Surveillance Programs,”
HeinOnline, 37(3), p. 916)//ES
The NSA's first program, which collects metadata on domestic phone calls, poses the fewest
constitutional difficulties. Under existing judicial doctrine, individuals have Fourth Amendment rights in
the content of communications, but not in their addressing information.6' Privacy does not extend to the
writing on the outside of envelopes deposited in the mail because the sender has voluntarily revealed the
addresses to the post office for delivery. 62 An identical principle applies to telecommunications. In
Smith v. Maryland, the Supreme Court found calling information, such as the phone number dialed,
beyond Fourth Amendment protection because the consumer had voluntarily turned over the information
to a third party namely, the phone company-for connection and billing purposes. 63 Under the rubric of
Katz v. United States, no one can have an expectation of privacy in records that they have handed over to
someone else."
 Administrative Search Doctrine: FISA
Administrative Search Doctrine key to justify FISA surveillance
Birkenstock 92 (Gregory E., “The Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act and Standards of
Probable Cause: An Alternative Analysis,” Georgetown Law Journal, 80(3), p. 858-60)

Based on the administrative search doctrine, the essential constitutional argument for accepting the
diminished probable cause standards of FISA is that the primary purpose of the search is not to gather
evidence for criminal prosecutions. 1 4 When the government has a special need for the information, the
Fourth Amendment should allow the government more latitude in justifying its need to conduct a search.
This is especially true for foreign intelligence, where the emphasis of the FISA search is on gathering
information needed to defend against a threat to national security. The use of that information as criminal
evidence is merely a legitimate byproduct of the search for foreign intelligence information, much as
uncovering of evidence of criminal activity during an administrative search is allowable under Burger.
In Camara and See, the Court acknowledged that the Fourth Amendment does protect the individual's
privacy even in the context of civil searches.115 According to the Camara Court, administrative searches
are reasonable when the government's need for regulatory enforcement outweighs the limited
intrusiveness of the noncriminal search.116 As in the "special governmental needs" cases discussed
below," 7 the Court attached great significance to the fact that administrative searches are not conducted
primarily for penal law enforcement. While FISA searches may often be expected to discover
incriminating evidence, FISA's main purpose of gathering information for protection of national security
interests,"I rather than prosecuting criminals, supports the analogies suggested in this note.
As a preliminary matter, the focus on administrative searches' noncriminal purpose in Camara requires
further clarification. That portion of the Camara opinion that relied on the "limited" invasion of privacy
resulting from the administrative inspection" 19 is sufficiently ambiguous to obscure the Court's
reasoning. The reference may be interpreted in at least two ways: (1) a lesser quantum of evidence is
constitutionally required when the goal of the search is not furtherance of criminal prosecution; or (2) a
lesser quantum of evidence is constitutionally required when the search is less intensive than that
generally permitted in a criminal investigation. Although the Court has never resolved this debate, the
former interpretation is a more logical one. In Abel v. United States,' 20 a pre-Camarad ecision, an
administrative search was upheld because its purpose was not to search for evidence of crime, even
though "a more exhaustive search is hardly to be found in the records of the Supreme Court.' 21 Thus,
while FISA searches are necessarily more intrusive than administrative searches, the proposed analogy
can still be instructive. Furthermore, while the applicability of Camara's other factors-the history of
judicial and popular acceptance and the requirement that the search be the most effective means-are also
problematic, the proposed analogy would still provide a superior model of judicial decisionmaking in the
national security area than the present deferential approach.
Analyzing FISA searches under the administrative search doctrine can illuminate the potential utility of a
similar national security jurisprudence. The usefulness of this approach is underscored by the fact that the
Senate Judiciary Committee, in considering the wisdom of a lower standard of probable cause, referred to
the administrative search doctrine in coming to its conclusion that the FISA probable cause standard was
constitutionally acceptable.' 22 By using principles from an analogous area of the law, rather than creating
a separate sphere of jurisprudence for foreign intelligence, progress can be made in assessing the wisdom
of relaxing the probable cause standards for national security searches.
The administrative search doctrine is key to justify FISA activities
Birkenstock 92 (Gregory E., “The Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act and Standards of
Probable Cause: An Alternative Analysis,” Georgetown Law Journal, 80(3), p. 865-6)//ES

Although the analogy is not a perfect one, the tests developed in the administrative search context are
instructive in exploring the legitimacy of FISA searches. For this analysis, the relevant test is that
articulated in Camara: to weigh the interests served by the search against the intrusion into privacy that
the search entails. 161
The government has a strong interest in gaining the information that FISA surveillance gathers. 162 It is
an "elementary truth" that "unless the Government safeguards its own capacity to function and to preserve
the security of its people, society itself could become so disordered that all rights and liberties would be
endangered."' 63 FISA limits the "foreign intelligence information" that may be sought to information
relevant to the nation's ability to protect against an act of war, international terrorism, or clandestine
intelligence activities. 164 FISA searches may also seek information that relates to or is necessary to "the
national defense or the security of the United States; or... the conduct of the foreign affairs of the United
States."' 165 While it is possible to overstate and thus manipulate these interests, they are nonetheless at
the very core of the government's constitutional mandate to "provide for the common defense."' 166
The intrusion authorized under a FISA search order is intensive, but in most cases not sufficiently
intensive to outweigh the interest supporting the search. Generally, wiretapping is a highly intrusive
investigatory technique. 167 But FISA includes several provisions designed to ensure that the intrusion
will be no greater than is absolutely necessary. 168 FISA's web of definitions helps to ensure that the
search will not be overly intrusive by limiting searches to the most important national security
information.169 When intelligence gathering and criminal investigation overlap, however, the courts
must ensure that FISA searches are not abused. When this is accomplished, FISA searches represent a
legitimate tool to promote national security. While certainly not perfect, the administrative search analogy
helps to place FISA searches in their proper constitutional context.
The Supreme Court has taken the view that the evidentiary requirement of the Fourth Amendment is not a
rigid standard that requires precisely the same quantum of evidence in all cases.170 It is instead a flexible
standard, permitting consideration of the public and individual interests as they are reflected in the facts
of a particular case.'71 This is an important and meaningful concept, which has proved useful in defining
Fourth Amendment limits upon certain "special" enforcement procedures that are unlike the usual arrest
and search. Viewed as a part of this framework, FISA surveillance is constitutionally permissible, and
courts need not invoke the catch phrase "national security" to uphold such searches.

Administrative Search Doctrine necessary to avoid a warrant – allows quick and

flexible responses
Birkenstock 92 (Gregory E., “The Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act and Standards of
Probable Cause: An Alternative Analysis,” Georgetown Law Journal, 80(3), p. 868)//ES

The administrative search doctrine symbolizes the Supreme Court's turn away from the proscriptions of
the Fourth Amendment's Warrant Clause toward a more flexible reasonableness analysis.1 87 This note
demonstrates that the doctrine serves as an appropriate jurisprudential model for FISA searches. In a
variety of contexts, the Court has used a balancing approach to justify even full-scale searches without a
warrant, probable cause, or even individualized suspicion, when the governmental need is especially
acute. This Part of the note briefly examines the "special governmental needs" cases and further
demonstrates how FISA surveillance can be assimilated into modern Fourth Amendment jurisprudence.

Administrative search doctrine allows investigations without warrants

Birkenstock 92 (Gregory E., “The Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act and Standards of
Probable Cause: An Alternative Analysis,” Georgetown Law Journal, 80(3), p. 869)//ES

Thus, where the governmental interest is particularly acute, the Court shuns the specific commands of the
Warrant Clause and uses a balancing test under a general reasonableness standard. Significantly, none of
these searches involved attempts by the police to locate evidence of crime. In each, the Court referred to
the government's special needs as those beyond the normal need for law enforcement. 197
In both the administrative search and special governmental needs cases, then, the Court has been
persuaded that probable cause and individualized suspicion are not always Fourth Amendment
requirements. In an expanding line of cases, the Court has held that certain governmental interests
outweigh individual privacy interests. In each case, the Court has been careful to stress the difference
between the search at issue and the traditional criminal search.

Administrative Search justifies FISA – Supreme Court precedent

Birkenstock 92 (Gregory E., “The Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act and Standards of
Probable Cause: An Alternative Analysis,” Georgetown Law Journal, 80(3), p. 870)//ES

In sum, while some have questioned FISA's diminished probable cause standard over the years, an
examination of Supreme Court precedent demonstrates that the standard is less problematic than it may
first appear. While the courts have uniformly upheld FISA under Fourth Amendment challenges, they
have been reluctant to assimilate FISA surveillance into Fourth Amendment doctrine. The administrative
search and special governmental needs doctrines provide constitutional justification for the diminished
probable cause standard in FISA. By analyzing FISA surveillance in this manner, courts can avoid the
pitfall of assigning national security matters to a separate sphere of the law.
 Administrative Search Doctrine: TSA
Administrative search doctrine justifies to TSA security checks
Sanford 93 (Don L., Summer 1993, “Airport Security, Terrorism, and the Fourth
Amendment: A Look Back and a Step Forward,” Journal of Air Law and
Commerce, 58(4), p. 1176-7)//ES
A second approach taken to justify airport searches is the administrative search. The Supreme Court has
addressed searches conducted for purposes other than criminal law enforcement that might invade areas
protected by the Fourth Amendment. In 1967, the Supreme Court enunciated the administrative search
doctrine in a pair of companion cases: Camara v. Municipal Court 329 and See v. City of Seattle.130 In
Camara, the Court reasoned that an administrative search was permissible under the Fourth Amendment
"by balancing the need to search against the invasion which the search entails."1 3 1 In articulating the
new administrative search doctrine, the Court redefined the traditional probable cause standard.
Individualized suspicion was replaced with a more expansive concept of reasonableness, cast in the form
of a balancing test.13 2 This reasonableness "must be as limited in its intrusiveness as is consistent with
satisfaction of the administrative need that justifies it.' 33 Administrative searches generally satisfy the
Fourth Amendment's reasonableness requirements because the searches are not personal in nature, are not
directed toward discovering evidence of a crime, t 34 and thus involve a relatively limited invasion of
privacy. '3 5
Airport security screenings have consistently been upheld as a consensual regulatory search to further an
administratively directed program whose goal is to ensure air safety. 3 6 In the seminal case of United
States v. Davis '3 7 the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals approved warrantless airport security checks of all
passengers and their carry-on luggage as administrative searches. 38 According to the court,
administrative searches are constitutionally permissible without a warrant if the intrusion is consistent
with satisfying the administrative need. 3 9 A warrantless administrative search is also legitimate when
requiring a search warrant would frustrate the governmental purpose behind the search.140

Administrative Search Doctrine is used to justify TSA screenings – case law

Israelson 13 (Gregory R., Summer 2013, “Applying the Fourth Amendment’s
National-Security Exception to Airport Security and the TSA,” Journal of Air Law
and Commerce, 78(3), p. 512-3)//ES
As courts turned away from the earlier frameworks, they began to apply the administrative-search
exception. In recent years, the administrative-search framework has been the doctrine of choice for courts
analyzing Fourth Amendment concerns related to airport security."
At the core of the administrative-search exception is a balancing of the government's legitimate interests
and the individual's right to be free from government intrusion. Beyond this basic test, however, courts
have differed in their application of the administrative-search exception to airport security cases.
Most circuits view airport security screening as an "administrative search,"7 which allows for a balancing
of "the individual's privacy expectations against the [g]overnment's interests to determine whether it is
impractical to require a warrant or some level of individualized suspicion in the particular context."75 In
the context of "blanket suspicionless searches," the Supreme Court explained that a reasonable search
must be "calibrated to the risk" and referred to airport security as it existed in 1997 as one example of
such a search.7' But the Court added the caveat that "where . . . public safety is not genuinely in jeopardy,
the Fourth Amendment precludes the suspicionless search, no matter how conveniently arranged."7 7 In
sum, determining the constitutionality of a suspicionless checkpoint search requires balancing the
"'gravity of the public concerns served by the seizure, the degree to which the seizure advances the public
interest, and the severity of the interference with individual liberty.' "78
 Airport Security Links
Surveillance by TSA, Border and Customs agents key to security --- internal safe
guards will protect civil rights
Horwitz, 14 --- covers the Justice Department and criminal justice issues nationwide for The
Washington Post (12/8/2014, Sari, “Justice Dept. announces new rules to curb racial profiling by federal
law enforcement,” http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/justice-dept-to-announce-
new-rules-to-curb-racial-profiling-by-federal-law-enforcement/2014/12/07/e00eca18-7e79-11e4-9f38-
95a187e4c1f7_story.html)
A fact sheet on the policy said that some DHS activity is not covered by the policy because of the “unique nature of
DHS’s mission.” “This does not mean that officers and agents are free to profile,” according to the DHS
fact sheet. “To the contrary, DHS’s existing policies make it categorically clear that profiling is prohibited,
while articulating limited circumstances where it is permissible to rely in part on these
characteristics, because of the unique nature of border and transportation security as compared to
traditional law enforcement.” President George W. Bush banned racial profiling in 2003, but the prohibition did not apply to
national security investigations and covered only race — not religion, national origin, gender or sexual orientation and gender identity. Civil
rights groups and Democratic lawmakers have pushed for expanded anti-profiling protections since President
Obama was elected in 2008. Holder began the process to revamp the rules in 2009 and considers the new policy
one of the signature accomplishments of his tenure. About six months ago, the Justice Department delivered the rules to the
White House. But they applied only to the department, and White House officials wanted the polices to cover additional agencies. The rules have
been delayed in part because DHS
officials pushed the White House and the Justice Department to allow major
exclusions for agencies such as the Transportation Security Administration, Immigration and Customs
Enforcement, and Customs and Border Protection. In several high-level meetings, DHS Secretary Jeh Johnson
argued that immigration and customs agents and airport screeners needed to consider a variety of factors
to keep the nation safe, according to officials familiar with his personal efforts. TSA officials argued that the rules should
not apply to them because the TSA is not a law enforcement agency. In its fact sheet, DHS officials said that
they will review activities not directly covered by the guidance to ensure that “we are including every
appropriate safeguard and civil rights protection in the execution of those important security
activities, and to enhance our policies where necessary.”
TSA suffers hypocritical persecution-IS actually really good-SL
Reed 8/9/-12(Ted, Transportation Journalist for over 20 years, “Surprise Gallup Poll: People Think TSA
Does A Good Job”, Forbes,http://www.forbes.com/sites/tedreed/2012/08/09/surprise-gallup-poll-people-
think-tsa-does-a-good-job/)
Surprisingly, despite all of the negative Internet commentary and Congressional complaining about the
Transportation Security Administration, the majority of U.S. travelers have a positive opinion of the
agency. Not only that, but people who fly, and who are exposed to TSA screening, have an even more positive
opinion than people who rarely or never fly. According to a Gallup poll released Wednesday, 54% of Americans
think the TSA is doing either an excellent or a good job of handling security screening at airports. Moreover,
among Americans who have flown at least once in the past year, 57% have an excellent or good opinion of
the agency. As far as TSA effectiveness at preventing acts of terrorism on U.S. airplanes, 41% think the
screening procedures are extremely or very effective. Another 44% think the procedures are somewhat
effective. That number varies little for people who fly somewhat regularly and people who rarely or never fly. The poll was conducted with telephone interviews
July 9th through July 12. Gallup interviewed 1,014 adults living in all 50 states and the District of Columbia. Interestingly, younger Americans “have significantly
more positive opinions of the TSA than those who are older,” Gallup said, noting that 67% of people between 18 and 29 rate the agency
as excellent or good. This may be because young people fly more frequently, or it may be because that for young people TSA screening, first implemented
in 2001, has been part of their flying experience for the majority of their lives. Criticism
of the TSA seems to come primarily from two
sources. One is Internet sites, where reporting standards are generally not at the same level as newspapers, where reporters are taught to consider what
is told to them with skepticism and to seek responses to charges. On Wednesday, some sites were repeating charges by a man who said that his wife was admitted to
the emergency room for treatment after TSA agents atFort Lauderdale-Hollywood International Airport harassed her and subjected her to closed door
screening after metal in her bra set off an alarm. The man said his wife was subject to a brutal rape three years ago and is still recovering from the psychological
impact. Without denigrating the man or his wife in any way, it is possible to say that the TSA
is put into a difficult situation when such
charges are posted with little or no fact checking by reporters . As for Congress, the House Homeland
Security Committee’s Transportation Security Subcommittee recently convened a hearing on the topic:
“Breach of Trust: Addressing Misconduct Among TSA Screeners.” According to About.com, “It didn’t
take (committee chairman) Rep. Mike Rogers (R-Alabama) long to set the tone for the day, saying in his
opening statement: “Stealing from checked luggage; accepting bribes from drug smugglers; sleeping or drinking while on duty — this kind of criminal
behavior and negligence has contributed significantly to TSA’s shattered public image.” Now there is a poll to
show that in fact, TSA does not have actually have a bad public image. And here, it is worth mentioning
that the public image of Congress is not so good, perhaps reflecting a tendency to be excessively
critical of perceived enemies rather than to seek compromise and solve problems.

Without NSA current Procedures we’re susceptible to Terrorism-SL

Herridge 12/17/-14(Catherine Catherine Herridge is an award-winning Chief Intelligence
correspondent for FOX News Channel, “TSA head: Threat from terrorism worse now but US better able
to combat it”, FNC, “http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2014/12/17/tsa-head-threat-from-terrorism-worse-
now-but-us-better-able-to-combat-it/)
Khorasan contains long-time associates of Usama bin Laden, including Sanafi al-Nasr and Muhsin al-
Fadhli, as well as a handful of operatives trained by the Yemeni bomb maker Ibrahim al-Asiri, who
specializes in non-metallic bombs that traditional airport screening can miss. "Without going into details
about what that may look like from a classified intelligence perspective, we do remain concerned that
there is active plotting going on," Pistole said. And with new information that the French bomb maker
David Drugeon likely survived a U.S. air strike last month, Pistole added, "there is concern that there are
still individuals out there who have not only the ability to do that, but also the intent to use that on a flight
to Europe or the US." The TSA administrator also described classified procedures that track foreign
fighters, based on their travel history, before they check in at overseas airports for U.S.-bound flights.
"There are individuals we are concerned about and we are again looking at if they make travel reservations, then they of course receive proper
scrutiny," Pistole said.
The continued threat from groups like Khorasan explains why procedures, implemented
in July, requiring passengers to turn on their phone and computers at some airports, remain in place . As the
holiday travel season begins, TSA officials say they are not expecting big changes at the checkpoints, but if there are changes, they will be driven
by new and specific intelligence.

TSA Prevents Terrorist Attacks- SL

Reed 10/23/-12(Ted, Transportation Journalist for over 20 years, “Remember 9/11? TSA finally gets its
gloves off”, Forbes,” http://www.forbes.com/sites/tedreed/2012/10/23/remember-911-tsa-finally-takes-
off-the-gloves-reminds-critics-of-reality/”
The Transportation SecurityAdministration has taken off the gloves and started to respond more aggressively to the constant barrage of criticism
– as well it should. Last week, in an opinion piece in the Rockland County Times, published in a close-in New York City suburb, TSA
spokeswoman Lisa Farbstein responded to a critical column by area resident Diane Dimond, a syndicated columnist . ”Perhaps the
next time Diane and her family fly out of a New York-area airport to a fun vacation spot, they’ll look out
the car window at the New York skyline minus the Twin Towers and remember some of the true facts
about TSA and why it exists,” Farbstein wrote. Dimond “criticized the very security measures that were
designed to keep passengers safe —to help ensure that there is not another 9/11 in her back yard,” said
Farbstein, who answered about a dozen criticisms, point-by-point. Among them: it is inconvenient, undignified and an
invasion of your privacy to be forced to remove your shoes, jackets and belts, take off your belt and take your computer from its case. TSA agents
“treat all of us like we’re new arrivals at a prison camp.” The lines are too long and some agents seem to stand around doing nothing. While the
criticisms are familiar, the aggressive response is new. In fact, the TSA responds to multiple daily attacks, most far less coherent than Dimond’s.
Critics include travelers who make up stories; members of Congress who seek political gain and bloggers, tweeters and other self-promoters
aware that the best way to be noticed and collect Internet hits is to express outrage. The outrage business, it must be said, is a growth business,
thriving in the age of new media. Last week, radio talk show host Dana Loesch tweeted about an incident at thePhoenix airport. Loesch claimed
she was sexually molested after a sensor showed traces of explosives on her. She was upset that the incident took place in private: she had
requested a public screening. Earlier,in June, Loesch and her husband were detained by the TSA in Providence, R.I., after he allegedly underwent
intrusive screenings because sensors detected traces of explosives on him. Perhaps we should conclude that TSA agents are engaged in a
nationwide plot to harass the couple whenever possible. Or perhaps explosive pixie dust suddenly finds them whenever they head to the airport.
Clearly, they are outliers among the 650 million people TSA screens annually. Last year, about one tenth of one percent of those filed complaints.
The truth is that, for all of the complaints, most U.S. travelers have a positive opinion of the TSA. According to a Gallup poll released in August,
54% of Americans think TSA is doing either an excellent or a good job of handling airport screening. Among Americans who have flown at least
once in the past year, 57% have an excellent or good opinion of the agency. In other words, the more you see them, the better you like them. Of
course, TSA is not perfect. It employs 62,000 people, a few of whom have stolen from the luggage they are paid to inspect. The annual $8.1
billion budget seems high: the same work was done for far less by private firms before Sept. 11. The firms followed federal guidelines, which
sadly did not prevent box cutters on airplanes. The
TSA is very visible to millions of travelers, some of whom have
had a bad day by the time they get to the airport. And of course the agency is overseen by a dysfunctional
Congress, whose 535 members bring a love of the limelight, vastly differing agendas and an inability to
compromise. Probably the biggest problem is that, unfortunately, we really don’t know how much screening is enough and how much is too
much. Eleven years later, that is something we are still learning.

Recent revelations ensure TSA security is effective- high spending and increased
surveillance
SCHOLTES 7/15— Transportation Reporter. (Jennifer, “TSA's response to criticism: Longer airport
lines,” Politico, 7/15/15, http://www.politico.com/story/2015/07/longer-airport-lines-likely-as-tsa-tries-to-
plug-security-holes-120117.html). WM
The Transportation Security Administration has a new strategy for improving its woeful performance in catching
airport security threats — and it will likely mean longer lines and more government bucks. A month after
the TSA was embarrassed by its almost-total failure in a covert security audit , Homeland Security
Secretary Jeh Johnson has ordered the agency to pursue an improvement plan that will require more hand-wanding of
passengers, more use of bomb-sniffing dogs and more random testing of luggage and travelers for traces of explosives. It
will also consider reducing travelers’ chances of being sent through the expedited PreCheck lines at airports. Increased reliance on PreCheck is
just one strategy TSA has used to become slimmer and swifter in the past few years, drawing buckets of praise from a Congress that’s otherwise
largely criticized the agency. It has also relied more on technology like body-scanners and analyses of specific travelers’ risks while leaning less
on labor-intensive methods like pat-downs, allowing the TSA to save manpower costs and shrink its workforce. But then came the
leak of a
still-classified inspector general report in June, which found that TSA agents had failed to find fake explosives
and weapons 67 out of 70 times during covert testing — and that the screening technology often just doesn’t work. The 96-percent
failure rate drew sharp rebukes from Capitol Hill, led to the immediate ouster of then-acting Administrator Melvin Carraway and caused much
shuttle diplomacy between lawmakers and the agency’s top brass. Now the response threatens to gum up airport checkpoints. “In light of the 96
percent failure, they’re probably going to slow things down ,” House Homeland Security Chairman Mike McCaul (R-Texas)
acknowledged in an interview. He added that “the technology failure was a big part of the problem” and that the DHS inspector general pointed
to the agency’s policy of funneling travelers from regular security lines through the less-intensive PreCheck queues as one of the “big
weaknesses.” Kevin Mitchell, chairman of the Business Travel Coalition, agreed that air passengers will probably feel the impact of the latest
changes. “Things are going to slow down, and consumers are going to get increasingly frustrated ,” he said. Johnson said this
month that he had ordered TSA to start doing more manual screening, such as using handheld metal detectors and doing more random tests for
trace explosives, and to take a second look at the agency’s policy of selectively diverting non-vetted travelers into the PreCheck lanes. “Some of
those things he’s talking about are going to slow the lines down,” the House Homeland Security Committee’s ranking Democrat, Rep. Bennie
Thompson of Mississippi, told POLITICO. “So the question is: What’s this going to do to throughput?” While Thompson says he supports
adding more manual screening and being more selective about which travelers get expedited treatment, he’s concerned about how this shift
reflects on all the work the agency has done to move away from slower procedures. “If walking back allows us to identify more
vulnerabilities, then that’s good. But what does that say for all the tens of millions of dollars that we’ve spent on technology that was
supposed to move us forward?” Thompson said. “It’s clear that our technology that’s being deployed — either because of the machines or the
operators — failed us.” Johnson also said this month that he has directed the TSA to rethink performance standards for the screening equipment
implicated in the inspector general’s report. He noted that the CEO of the company that manufactures the machines has said he will help make the
technology more effective. Although Johnson didn’t directly pin the blame on the scanning machines, McCaul and Rep. Kathleen Rice (D-N.Y.)
say the IG’s report noted that the body imaging technology has an unacceptable failure rate and that the manufacturer guarantees threat detection
accuracy at well under 100 percent. Because the report is still classified, the agency hasn’t disclosed exactly which types of equipment were
involved or how they failed. But McCaul and Rice identified them as the millimeter-wave body scanners, made by L-3 Communications Corp.,
that force passengers to pose inside a booth with their arms raised. The machines are supposed to find both “metallic and nonmetallic” objects
hidden under passengers’ clothing, including guns and explosives, and “can detect a wide range of threats to transportation security in a matter of
seconds,” TSA boasts on its website. McCaul said his panel is looking into how much of the failure rate can be attributed to technology issues
versus human error. He plans a hearing on the issue this month with testimony from new TSA Administrator Peter Neffenger, who assumed his
post July 6 after being confirmed by the Senate. The
current plan, McCaul said, is for DHS to update the imaging machines’
software. “Jeh Johnson’s a smart guy,” the chairman said. “He and I talk a lot. And he knows that updating that
software is probably going to reduce the failure rate.” What’s less clear is how the department is going to handle
vulnerabilities in its PreCheck program, which allows travelers to pass through security checkpoints with their shoes and belts on, and without
removing laptops and liquids from bags. The main problem, many lawmakers say, is TSA’s “managed inclusion” policy of giving that special
treatment to travelers who haven’t gone through the program’s vetting process. To enroll in PreCheck, passengers must provide fingerprints,
undergo a background check and pay an $85 fee. One purpose of steering non-enrolled passengers into the PreCheck lanes has been to give
travelers a taste of what life could be like if they signed up for the expedited screening program, said David Inserra, a homeland security policy
analyst at the Heritage Foundation. It also makes more efficient use of TSA’s screeners when the speedier lines are drastically shorter than the
regular queues. “You’ve got these people working these lines, and sometimes they’re going to be doing nothing, or we can use them for
something,” Inserra said. “But that’s not really a good security mindset. That’s really an efficiency mindset.” Patricia Rojas Ungár, vice president
of government relations at the U.S. Travel Association, says the “managed inclusion” program “really has run its course.” Now, she said, it’s
important for TSA “to double down in getting people enrolled in the actual program.” The agency’s standard security policies were born of
credible threats and real terrorism plots, such as Richard Reid’s attempt to detonate explosives packed in his shoes on a flight from Paris to
Miami just three months after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks. Lawmakers first started to challenge the “managed inclusion” policy after
learning this spring that TSA screeners had allowed a known former domestic terrorist through a PreCheck line last year. And the issue has only
gotten more attention since the IG’s report was leaked. “The inspector general highlighted that one of the big weaknesses was managed
inclusion,” said McCaul, whose committee approved a bill last month that would bar the agency from allowing most non-vetted travelers into
PreCheck lines. “Do we want to be kicking in people who may be a threat? I don’t know. Obviously we’re not going to target the grandmother
and the baby. … It has to be risk-based, but with security in mind, because the
terrorists — unfortunately — they still want to blow
up airplanes.” In his 10-point plan for the TSA, Johnson has also directed the agency to reassess whether it
should allow non-vetted travelers into PreCheck. But Thompson, who wrote the bill that would prohibit the policy, says
there’s no doubt the practice is weakening security and should already be changed. “If you know a system you
have deployed creates a vulnerability, you fix it,” Thompson said. “If throughput is one of the objectives, it should not be the sole objective.”
Homeland Security officials often reiterate that individual
aspects of physical security screening, or even the whole
checkpoint process, are only layers of a vast aviation security system that includes behavior detection
officers, bomb-sniffing canine teams, federal air marshals and reinforced cockpit doors . And it’s the
strength of those layers in combination that will ultimately thwart terrorist attacks , says Senate Homeland
Security and Governmental Affairs Chairman Ron Johnson ( R-Wis.). The Senate chairman said he views the new steps the
TSA is taking as “kind of Band-Aids” to try to provide some interim security improvements while Congress and the department consider bigger
changes, such as expanding the role of air marshals to give them more law enforcement and investigative power. “We’re obviously far from 100
percent secure. I mean, far from 100 percent secure. So we really need to look at a layered approach, think outside the box,” he told POLITICO.
“There’s so many different facets of this problem that we need to look at, but I think security’s got to be multi-layered — some visible, some
invisible.”

The TSA “Playbook” Strategy is backed up by decades of crime prevention

practices
Lum et. Al. 11— Ph.D., Criminology and Criminal Justice, (Cynthia Lum; Charlotte Gill, Ph.D. in
Criminology; Breanne Cave Ph.D. Criminology, Law, and Society; Julie Hibdon, Ph.D., Criminology,
Law and Society; David Weisburd, Ph.D, Criminality, Law, and Society; “Translational Criminology:
Using Existing Evidence for Assessing TSA’s Comprehensive Security Strategy at Airports,” Evidence-
Based Counterterrorism Policy,
19 Aug 2011, Springer: http://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-1-4614-0953-3_10). WM
Conclusion
This chapter describes the fi rst systematic, evidence-based review and assessment
of TSA’s Playbook strategy to prevent and deter crime and terrorist activity at our nation’s airports using a translational
criminological approach. As we have seen, there are very few evaluations of counterterrorism measures or airport security compared to other law
enforcement sectors. Given the massive amount of money spent on such measures since 9/11, evaluation of the effi ciency and outcome
effectiveness of such measures is imperative. However, many of the crime-prevention measures
at airports mirror a broader
criminological literature on situational crime-prevention , deterrence, and interagency cooperation. Here, we
have used these parallels in our preliminary assessment and evaluation of the TSA Playbook. In classifying the Playbook using an “Airport
Security Matrix,” we found that most plays are immediate and tactical in nature, and few are strategic. Further, the vast majority of plays do not
require cooperative deployment. Thus, much of our analysis focuses on immediate and tactical plays that are primarily carried out by TSA
personnel. For these plays, we discovered four general tendencies. The first is that these plays
more often involve mechanisms of
prevention that aim to harden targets, deter and prevent offenders by increasing their perceived effort , rather
than increase guardianship, or reduce vulnerabilities of passengers or other targets. Second, most of these plays focus on the public and employee
screening areas; there is defi nitely a focus in the Playbook on employees rather than passengers. Third, plays occurring in public areas outside or
directly inside of the airport entrance tend to be guardianshiporiented rather than specifi cally focused on deterring offenders. Finally,n the
Playbook tends to focus on reducing passenger and target vulnerability largely at the fi nal “layer of security” located at gates and airplanes.
When we examined the immediate/tactical plays within each of the sub-books, we found additional concentrations of plays in both mechanism
type and location of play. For instance, FSD plays primarily occur in screening and secure areas (both passenger and employee) and mainly
involve approaches designed to increase offender efforts. HQ plays are also designed to deter offenders, but unlike the FSD plays, they are
typically designed for public areas. The HQ Playbook also contains a signifi cant majority of the plays that require cooperation between TSA and
other non-TSA agencies. NR plays typically occur at secure passenger areas and gate locations and tend to use increased guardianship as their
main mechanism of prevention. A small minority of the plays was strategic in nature, and most focus on long-term management activities that
incorporate the use of general watchfulness and increased guardianship. It is expectedly in the strategic plays where requirements for cooperation
are found. When comparing more general descriptions of plays at intersecting Matrix dimensions, we found that the
Playbook generally
and loosely incorporates many evidence-based practices for prevention and deterrence, although this evidence
base varies across studies by design rigor as well as applicability to airport security and counterterrorism. Of course, how and which plays are
implemented at any given time ultimately tempers the Playbook’s effectiveness. The
majority of plays within the Playbook use
situational crime-prevention mechanisms (e.g., blocking offender access and target hardening), which have been
supported in other crime-prevention evaluations. Additionally, studies confirm and support the use of
tailored, placespecifi c interventions for crime prevention and deterrence . The Playbook illustrates some compliance
with this evidence-based mechanism through the location focus of many of the plays. However, how places are chosen for play implementation is
not clear. More importantly, exactly how such studies translate to the context of terroristic violence within a confi ned location (airports) is still
unknown. With regard to the notion of randomization as a deterrence mechanism, the research
indicates that randomly allocating
patrol at selected high-risk places can increase crime-prevention effects . However, whether the locations in which the
plays are implemented are indeed the highest-risk locations in the airport is unknown. Further, although the Playbook has a built-in randomization
component with regard to selection of the set of plays used at any particular time, this element of the Playbook may be manipulated in such a way
that reduces randomization. However, whether this is a negative or positive change with regards to increasing security is also unknown in the
absence of evaluation. Reducing random deployment of plays may not be problematic depending on whether such randomization increases or
decreases deterrence. This is not clearly understood in criminological research and is not researched at all in counterterrorism studies. Further,
although there is research supporting some of the prevention mechanisms that are found in both situational crime-prevention measures and airport
security (which itself needs to be more closely scrutinized for comparison), there are some types of airport security measures for which we could
not easily identify parallel evidence in the crime-prevention literature. Ultimately, the determination of effectiveness must be supported by
evaluations, through experimentation and simulation, of the actual interventions within airports. Finally, we think the
Playbook, which
uses plays that involve interagency cooperation, can actually serve as a means of facilitating and fostering working
relationships between the TSA and other agencies that operate in and around the airport. It might be worthwhile
to explore how these interagency relationships and efforts could benefi t from involvement in additional plays
beyond public airport areas and areas external to the airport. The Playbook attempts a broad range of
prevention and deterrence tactics across multiple contexts. Understanding the prospects and challenges of implementing
such a strategy and identifying ways in which measures of success might be derived
are imperative in accurately judging this method of airport security
TSA behavioral monitoring solves- Israeli Airline empirics prove
Adams, NORDHAUS and SHELLENBERGE 11— leading global thinkers on energy,
environment, climate, human development, and politics. All work for the Breakthrough Institute. Norhaus
is chairman, Shellenberg is cofounder (NICK ADAMS, TED NORDHAUS AND MICHAEL
SHELLENBERGE, “COUNTERTERRORISM SINCE 9/11 Evaluating the Efficacy of
Controversial Tactics,” THE SCIENCE OF SECURITY- a project of the Breakthrough Institute, SPRING
2011, http://thebreakthrough.org/images/pdfs/CCT_Report_revised-3-31-11a.pdf). WM
The TSA also employs behavioral profiling, whereby agents seek to discover passenger nervousness,
irritability, or other suspicious signs that might indicate their intentions to commit terrorism. The methods
are reputed to be highly effective in Israel, where the national airline, El Al, despite receiving almost
daily terror threats, has not experienced a major attack in over three decades. TSA’s use of behavioral
profiling is much less intensive than El Al’s. The latter approach submits every passenger to a battery of
open-ended questions and psychological evaluations. By contrast, TSA’s Screening Passengers by
Observation Techniques (SPOT) program only closely questions the rare passengers that agents deem
suspicious. In practice, probably owing to the human tendency to interpret the behaviors of poorly
understood out-group members as 'exotic' (Tajfel 1982), TSA agents, according to multiple anecdotal
accounts, have been prone to apply greater scrutiny to Muslim, Arab, Sikh, and SouthAsian air passengers

TSA Screening methods effectively combat terrorism

Adams, NORDHAUS and SHELLENBERGE 11— leading global thinkers on energy,
environment, climate, human development, and politics. All work for the Breakthrough Institute. Norhaus
is chairman, Shellenberg is cofounder (NICK ADAMS, TED NORDHAUS AND MICHAEL
SHELLENBERGE, “COUNTERTERRORISM SINCE 9/11 Evaluating the Efficacy of
Controversial Tactics,” THE SCIENCE OF SECURITY- a project of the Breakthrough Institute, SPRING
2011, http://thebreakthrough.org/images/pdfs/CCT_Report_revised-3-31-11a.pdf). WM
MORE UNIVERSAL SCREENING METHODS SHOULD BE IMPLEMENTED IN AIRPORTS,
GIVEN THEIR
EFFECTIVENESS SINCE 9/11 IN PREVENTING ATTACKS. Given that terrorist groups have avoided
heightened airport screening by recruiting new members who do not fit CAPPS (or ‘Secure
Flight’) profiles, DHS and the TSA need to universally apply the highest available levels of
screening to all passengers. Universal screening for liquids and metal have already made it more
difficult for terrorists to either bring, or effectively detonate, bombs on planes , as the botched
bombing attempts of the shoe bomber and the Christmas Day bomber demonstrate. Minimally invasive
full body scanners can pose an even more effective barrier. TSA should install these scanners as quickly
as possible and also consider greater implementation of randomized and unseen screening methods –
which cannot be reverse-engineered by terrorists – if they continue to distinguish passengers for
secondary screening
The TSA has 20 checks against terrorism, making threats very unlikely
Dillon and Thomas 15— Ph.D., Professor of Computer Information Systems,
and Professorship of Business Administration, both at James Madison University (Thomas W. Dillon,
Daphyne S. Thomas, “Exploring the acceptance of body searches, body scans and TSA trust,” Journal of
Transportation Security, May 2015, Springer: http://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s12198-015-0157-
7). WM
In response to this heightened level of concern, the Transportation Security
Administration (TSA) has established a system of “20 Layers of Security.”
Strengthening security through a layered approach is designed to provide defense-in-depth
protection of the traveling public and the United States transportation system. Of
these 20 layers, 14 are pre-boarding security designed to deter and apprehend terrorists
prior to boarding aircraft (Stewart and Mueller 2008). Both pat-down body searches
and full-body scanning fall under “pre-screening” measures found within the
Pre-Boarding Security category. There are important issues surrounding the need
for a better and more effective screening process, and a higher level of acceptance
by flyer. These include designing more agile screening operations, balancing
technology and human approaches to security, and focusing the appropriate levels
of security resource on both stopping terrorist and meeting privacy concerns
(Jacobson et al. 2009).

TSA machinery deters terrorists

Frimpong 11— PhD in public affairs (Agyemang, “Introduction of full body image scanners at the
airports: a delicate balance of protecting privacy and ensuring national security,” Texas Southern
University, Houston, TX, USA, 1 April 2011, Springer: http://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s12198-
011-0068-1/fulltext.html). WM

There has been a challenge for governments around the world balancing the security of aviation travel
while protecting civil liberties and privacy of the people. In America any form of encroachment on civil
liberties and personal privacy is highly resisted no matter where it comes from. The introduction of the
new full body image scanners at some of the nation’s airports have stoked high passions from private
citizens alleging that TSA officials would be spying on their naked bodies. The federal government
counteracts these complaints by saying that the new machines could go a long way to deter potential
terrorists from sneaking contrabands and weapons through the old security system. So far scholars and
experts have not been able to come up with a possible solution as to how to avoid invasion of privacy
while ensuring security of air travel.

Airplane security is effective- Multiple checks and deterrence

Abend 15— captain for a major airline and aviation analyst(Les, “Pilot: Is TSA security a complete
failure?,” CNN, June 4, 2015, http://www.cnn.com/2015/06/03/opinions/abend-tsa-screening-failure/).
WM
The process we all have come to know and love involves technology like magnetometers and full body
scanners. But while it seems that the process starts with the smashing of your roller bag onto the security
belt, trained personnel are observing behaviors. Profiling is politically incorrect, but all aspects of
passenger dress and demeanor are considered part of threat assessment. If a nervous twenty-something
male is wearing a winter coat in Miami rather than carrying it, an alert TSA agent will most likely apply
extra scrutiny. During boarding, flight attendants perform their own screening. Over my 31 years with
the airline, I have found no better people watchers than flight attendants. Passengers are their captive
audience. All flight attendants are trained in defensive tactics, too, with the ability to use creative
resources you could never imagine. And finally, the buck stops in the cockpit. Pilots are also trained in
defensive tactics. In some cases, an unknowing terrorist who breaks into the flight deck may find himself
facing the business end of a very loud and lethal semiautomatic weapon. So what's up with the
Grandma screening or the child-in-the-stroller wanding? A lot of security procedures involve deterrent
logic. In other words, an individual with nefarious intentions might conclude that his evil plot carries a
high risk of detection, especially if everyone is a suspect. And don't underestimate the evil sickness of
terrorists. It is indeed possible that Grandma or a toddler could be used to transport something
threatening. Another aspect of deterrence is randomness: not maintaining a routine during the security
process, or not having the same routine at every airport. That said, my experiences at various airports
around the world make me question the rationale behind procedures. At one very civilized and busy
international destination, crew members are corralled through specifically designated screening areas
away from passenger traffic. Almost every other crew member sets off the magnetometer alarm and then
receives a thorough wanding and pat-down. In other countries, it's the opposite -- screeners are just going
through the motions. Although crew members pass through the same magnetometers as passengers,
everyone appears to receive the same indifferent treatment, uniform or not.

Terrorism may be increasing but the TSA has accounted for it

Herridge 14— award-winning Chief Intelligence correspondent (Catherine Herridge, “TSA head: Threat
from terrorism worse now but US better able to combat it,” Fox News, December 17, 2014,
http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2014/12/17/tsa-head-threat-from-terrorism-worse-now-but-us-better-
able-to-combat-it/). WM

The outgoing and longest-serving head of the Transportation Security Administration says the threat from
terrorism is worse now than when he took the job four years ago, but the U.S. is better positioned to
combat foreign plots. "The threat today is unfortunately more expansive than what it was four-and-a-half
years ago," John Pistole told Fox News during an interview before he leaves at the end of the month,
concluding 31 years of government service -- including 27 at the FBI, where he rose to the rank of deputy
director. "With that being said, we also have better insights into who the potential bombers are," he
added. From Pistole’s unique position at the TSA and FBI, he watched Al Qaeda's strategy evolve from
the 9/11 attacks that murdered nearly 3,000 Americans, to the failed underwear bomb plot to bring down
a jet on Christmas Day 2009 and the non-metallic explosive devices buried in cargo a year later. Although
Al Qaeda experimented in 2012 with surgically implanted bombs before apparently abandoning the idea
as impractical, Pistole suggested they are now focused on devices held close or strapped to the body.
"That is one of things that concerns us, how well do they design, construct and then conceal," he said.
Pistole will become president of his alma mater, Anderson University in Anderson, Ind., this spring. Fox
News asked Pistole whether the threat to American aviation had diminished since August, when the U.S.
launched a bombing campaign against ISIS in Syria and Iraq, and the Al Qaeda-led "Khorasan" group.
Khorasan contains long-time associates of Usama bin Laden, including Sanafi al-Nasr and Muhsin al-
Fadhli, as well as a handful of operatives trained by the Yemeni bomb maker Ibrahim al-Asiri, who
specializes in non-metallic bombs that traditional airport screening can miss. "Without going into details
about what that may look like from a classified intelligence perspective, we do remain concerned that
there is active plotting going on," Pistole said. And with new information that the French bomb maker
David Drugeon likely survived a U.S. air strike last month, Pistole added, "there is concern that there are
still individuals out there who have not only the ability to do that, but also the intent to use that on a flight
to Europe or the US." The TSA administrator also described classified procedures that track foreign
fighters, based on their travel history, before they check in at overseas airports for U.S.-bound flights.
"There are individuals we are concerned about and we are again looking at if they make travel
reservations, then they of course receive proper scrutiny," Pistole said.

Empirics and other countries prove the TSA is the best option
Maxa 7/14— travel expert(Rudy, host and executive producer of “Rudy Maxa’s World,” the Emmy
Award-winning, travel series, “Travel Minute — A Word In Defense of the TSA,” Rudy Maxa’s World,
JUL 14TH, 2015, http://rudymaxa.com/2015/07/travel-minute-a-word-in-defense-of-the-tsa/). WM
I and others often take the TSA to task for sloppy work, rudeness, or plain, old lack of common sense. I
thought it might be nice to note that since 9/11, not a single US airline has been a victim of terrorism.
Oh, folks have tried. Remember the failed effort of the so-called “Christmas underwear bomber” who
tried to blow up a Northwest Airline flight from Amsterdam to Detroit in 2009? And let us keep in mind
that terrorism targeting airliners is older than most know. Way back in 1933, a bomb blew up a United
Airlines Boeing 247—a Chicago gangland murder was suspected–but the case was never solved. The first
in-flight bombing of a jet liner was in 1962 when a Continental Airlines flight was blown up over Iowa
while flying from Chicago to Kansas City, MO. An investigation determined a passenger had brought a
bomb aboard in order to commit suicide as part of an insurance fraud scheme. And while Islamist
terrorists have attacked Russian aircrafts—two in 2004—and a Chinese carrier was brought down in 2002
in another insurance scam, US carriers have been blessedly free of a successful terrorist action in the last
14 years. I don’t know that the TSA can take full credit, but I am certain that security curtain has caused
some terrorists to re-think strategies.
TSA is key to protect against dangerous weapons, explosives, and innovate in security technologies.
John S. Pistole, 3-5-2012, "Counterterrorism, Risk-Based Security and TSA’s Vision for the Future of
Aviation Security," Transportation Security Administration,
https://www.tsa.gov/press/speeches/counterterrorism-risk-based-security-and-tsa%E2%80%99s-vision-
future-aviation-security
Remember that before September 11, 2001, there was:¶ No cohesive system in place to check passenger
names against terrorist watch lists in advance of flying;¶ Only limited technologies in place for
uncovering a wide array of threats to passengers or aircraft;¶ No comprehensive federal requirements to
screen checked or carry-on baggage;¶ Minimal in-flight security on most flights; and,¶ From a
coordination standpoint, before 9/11 there was a lack of timely intelligence-sharing, in both directions —
from the federal level down to the individual airports, as well as from an individual airport up to the
national level.¶ I came to TSA more than a year and a half ago, having worked the previous 26 years in a
variety of positions within the FBI. That experience with a range of partners inside the law enforcement
and intelligence communities helped shape my approach to solidifying TSA’s place within the national
counterterrorism continuum.¶ Every day, we strive to ensure our operational planning and decision
making process is timely, efficient and as coordinated as possible — and critically, based on intelligence.
We work to share critical information with key industry stakeholders whenever appropriate, and we are
constantly communicating with our frontline officers through shift briefings held several times a day. ¶
Thanks to the effective partnerships we’ve forged with industry stakeholders, with our airline and airport
partners, and with law enforcement colleagues at every level, TSA has achieved a number of significant
milestones during its first 10 years of service.¶ These include matching 100 percent of all passengers
flying into, out of, and within the United States against government watch lists through the Secure Flight
program.¶ It includes screening all air cargo transported on passenger planes domestically and, as you
know, we work closely with our international partners every day to screen 100% of high-risk inbound
cargo on passenger planes. We’re also working hard with these same partners to screen 100% of
allinternational inbound cargo on passenger planes by the end of this year.¶ And it also includes
improving aviation security through innovative technology that provides advanced baggage screening for
explosives.¶ Since their inception in 2005 through February 2012, we have also conducted more than
26,000 Visible Intermodal Prevention and Response or VIPR operations. We have 25 multi-modal VIPR
teams working in transportation sectors across the country to prevent or disrupt potential terrorist
planning activities.¶ Additionally, since 2006, TSA has completed more than 190 Baseline Assessments
for Security Enhancement for transit, which provides a comprehensive assessment of security programs in
critical transit systems.¶ We are seeing the benefits of how these important steps — combined with our
multiple layers of security including cutting-edge technology — keep America safe every day. ¶ Since our
standup in 2002, we have screened nearly six billion passengers. Our front line officers have detected
thousands of firearms and countless other prohibited items and we have prevented those weapons from
entering the cabin of an aircraft.¶ In fact, more than 10 years after 9/11, TSA officers still detect, on-
average, between three and four firearms every day in carry-on bags at security checkpoints around the
country.¶ Deploying advanced, state-of-the-art technologies continue to factor significantly into our multi-
layered approach to transportation security. In particular, we continue to see the efficacy of Advanced
Imaging Technology, or AIT, machines at hundreds of passenger security checkpoints around the United
States.¶ From February 2011 to June 2011, the Office of the Inspector General (OIG) assessed the manner
in which TSA inspects, maintains and operates backscatter units used in passenger screening. ¶ The OIG
found that TSA was in compliance with standards regarding radiation exposure limits and safety
requirements. As a result of intensive research, analysis, and testing, TSA concludes that potential health
risks from screening with backscatter X-ray security systems are minuscule. ¶ While there is still no perfect
technology, AIT gives our officers the best opportunity to detect both metallic and non-metallic threats
including improvised explosive devices such as the device Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab attempted to
detonate on Christmas Day, 2009.¶ As manufacturers continue enhancing the detection capability and
strengthening the privacy features of their machines, we maintain the ability to upgrade the software used
on them to stay ahead of the rapidly shifting threat landscape. Maintaining a high level of adaptability
enables us to keep an important technological advantage. ¶ Throughout 2011, this and other technologies
helped our officers detect hundreds of prohibited, dangerous, or illegal items on passengers.¶ These “good
catches” as we call them, illustrate how effective our people, process and technology are at finding
concealed metallic and non-metallic items concealed on a passenger or in their bags. ¶ In an ongoing effort
to help educate the traveling public, we highlight many of these good catches every week in blog posts
uploaded to TSA.gov. I hope some of you have seen these. They have included incidents of items
concealed in shoes, to weapons hidden in a hollowed out book, to ceramic knives, to exotic snakes
strapped to a passenger’s leg. As strange as some of these tales may be, they are a stark reminder that now
— more than 10 years after the September 11, 2001, attacks — people are still trying to bring deadly
weapons onto aircraft. And our officers are detecting numerous weapons every day and keeping them off
of planes.¶ Less than one month ago in fact, over Presidents Day weekend in February, our officers
detected 19 guns in carry-on bags at various checkpoints around the country. In total, 1,306 guns were
detected at airport checkpoints in 2011.

Threat to national security greater than ever, TSA is key to solve

Fox News 12-17-2014, ("TSA head: Threat from terrorism worse now but US better able to combat it,"
http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2014/12/17/tsa-head-threat-from-terrorism-worse-now-but-us-better-
able-to-combat-it/)

The outgoing and longest-serving head of the Transportation Security Administration says the threat from
terrorism is worse now than when he took the job four years ago, but the U.S. is better positioned to
combat foreign plots.¶ "The threat today is unfortunately more expansive than what it was four-and-a-half
years ago," John Pistole told Fox News during an interview before he leaves at the end of the month,
concluding 31 years of government service -- including 27 at the FBI, where he rose to the rank of deputy
director.¶ "With that being said, we also have better insights into who the potential bombers are," he
added.¶ From Pistole’s unique position at the TSA and FBI, he watched Al Qaeda's strategy evolve from
the 9/11 attacks that murdered nearly 3,000 Americans, to the failed underwear bomb plot to bring down
a jet on Christmas Day 2009 and the non-metallic explosive devices buried in cargo a year later. ¶
Although Al Qaeda experimented in 2012 with surgically implanted bombs before apparently abandoning
the idea as impractical, Pistole suggested they are now focused on devices held close or strapped to the
body.¶ "That is one of things that concerns us, how well do they design, construct and then conceal," he
said.¶ Pistole will become president of his alma mater, Anderson University in Anderson, Ind., this
spring.¶ Fox News asked Pistole whether the threat to American aviation had diminished since August,
when the U.S. launched a bombing campaign against ISIS in Syria and Iraq, and the Al Qaeda-led
"Khorasan" group. ¶ Khorasan contains long-time associates of Usama bin Laden, including Sanafi al-
Nasr and Muhsin al-Fadhli, as well as a handful of operatives trained by the Yemeni bomb maker Ibrahim
al-Asiri, who specializes in non-metallic bombs that traditional airport screening can miss. ¶ "Without
going into details about what that may look like from a classified intelligence perspective, we do remain
concerned that there is active plotting going on," Pistole said.¶ And with new information that the French
bomb maker David Drugeon likely survived a U.S. air strike last month, Pistole added, "there is concern
that there are still individuals out there who have not only the ability to do that, but also the intent to use
that on a flight to Europe or the US."¶ The TSA administrator also described classified procedures that
track foreign fighters, based on their travel history, before they check in at overseas airports for U.S.-
bound flights.¶ "There are individuals we are concerned about and we are again looking at if they make
travel reservations, then they of course receive proper scrutiny," Pistole said.¶ The continued threat from
groups like Khorasan explains why procedures, implemented in July, requiring passengers to turn on their
phone and computers at some airports, remain in place. As the holiday travel season begins, TSA officials
say they are not expecting big changes at the checkpoints, but if there are changes, they will be driven by
new and specific intelligence.¶ Pistole said the transition from a one-size-fits-all approach after 9/11 to a
risk-based strategy -- driven by intelligence -- is one of the TSA workforce's accomplishments. ¶ "I think
that's been one of the biggest changes. ...We're more efficient. Complaints are down. Wait times are
down," he said.¶ Data provided by the TSA showed that over Thanksgiving, more than 12.5 million
passengers were screened, a 1.3 percent increase from 2013, with nearly 50 percent of these passengers
getting expedited screening.¶ Nationwide, TSA said 99.6 percent of passengers waited in a line for less
than 20 minutes.¶ Pistole was in Australia days before the hostage situation unfolded in Sydney last
weekend, telling Fox it fit the profile of a classic lone wolf attack. "I am not aware of any intelligence
about it as of last week, there was no talk about something like that," he said. ¶ But it’s not that kind of
attack that keeps Pistole up at night.¶ "My greater concern, rather than just a lone wolf, is simultaneous
attacks such as you saw on 9/11 ... with that being said, we also have better insights into who the potential
bombers are," he said.
 Airport -- Airline attacks coming
Security expert indicates airline attack coming now
Page 15— Washington Bureau chief of USA TODAY (Susan, “CIA veteran Morell: ISIS' next test
could be a 9/11-style attack,” USA Today, May 11, 2015,
http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2015/05/10/michael-morell-cia-the-great-war/27063655/).
WM
WASHINGTON – The Islamic State simply inspired the deadly assault by two men on an exhibit of
cartoons depicting the prophet Mohammed near Dallas last week, CIA veteran Michael Morell says. But
it's only a matter of time before the jihadist group is likely to be in a position to direct more elaborate
attacks on American soil that could result in mass casualties. "If we don't get ISIS under control, we're
going to see that kind of attack," the kind of attack al-Qaeda launched on 9/11, Morell told USA
TODAY. So far, U.S. efforts haven't been effective in countering the Islamic State's success in recruiting
hundreds of American converts, he says, "and we're not effective at it because it's very hard to do." Morell
was by President George W. Bush's side at a Florida elementary school in 2001 when the president was
told hijacked airliners had crashed into the World Trade Center, and he was in the White House Situation
Room with President Obama nearly a decade later when the first word was relayed that Navy Seal Team
Six had killed Osama bin Laden. After 33 years in the CIA, including two stints as acting director, Morell
has written an account of his experiences, published Tuesday by Twelve, titled The Great War of Our
Time: The CIA's Fight Against Terrorism From Al Qa'ida to ISIS. His central point: This "great war,"
which already has tested the nation's national security and its politics, is likely to stretch for decades
more. "For as far as I can see," he says. Just last Friday, the threat level at U.S. military bases was raised
to the highest level since the 10th anniversary of 9/11, in part because of concern about the Texas attack
that left the two assailants dead. "We're very definitely in a new phase in the global terrorist threat,"
Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson warned Sunday on ABC's This Week. On Fox News Sunday,
House Homeland Security Chairman Mike McCaul, R-Texas, said the groups' sophisticated use of the
Internet means that "really, terrorism has gone viral." "It was a mistake to think that al-Qaeda died along
with bin Laden in Abbottabad," Morell says, an assumption made by some relieved Americans that he
says wasn't shared by intelligence agencies. While al-Qaeda's leadership in Afghanistan and Pakistan has
been decimated, other branches of the group have thrived, including al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula,
based in Yemen. "They today have the ability to bring down an airliner in the United States," Morell
says. "If that happened tomorrow, I would not be surprised."

ISIS will attempt 9/11 style attacks soon- masterminds currently on their side and
experts see the most dangerous combination of events
Kaplan 14—political reporter (Rebecca, “Will ISIS plan a 9/11-style terror plot against the U.S.?,”
CBS News, June 16, 2014, http://www.cbsnews.com/news/will-isis-plan-a-911-style-terror-plot-against-
the-u-s/). WM

Republicans are sounding the warning that the next 9/11-like terror plot could emerge from the
regions of Iraq and Syria that are currently dominated by an extremist group bearing down on Baghdad.
As the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) - which has already captured the cities of Tikrit and Mosul
and is threatening to take the capital city as well - grows in strength and numbers, will it pose an
immediate threat to the United States homeland as well? Experts say the group's increasing power and
reach is concerning, though it's not entirely clear when they might be able to threaten the U.S. "You've
got motivation mixed with opportunity, ideology and foreign fighters and all of that looks like a very
extreme version of Afghanistan in the '90s, plus what was happening in Iraq after the Iraq war," said CBS
News National Security Analyst Juan Zarate. "This is a cauldron of future terrorist threats to the west."
The bigger danger, Zarate said, is that the U.S. does not yet know exactly what the group will look like
once it evolves. While ISIS might not launch an attack on U.S. soil tomorrow, he said, "I think the grave
threat here is that you have the seeds of a new terrorist movement emerging very aggressively." Sen.
Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., said on CBS' "Face the Nation" Sunday that U.S. officials have warned the next
major attack on U.S. soil could emanate from the region. "The seeds of 9/11s are being
planted all over Iraq and Syria," Graham said. "They want an Islamic caliphate that runs through
Syria and Iraq...and they plan to drive us out of the Mideast by attacking us here at home." Graham's
concerns were echoed on ABC's "This Week" by Ret. Gen. Peter Chiarelli, who said that "all Americans
should be concerned" by ISIS' quick rise and success in Iraq. And on "Fox News Sunday," House
Intelligence Committee Chairman Mike Rogers, R-Mich., said, "I guarantee you: this is a problem that we
will have to face and we're either going to face it in New York City or we're going to face it here." "These
are not monkey bar terrorists out in the desert somewhere planning some very low-level attack. These are
sophisticated, command and controlled, seasoned combat veterans who understand the value of terrorism
operations external to the region, meaning Europe and the United States. That is about as dangerous a
recipe as you can put together," he said. There have been some indications this might be the group's
intent. Army Col. Kenneth King, who was the commanding officer of a U.S. detention camp in Iraq, told
the Daily Beast recently that when current ISIS head Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi was released in 2009, he said,
"I'll see you guys in New York." But Michael Morell, the former acting CIA director and a CBS News
analyst on intelligence, national security and counterterrorism issues, predicted it's at least a year before
ISIS might pose more of a serious threat to the U.S. The current major threats to the homeland still come
from al Qaeda groups in Pakistan and Yemen, he said. But, Morell added, if it looks like the U.S.
influence in Iraq is increasing once again, the threat from ISIS could also rise. "That's one of the
downsides of U.S. involvement," he told CBS News. "The more we visibly get involved in helping the
[Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki] government fight these guys, the more we become a target."

Terrorists ultimate targets are airlines- first strike and experience

Flintoff 12— (Corey, “Why Do Terrorists So Often Go For Planes?,” NPR, MAY 15, 2012,
http://www.npr.org/2012/05/15/152750767/why-do-terrorists-so-often-go-for-planes). WM
Ever since the Sept. 11 attacks, airports have probably been the most heavily guarded sites when it comes
to preventing terrorist attacks. And yet the most recent terrorism plot in Yemen involved an attempt to
blow up a U.S. airliner with a bomber wearing a difficult-to-detect explosive bomb in his underwear,
according to U.S. officials. Why do terrorist groups keep trying to defeat the multiple layers of security at
airports when there are so many soft targets? For one, a plane heading into the U.S. represents the first
available target to strike against a large number of Americans. It doesn't require reaching the U.S. first,
and then acquiring a weapon and launching an attack from U.S. soil. Also, terrorist groups have learned
from previous attacks on planes. "Terrorists like to do what they know how to do," says terrorism analyst
Jessica Stern. But the difficulty of breaching airport security does appear to be generating other
approaches. Two Different Types Of Plots Stern says she sees two trends. One involves developing new
and more sophisticated techniques for evading security measures and attacking airplanes. The other
involves "looking for low-tech ways to attack softer targets," she says. This is a way of encouraging
"leaderless resistance," says Stern, the author of Terror in the Name of God. For example, the latest issue
of Inspire, the jihadi magazine produced by the Yemen-based group al-Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula,
includes an eight-page feature that encourages readers to start wildfires in Australia and the United States.
It recommends that would-be saboteurs in the U.S. study weather patterns in order to determine when
vegetation will be dry and winds favorable for a wildfire. It specifically suggests Montana as a good site
for practicing pyro-terrorism, because of the residential housing that is in wooded areas. Stern says the
aim of terrorism is to frighten the public and push governments into over-reacting — so spectacular,
random-seeming attacks like airplane bombings work well. "Terrorists do really aim for what we call
symbolic targets," she says. "Terrorism is a form of theater, so they're going to hit targets that will make
us maximally afraid, and inflict the maximum amount of humiliation."

The structure and goals of terrorism make airplanes the best and only target
Kydd and Walter 10— associate professor of political science at the University of Wisconsin and
professor of political science at UC San Diego's Graduate School of International Relations and Pacific
Studies (Andrew H. and Barbara F., “By focusing on planes, terrorists take a calculated risk,” Los
Angeles Times, January 24, 2010, http://articles.latimes.com/2010/jan/24/opinion/la-oe-walter24-
2010jan24). WM
Targeting civilian aircraft still makes sense, from the terrorists' point of view, for at least five reasons.
First, nature is working with them. People don't naturally fly 30,000 feet above the ground at 300 mph; it
takes a very special machine. These machines are much more vulnerable than trains or ships. One person
can easily carry enough explosives to blow a hole in the side of a pressurized aircraft, which may be
enough to bring it down and kill everyone aboard. The same explosive on a train or ship would likely
only cause minor damage. Second, the costs of reduced air travel, or slower air travel, are borne by
business travelers and those with money -- exactly those people who are most likely to influence
policymakers and government decisions. Terrorists aren't attacking for the fun of it; they want to have an
impact on government policy, and the way to do that is to target those who have clout. Third, it is difficult
for these travelers to switch to another mode of transportation, given the distances involved. Much as the
folks at Cunard might wish otherwise, almost no amount of terrorism is going to persuade most people to
take a passenger ship across the Atlantic for seven days rather than fly in seven hours. This means that
demand for air travel is inelastic; travelers have little option but to bear the costs of increasing security,
lost time and risks. Fourth, people are already afraid of flying. Despite statistics showing that flying is
safer than driving, people are still more afraid of hurtling through the air in a large aluminum tube than
sliding behind the wheel for a trip to the grocery store. It's easy to play on these fears, even with
incompetent attacks that fail. Finally, our political system is structured to overreact to attacks on aircraft
and to underreact to other kinds of attacks, particularly shooting sprees. In reaction to the "shoe bomber,"
we now all take off our shoes at security checkpoints. Because of the "underwear bomber," we now may
be subject to thorough body scans before boarding a flight. The 2006 plot to blow up seven transatlantic
flights out of London cursed us with the inability to bring a bottle of water on board. Security agencies
feel duty-bound to do something, and politicians wring their hands about whether they are doing enough.
In comparison, there appears to be no limit to the number of fatalities that can be inflicted by automatic
weapons fire in the United States without generating a political reaction. Politicians limit themselves to
expressions of sorrow for the victims and the families, and then the matter is quietly dropped. One might
think this provides an opportunity for Al Qaeda to easily kill large numbers of Americans, but that misses
the point of terrorism. Killing large numbers in a way that is quickly forgotten is much less useful than
killing a few or even none in a way that causes profound ripples of fear and costly overreactions on the
part of the target group. Al Qaeda has no need to organize gun rampages against Americans if the
occasional low-budget aircraft attack does the trick.
 Airport -- 9/11 style attacks lead to war
The psychology of 9/11 attacks makes a public overreact and leads to war
Gander 15— (KASHMIRA GANDER, “US overreacted to 9/11 attacks says terror expert and next
vice-chancellor of the University of Oxford, Louise Richardson,” The Independent, 03 June 2015,
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/politics/us-overreacted-over-911-says-terror-expert-and-next-
vicechancellor-of-the-university-of-oxford-louise-richardson-10295014.html). WM
The United States overreacted to the 9/11 attacks on the Twin Towers, according to the incoming vice–chancellor of the
University of Oxford. The panic that ensued following the September 11 attacks played a part in the US launching the so-
called War on Terror. Louise Richardson, an expert in terrorism, said the US’ response was a symptom of the fact that such
attacks are a “new experience” for the country. Speaking at a higher education conference in London, the principal of the University of St
Andrews went on to argue that the UK is more resilient when it comes to terrorist attacks, due to the troubles in Northern Ireland.
Exploring the psychological impact of terrorism, she went on to argue that random attacks have such an
impact on the public because “if nobody is chosen, nobody is safe ”, the Daily Mail reported. Professor Richardson went
on to tell the audience, according to The Times: “Central to any terrorism campaign should be a resilient population and,
I have to say, the British population in the course of the Troubles and violence in Northern Ireland proved really quite resilient. “Far more so than
the United States. And the scale of the reaction - I would say over-reaction - in the United States to the 9/11 atrocity was
reflective of the fact that it was such a new experience for the United States," she added. An internationally respected scholar and author of
the study 'What Terrorist Want: Understanding the Enemy Containing the Threat', Professor Richardson often advises policy
makers on the topics of terrorism and security. Professor Richardson will become Oxford’s first female vice-chancellor when
she adopts the position in January, after she was put forward by a nominating committee led by Oxford’s chancellor, Lord Patten of Barnes.

9/11 attacks eliminate party lines and make the population permit, an even support,
invasions
Fournier 14— Senior Political Columnist at NJ (Ron, “Would We Rally Behind Obama After the Next
9/11?,” National Journal, August 11, 2014, http://www.nationaljournal.com/white-house/would-we-rally-
behind-obama-after-the-next-9-11-20140811). WM
But I can't shake another, darker, question. What if we get hit again with a 9/11-sized attack? More to the
point, hypothetically, would a crisis pull us together or drive us apart? It's a morbid question worth asking
before the worst happens, because there's reason to worry about the durability of what Lincoln called "the
better angels of our nature." What can we learn from the Bush era? Well, the nation immediately rallied
behind the fledgling president (Bush had been in office only about seven months). Members of Congress
famously locked arms on the East Front steps of the Capitol and sang "God Bless America." Bush's
approval ratings soared to 90 percent, as he ordered U.S. troops into Afghanistan to defeat the
Taliban and hunt for Osama bin Laden.

Symbolic 9/11 style attacks reinforce the war on terror mindset that we need to
invade any country that harbors terrorists, making interventions inevitable
Giannella 12– University of Kent, Political Strategy and Communication (Margherita, “US: did 9/11
attacks provide a moral and legal justification to enter the war against Afghanistan?,” Acadmia, 2012,
http://www.academia.edu/2626532/US_did_9_11_attacks_provide_a_moral_and_legal_justification_to_e
nter_the_war_against_Afghanistan). WM

INTRODUCTION The morning of 11 th September 2001, the American soil was subjected to a series of
air attacks destined to remain stamped in world people’s memory. Four planes were hijacked to strike the
economic and military nerve centers. The first two, American Airlines Flight 11 and United Airlines
Flight 175, crashed into the Twin Towers of the World Trade Center complex in New York City; the third
one, American Airlines Flight 77, into the Pentagon in Washington D.C. while the last one, United
Airlines Flight 93, missed the expected target falling into Pennsylvania. Nearly 3 thousand people died in
the attacks. The official governmental version ascribed the attacks to 19 terrorists. In fact, in the first
presidential speech released to the Nation on the evening of 9/11, Bush did not clarify who were
responsible for the attacks since he mostly centred his speech on the bravery and altruism of 4 American
citizens and on the government solidity and strength. Only 9 days after, President Bush, by addressing to
a Joint Session of Congress and the American people, would link the 19 hijackers to Al Qaeda and in
particular to its leader, Osama bin Laden. Thus, he condemned the Taliban regime accused of sponsoring
shelter and supply to terrorists. However, Bush said “ Our war on terror begins with al Qaeda, but it does
not end there. It will not end until every terrorist group of global reach has been found, stopped
and defeated”. So the logic apparently relies on the assumption that the US could destroy the terrorism
and all of Al-Qaeda, which has hundreds of cells throughout the world, by finding and eliminating bin
Laden, who resided in Afghanistan even if terrorists appeared to have had their headquarters, funding and
religious roots in Saudi Arabia. Therefore, President Bush declared a global war on terror which, by
starting from Afghanistan, would have stricken all those countries linked to terrorist cells 1 . However
Bush and his government would not ask questions about why the attack occurred, what the terrorists
might have wanted or even the ideology which inspired them to kill themselves. Instead, the President
simply stated they “hate us because we are free”. Thus , according to Bush, terrorists had struck America
because the nation represented freedom.
 Domestic Surveillance
Domestic surveillance stops terrorism
AFP 5/31/15 [“CIA Chief: Ending NSA Spying Would Boost Terror Threat”, Security Week,
http://www.securityweek.com/cia-chief-ending-nsa-spying-would-boost-terror-threat] Schuler 39
CIA chief John Brennan warned Sunday that allowing vital surveillance programs to expire could
increase terror threats, as the US Senate convened for a crunch debate on whether to renew the
controversial provisions. With key counterterrorism programs set to expire at midnight Sunday, the top
intelligence official made a final pitch to senators, arguing that the bulk data collection of telephone
records of millions of Americans unconnected to terrorism has not abused civil liberties and only
serves to safeguard citizens. "This is something that we can't afford to do right now," Brennan said of
allowing the expiration of counterterrorism provisions, which "sunset" at the end of May 31. "Because if
you look at the horrific terrorist attacks and violence being perpetrated around the globe, we need to keep
our country safe, and our oceans are not keeping us safe the way they did century ago," he said CBS'
"Face the Nation" talk show. Brennan added that groups like Islamic State have followed the
developments "very carefully" and are "looking for the seams to operate." The House has already passed a
reform bill, the USA Freedom Act, that would end the telephone data dragnet by the National Security
Agency and require a court order for the NSA to access specific records from the vast data base retained
by telecommunications companies. If no action is taken by the Senate Sunday, authorities will be forced
to shut down the bulk collection program and two other provisions, which allow roving wiretaps of terror
suspects who change their mobile phone numbers and the tracking of lone-wolf suspects. Senator Rand
Paul, a Republican 2016 presidential candidate adamantly opposed to reauthorizing the surveillance, is
threatening to delay votes on the reform bill or an extension of the original USA Patriot Act. That would
force the counterterrorism provisions to lapse until at least Wednesday. Former NSA chief Michael
Hayden, who is also a former CIA director, equated such a temporary lapse as "giving up threads" in a
broader protective fabric. "It may not make a difference for a while. Then again, it might," he told CNN's
State of the Union. "Over the longer term, I'm willing to wager, it will indeed make a difference."

Domestic surveillance is vital to the intelligence necessary to deter and disrupt

terrorism
Sims, 7 (Jessica Sims, Senior Fellow in National Intelligence at the Chicago Council on Foreign Affairs,
“Intelligence to counter terror: The importance of allsource fusion”, Intelligence and National Security
Volume 22, Issue 1. 3/15/7. http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/02684520701200772) KW
This is the story of MASK – the codename for MI-5’s penetration of the Communist Party of Great Britain during the period between the two world wars. Although
the details of the story are worth rereading in the post-9/11 political context, just the
facts summarized above suggest three truths about
counterintelligence operations directed against networks: they involve intrusive domestic operations,
often against domestically based groups designed to ‘disappear’ within the societies in which they
operate; they require patient accumulation of data over a lengthy period of time; and they depend on
information fused from a variety of widely differing sources . These three ingredients, essential for
such operations almost a century ago, are still important in the age of global, digitalized information
flows and transnational threats. In fact, the new, digital environment has made transnational crimes vastly
easier to coordinate on a worldwide scale than was possible before World War II. It has also exacerbated
a most serious challenge: governments attempting to stop terrorists – particularly democracies – are expected to do
so without undermining the laws, representative principles and informal confidences upon which a culture
of democracy depends. Unfortunately, what Britain succeeded in doing against its domestic threat – to the satisfaction of the British public – was done
even ‘better’ within the militarized German state by Hitler’s Gestapo and Waffen SS (Schultzstaffel). If, as President Truman once promised the American people, we
are not in the business of creating a Gestapo in this country, what are the proper limits of our counterintelligence business? ¶ The purpose of this article is to examine
the modern intelligence requirements for countering terror in order to appreciate this challenge in greater depth and to develop a reasoned basis for balancing
counterintelligence capabilities with civil liberties. What is meant by all-source data fusion in intelligence work and how necessary is it against terrorists? How
necessary are government-wide databases of digitalized information and why does the idea of connecting them worry civil libertarians? If, as the post-9/11
commissions have suggested, one of the US government’s worst intelligence failures during this tragedy was the lack of adequate data fusion and analysis, what has
been done about it and can we do more without intolerable risks to our social and moral fabric? ¶ To explore these questions, this article will begin by considering the
nature of the terrorists we face and the requirements for good intelligence operations against them. Historical examples will illustrate that there are lessons to be
learned from the defeat of similar threats in the past, including the recurring ways in which challenges to civil liberties arise as democracies optimize intelligence in
the name of security. Second, we will run through the special opportunities and challenges modern technology presents. Third, we will discuss an essential next step
for democracies threatened by terrorists in their midst. ¶ As has been repeatedly pointed out, terrorism is a tool, not an adversary. Yet
adversaries who use this tool reveal much about themselves. They are ruthless, have strategies and tactics
that require operational access to their victims, and they are able to organize in pursuit of their goals .
Moreover, unless psychopathic, they use terror because they have no alternative that offers as much opportunity to
win battles as this method does. Public access to national treasures and freedom to organize are integral to
western democracies’ most vital interests. Democracies intent on fighting adversaries that exploit
openness to kill massively risk undermining themselves. To counter such adversaries at the strategic level
may require understanding their larger purposes in order to deflect, overcome or undermine them. But to
defeat them at the tactical level, one must deny them access, disrupt their ability to organize, or deny them
their ‘victories’ even if their tactics succeed. One must know what they are doing and either catch
them at it or refuse to flinch – ideally both. Intelligence, in any case, is essential.¶ The Role of Intelligence¶
‘Intelligence’ is best understood as the collection, analysis and dissemination of information by parties in
conflict or competition. What turns the simple pursuit of information into the business of intelligence is
its purpose: gaining competitive advantage over adversaries .3 This goal fuels the desire for specific, urgent and often secret
knowledge as well as a systematic way of obtaining it in time to win the contest. Given that the context is competition, such ‘decision advantages’
can be acquired in two ways: by getting better information for one’s strategy than one’s opponents gain
for theirs, or by degrading the competitors’ decision-making through denial, disruption, deception,
or surprise.4 This latter category of activity is called counterintelligence. More than just security,
counterintelligence involves discovering what opponents think they need to know and then using this
information to block, disorient, confuse and ultimately beat them. In virulent or hostile competitions,
increasing the speed of one’s own decision-making and the mobility of the decision-makers, may
unbalance the opponent more than trying to discern and defend all the information believed to be critical
to that opponent’s strategy – a process that can actually slow decision-making down and cripple one’s
offensive. Of course, the best way to protect an intelligence system is to own the adversary’s intelligence
system through the use of moles, double agents and the like.¶ Gangs, bureaucrats and football teams all use a form of intelligence
to gain advantages over their competitors.5 The more intense and lawless the competition, such as in international
politics, the more secretive intelligence operations tend to become and the more decisive the potential
advantages they offer. In fact, for states, intelligence can be more than a life or death enterprise; it can
entail the end of nations and cultures.6 For these reasons, secrecy is often viewed as a necessary
component of national or transnational intelligence efforts. It is more accurate, however, to think of
secrecy as an attribute of a relatively good intelligence effort – not an essential requirement for it. Some
contestants’ counterintelligence capabilities are so poor that they are not aware of what information they
need to protect in order to beat their adversaries. Or they believe their relative agility makes such
protection unnecessary. To try to defeat such opponents by only looking for the secrets they protect would
lead to failure. Intelligence must instead work to collect the information that provides the competitor with
a decision advantage over opponents – whether that information is secret or not – and to assume
adversaries are doing likewise.

Domestic surveillance stops terrorism by maximizing the effectiveness of the US

technological advantage
Posner, 8 (Richard Allen Posner is an American jurist and economist, who is a judge on the United
States Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit in Chicago and a Senior Lecturer at the University of
Chicago Law School. 2008. University of Chicago Law School; Chicago Unbound.
http://chicagounbound.uchicago.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=2808&context=journal_articles) KW
We should be playing to our strengths, and one of the greatest of them is technology. We may not be
able to prevail against terrorism with one hand tied behind our back. Critics of surveillance argue
that since our enemies know that we monitor electronic communications, they will foil us by simply
ceasing to use such communications. That is wrong. We know it is wrong because we do intercept
terrorist communications. 24 But if it were true that our monitoring caused the terrorists to abandon the
telephone and the internet, that would be an enor- mous victory for counterterrorism , as it is
extremely difficult to coordinate and execute a major terrorist attack if all communications among
the plotters must be face to face to avoid detection . The greater danger is that encryption and other relatively cheap
and simple countermeasures will defeat our surveillance. Opponents of efforts to amend FISA point out that the
Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court has almost never turned down an application for a warrant. In
2005, for example, although more than 2,000 applications were filed, not a single one was denied in
whole or in part. 5 The inference the critics wish drawn is that FISA is not inhibiting surveillance . The
correct inference is that the Justice Department is too conservative in seeking warrants . The analogy is to
a person who has never missed a plane in his life because he contrives always to arrive at the airport eight
hours before the scheduled departure time. The effect of our legalistic culture is to cause law enforcement
agencies, notably the FBI, to avoid not only violating the law but also steering so close to the wind that
they might be accused, albeit groundlessly, of violating the law or of being "insensitive" to values that inform
the law, even when those values have not been enacted into law.

Surveillance need more than ever

Inserra 6/29 [David - specializes in homeland security and cybersecurity issues at the Allison Center
for Foreign and National Security Policy at The Heritage Foundation. “Turning the tide on terrorism”,
The Heritage Foundation, 6/29/15, http://www.heritage.org/research/commentary/2015/6/turning-tide-on-
terrorism] Schuler 48
Their surveillance operation blown, the police moved in and arrested Saleh and the other conspirator who
ran at the police vehicle. After questioning Saleh, the FBI learned that the group had planned to use a
bomb, run over law enforcement that responded with a car, and then take their weapons to attack others.
Saleh pledged full allegiance to Islamic State and claimed that his co-conspirators had also. When the FBI
went to arrest Mumuni on June 17, he stabbed an FBI agent multiple times, but the agent's vest prevented
the knife from doing any serious injury. The Saleh case, one of three foiled attacks in June alone, shows
why law enforcement and intelligence officials need more tools to stop terrorists before they strike -
not fewer, as some lawmakers have suggested. Legitimate government surveillance programs, for
example, are a vital component of our national security and should be allowed to continue. Greater cyber-
investigation capabilities in the higher-risk urban areas are also essential. With so much terrorism-
related activity occurring on the Internet, local law enforcement should be able to monitor and
track violent extremist activity on the Web when reasonable suspicion exists to do so. Greater
intelligence and law enforcement cooperation is also needed to uncover and neutralize terrorist plots,
curtail the flow of foreign fighters to Syria, and monitor the activities of foreign fighters who have
returned to the U.S. and other countries. This doesn't mean we allow anything in the name of national
security. Far from it. The government has an obligation to follow the law and respect individual privacy
and liberty. But within those necessary strictures, we should give our law enforcement and intelligence
officials all the tools they need - to ensure that any future aspiring terrorists remain as unknown as
Munther Omar Selah.
 Spies/DITU
DITU key to intelligence and counterterrorism efforts.
Harris, 13 (Shane Harris is a senior staff writer at Foreign Policy, covering intelligence and cyber
security. He is the author of The Watchers: The Rise of America's Surveillance State, which chronicles
the creation of a vast national security apparatus and the rise of surveillance in America, 11/23/13,
Foreign Policy, “Meet the Spies Doing the NSA’s Dirty Work”,
http://foreignpolicy.com/2013/11/21/meet-the-spies-doing-the-nsas-dirty-work/) KW
With every fresh leak, the world learns more about the U.S. National Security Agency’s massive and
controversial surveillance apparatus. Lost in the commotion has been the story of the NSA’s
indispensable partner in its global spying operations: an obscure, clandestine unit of the Federal Bureau of
Investigation that, even for a surveillance agency, keeps a low profile.
When the media and members of Congress say the NSA spies on Americans, what they really mean is
that the FBI helps the NSA do it, providing a technical and legal infrastructure that permits the NSA,
which by law collects foreign intelligence, to operate on U.S. soil. It’s the FBI, a domestic U.S. law
enforcement agency, that collects digital information from at least nine American technology companies
as part of the NSA’s Prism system. It was the FBI that petitioned the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance
Court to order Verizon Business Network Services, one of the United States’ biggest telecom carriers for
corporations, to hand over the call records of millions of its customers to the NSA.¶ But the FBI is no
mere errand boy for the United States’ biggest intelligence agency. It carries out its own signals
intelligence operations and is trying to collect huge amounts of email and Internet data from U.S.
companies — an operation that the NSA once conducted, was reprimanded for, and says it abandoned.¶
The heart of the FBI’s signals intelligence activities is an obscure organization called the Data Intercept
Technology Unit, or DITU (pronounced DEE-too). The handful of news articles that mentioned it prior to
revelations of NSA surveillance this summer did so mostly in passing. It has barely been discussed in
congressional testimony. An NSA PowerPoint presentation given to journalists by former NSA contractor
Edward Snowden hints at DITU’s pivotal role in the NSA’s Prism system — it appears as a nondescript
box on a flowchart showing how the NSA "task[s]" information to be collected, which is then gathered
and delivered by the DITU.¶ But interviews with current and former law enforcement officials, as well as
technology industry representatives, reveal that the unit is the FBI’s equivalent of the National Security
Agency and the primary liaison between the spy agency and many of America’s most important
technology companies, including Google, Facebook, YouTube, and Apple.¶ The DITU is located in a sprawling
compound at Marine Corps Base Quantico in Virginia, home of the FBI’s training academy and the bureau’s Operational Technology Division, which runs all the
FBI’s technical intelligence collection, processing, and reporting. Its motto: "Vigilance Through Technology." The DITU
is responsible for
intercepting telephone calls and emails of terrorists and foreign intelligence targets inside the United
States. According to a senior Justice Department official, the NSA could not do its job without the
DITU’s help. The unit works closely with the "big three" U.S. telecommunications companies — AT&T,
Verizon, and Sprint — to ensure its ability to intercept the telephone and Internet communications of its
domestic targets, as well as the NSA’s ability to intercept electronic communications transiting through
the United States on fiber-optic cables.¶ For Prism, the DITU maintains the surveillance equipment that
captures what the NSA wants from U.S. technology companies, including archived emails, chat-room
sessions, social media posts, and Internet phone calls. The unit then transmits that information to the
NSA, where it’s routed into other parts of the agency for analysis and used in reports.¶ After Prism was disclosed in
the Washington Post and the Guardian, some technology company executives claimed they knew nothing about a
collection program run by the NSA. And that may have been true. The companies would likely have
interacted only with officials from the DITU and others in the FBI and the Justice Department, said
sources who have worked with the unit to implement surveillance orders.¶ "The DITU is the main
interface with providers on the national security side ," said a technology industry representative who has worked with the unit on many
occasions. It ensures that phone companies as well as Internet service and email providers are complying with
surveillance law and delivering the information that the government has demanded and in the format that
it wants. And if companies aren’t complying or are experiencing technical difficulties, they can expect a
visit from the DITU’s technical experts to address the problem.¶ * * *¶ Recently, the DITU has helped
construct data-filtering software that the FBI wants telecom carriers and Internet service providers to
install on their networks so that the government can collect large volumes of data about emails and
Internet traffic.¶ The software, known as a port reader, makes copies of emails as they flow through a
network. Then, in practically an instant, the port reader dissects them, removing only the metadata that has been
approved by a court.¶ The FBI has built metadata collection systems before. In the late 1990s, it deployed the Carnivore system, which the DITU helped
manage, to pull header information out of emails. But the FBI today is after much more than just traditional metadata — who
sent a message and who received it. The FBI wants as many as 13 individual fields of information,
according to the industry representative. The data include the route a message took over a network,
Internet protocol addresses, and port numbers, which are used to handle different kinds of incoming and
outgoing communications. Those last two pieces of information can reveal where a computer is
physically located — perhaps along with its user — as well as what types of applications and operating
system it’s running. That information could be useful for government hackers who want to install
spyware on a suspect’s computer — a secret task that the DITU also helps carry out.¶ The DITU devised the port
reader after law enforcement officials complained that they weren’t getting enough information from emails and Internet traffic. The FBI has argued that under the
Patriot Act, it has the authority to capture metadata and doesn’t need a warrant to get them. Some federal prosecutors have gone to court to compel port reader
adoption, the industry representative said. If a company failed to comply with a court order, it could be held in contempt. ¶ The FBI’s pursuit of Internet metadata bears
striking similarities to the NSA’s efforts to obtain the same information. After the 9/11 terrorist attacks, the agency began collecting the information under a secret
order signed by President George W. Bush. Documents that were declassified Nov. 18 by Barack Obama’s administration show that the agency ran afoul of the
Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court after it discovered that the NSA was collecting more metadata than the court had allowed. The NSA abandoned the Internet
metadata collection program in 2011, according to administration officials. ¶ But the FBI has been moving ahead with its own efforts, collecting more metadata than it
has in the past. It’s not clear how many companies have installed the port reader, but at least two firms are pushing back, arguing that because it captures an entire
email, including content, the government needs a warrant to get the information. The government counters that the emails are only copied for a fraction of a second
and that no content is passed along to the government, only metadata. The port reader is designed also to collect information about the size of communications packets
and traffic flows, which can help analysts better understand how communications are moving on a network. It’s unclear whether this data is considered metadata or
content; it appears to fall within a legal gray zone, experts said.¶ * * *¶ The DITU
also runs a bespoke surveillance service, devising
or building technology capable of intercepting information when the companies can’t do it themselves. In
the early days of social media, when companies like LinkedIn and Facebook were starting out, the unit
worked with companies on a technical solution for capturing information about a specific target without
also capturing information related to other people to whom the target was connected, such as comments
on posts, shared photographs, and personal data from other people’s profiles, according to a technology
expert who was involved in the negotiations.¶ The technicians and engineers who work at the DITU have to stay up to date on the latest
trends and developments in technology so that the government doesn’t find itself unable to tap into a new system. Many DITU employees used to work for the
telecom companies that have to implement government surveillance orders, according to the industry representative. "There are a lot of people with inside knowledge
about how telecommunications work. It’s probably more intellectual property than the carriers are comfortable with the FBI knowing." ¶ The DITU has also
intervened to ensure that the government maintains uninterrupted access to the latest commercial
technology. According to the Guardian, the unit worked with Microsoft to "understand" potential obstacles to surveillance in a new feature of Outlook.com that
let users create email aliases. At the time, the NSA wanted to make sure that it could circumvent Microsoft’s encryption and maintain access to Outlook messages. In
a statement to the Guardian, Microsoft said, "When we upgrade or update products we aren’t absolved from the need to comply with existing or future lawful
demands." It’s the DITU’s job to help keep companies in compliance. In other instances, the unit will go to
companies that manufacture surveillance software and ask them to build in particular capabilities, the industry
representative said.¶ The DITU falls under the FBI’s Operational Technology Division, home to agents,
engineers, electronic technicians, computer forensics examiners, and analysts who "support our most
significant investigations and national security operations with advanced electronic surveillance, digital
forensics, technical surveillance, tactical operations, and communications capabilities," according to the
FBI’s website. Among its publicly disclosed capabilities are surveillance of "wireline, wireless, and data
network communication technologies"; collection of digital evidence from computers, including audio
files, video, and images; "counter-encryption" support to help break codes; and operation of what the FBI
claims is "the largest fixed land mobile radio system in the U.S."¶ The Operational Technology Division
also specializes in so-called black-bag jobs to install surveillance equipment, as well as computer
hacking, referred to on the website as "covert entry/search capability," which is carried out under law
enforcement and intelligence warrants.¶ The tech experts at Quantico are the FBI’s silent cybersleuths. "While [the division’s]
work doesn’t typically make the news, the fruits of its labor are evident in the busted child pornography
ring, the exposed computer hacker, the prevented bombing, the averted terrorist plot, and the prosecuted
corrupt official," according to the website.¶ According to former law enforcement officials and technology industry experts, the DITU is among the
most secretive and sophisticated outfits at Quantico. The FBI declined Foreign Policy‘s request for an interview about the unit. But in a written statement, an FBI
spokesperson said it "plays
a key role in providing technical expertise, services, policy guidance, and support to
the FBI and the intelligence community in collecting evidence and intelligence through the use of
lawfully authorized electronic surveillance."
 Increasing Transparency Links

Increasing transparency increases terrorism risks because terrorists can take

advantage of the information

SENATOR CHARLES GRASSLEY (R-IA), July 31, 2013, Hearing of the Senate Judiciary Committee
Subject: "Strengthening Privacy Rights and National Security: Oversight of FISA (Foreign Intelligence
Surveillance Act) Surveillance Programs" https://www.hsdl.org/?view&did=741931

Finally, increased transparency is a worthy goal in general. And as I suggested before, whenever we can
talk about these programs, I think there's less questions out there in the minds of people, and we probably
created some public relations problems for us and for this program and for our national security
community because maybe we haven't made enough information available. I say that understanding that
we can't tell our enemies what we -- what tools we use. But if we consider any reform that may bring
more transparency to the FISA process, we should keep in mind, then, that every piece of information we
make available to the public will be read by a determined adversary, and that adversary has already
demonstrated the capacity to kill thousands of Americans, even on our own soil.
 Domestic Anti-Terrorism Key

DOMESTIC ANTITERRORISM IS KEY- IT'S THE LINCHPIN TO ALL OTHER

STRATEGIES

Michael Massing, Journalist, 2001

[The American Prospect, " Home-Court Advantage: What the War on Drugs Teaches Us about the War
on Terrorism, 12/3, 12: 21, http://prospect.org/article/home-court-advantage]

Might not the same be true with terrorism? There is no treatment analogy, of course. But if our main goal
is to prevent future terrorist attacks, wouldn't it be more effective to concentrate our enforcement efforts
here, in the United States, instead of operating on the hostile terrain of the Middle East? In all the talk
about unleashing the CIA, it's often overlooked that the perpetrators of September 11 had been living
in this country for years. In detecting and rooting out terrorists, shouldn't we tend primarily to our
own backyard? The Home Team Emphasizing prevention at home would offer a number of
advantages. First, it's much easier to carry out undercover work here than abroad. Agents face
fewer hazards in San Diego, Trenton, and Boca Raton than they do in Beirut, Cairo, or Peshawar. And we
have many more resources here. In addition to the FBI and other federal agencies, thousands of
local police officers are working on terrorism in cities across the country. In the drug war, the local
police have led the way in dismantling drug gangs, and they could make a similar contribution toward
uprooting terrorist networks. Furthermore, when it comes to obtaining "HUMINT"--the critical
"human intelligence" collected by investigative agencies--the millions of loyal American Muslims
living in this country would seem a far more fruitful source than Islamic fundamentalists in the
Middle East. Finally, concentrating on domestic law enforcement would avoid the types of covert
actions that have proved so costly and embarrassing in the past.
 Counterterrorism Generally Effective
Efforts to track-down and arrest terrorists are effective

Heritage Foundation, August 2011, Homeland Security 2010, http://www.heritage.org/Events/2011/08/Terror-

Trends?query=Terrorism+by+the+Numbers:+Understanding+U.S+and+Global+Trends

A decade after the 9/11 terrorist attacks and after the demise of Osama bin Laden, looking back is as
important as looking forward, in order to learn from the past and to examine the current and future threats
facing the United States. Domestically, since the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, at least 40
terror plots against the U.S. have been foiled thanks to domestic and international cooperation, as well
as efforts to track down terror leads in local communities. Likewise, on a global scale, from 1969 to
2009, there were a staggering 38,345 terrorist incidents around the world, with nearly 3,000 targeted at the
United States alone. These numbers serve as a reminder that terrorists have not relented in their desire to
harm the United States and its people – America needs to remain vigilant. Join us as our panelists
discuss the nature of the terrorist threat to the United States and U.S. counterterrorism policy since 9/11.

Existing US counterterrorism efforts effective

Bergen, et al, September 2013, Jihadist Terrorism: A Threat Assessment,

http://bipartisanpolicy.org/sites/default/files/Jihadist%20Terrorism-A%20Threat%20Assesment_0.pdf Peter
Bergen is the author of four books about al-Qaeda, three of which were New York Times best sellers. The books have been translated into 20 languages. He is the
director of the National Security Program at the New America Foundation in Washington, D.C.; a fellow at Fordham University’s Center on National Security; and
CNN’s national security analyst. He has held teaching positions at the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University and at the School of Advanced
International Studies at Johns Hopkins University.¶ Bruce Hoffman is a professor at Georgetown University’s Edmund A. Walsh School of Foreign Service, where he
is also the director of both the Center for Security Studies and the Security Studies Program. He previously held the corporate chair in counterterrorism and
counterinsurgency at the RAND Corporation and was the scholar-in-residence for counterterrorism at the CIA between 2004 and 2006.¶ Michael Hurley is the
president of Team 3i LLC, an international strategy company, and advises the Bipartisan Policy Center’s Homeland Security Project. He led the 9/11 Commission’s
counterterrorism policy investigation, as well as CIA personnel in Afghanistan immediately after the 9/11 attacks. He retired from the CIA following a 25-year career
and has served as director on the National Security Council staff.¶ Erroll Southers is the associate director of research transition at the Department of Homeland
Security’s National Center for Risk and Economic Analysis of Terrorism Events (CREATE) at the University of Southern California, where he is an adjunct professor
in the Sol Price Schoolof Public Policy. He is a former FBI special agent and was President Barack Obama’s nominee for the Transportation Security Administration,
as well as Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger’s deputy director for the California Office of Homeland Security and the chief of homeland security and intelligence for
the LAX Police Department. He is the author of Homegrown Violent Extremism.)

As detailed above, al-Qaeda has weakened considerably over the past few years, while U.S. defenses have been
strengthened. Just consider the following changes since the 9/11 attacks:

On 9/11, there were 16 people on the “no fly” list. Now there are more than 20,000.

In 2001, there were 32 Joint Terrorism Task Force “fusion centers ” where multiple law enforcement agencies work
together to chase down leads to build terrorism cases. Now there are 103.

A decade ago, the Department of Homeland Security, National Counterterrorism Center, Transportation Security
Administration, U.S. Northern Command, and U.S. Cyber Command didn’t exist. All of these new institutions currently
make it much harder for terrorists to operate in the United States.

Before 9/11, Special Operations Forces were rarely deployed against al-Qaeda and allied groups. Now they perform
nearly a dozen operations every day in Afghanistan, as well as missions in other countries such as Yemen and Somalia.

At the beginning of the 21st century, the American public didn’t comprehend the threat posed by jihadist terrorists, but that
changed dramatically after 9/11. In December 2001, it was passengers who disabled Richard Reid, “the shoe bomber.” Similarly,
it was fellow passengers who tackled Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, the “underwear bomber,” eight years later. And the following
year, it was a street vendor who spotted the bomb-laden SUV Faisal Shahzad had parked in Times Square.
Before 9/11, the CIA and the FBI barely communicated about their respective investigations of terrorist groups. Now they
work together quite closely.

The U.S. intelligence budget grew dramatically after 9/11, giving the government large resources with which to improve
its counterterrorism capabilities. In 2010, the United States spent more than $80 billion on intelligence collection and other covert
activities, a total more than three times what it spent in 1998.
 OCOs

OCO’s are vital to target ISIS use of the internet – prevents cyber attacks and
disrupts command and control
Van de Velde, 15 - adjunct professor at the Johns Hopkins University, Georgetown University, and the
National Intelligence University (James, “Crash Their Comms” The American Interest, http://www.the-
american-interest.com/2015/06/10/crash-their-comms/

Going on Cyber Offense

At the moment, the web presence of Islamist extremists is a sort of “gateway drug” into the cyber world.
If the United States and its allies do not address it now, they may have to accept extremist cyber activity
of increasing breadth and sophistication, with greater cyberspace consequences. Terrorist use of
cyberspace also works to internationalize the Islamist fight. In a sense, the “cyber jihad” world is flat,
connecting individuals worldwide who might not otherwise have been connected.
If Islamist extremists turn their attention to disruption and destruction through the web, they are likely to
conduct distributed denial of service (DDOS) attacks and threaten the controls for electric power grids, oil
pipelines, and water systems. Should social media accounts become useful for disseminating cyber
weapons, Islamists would gain additional capacity.
Threat is a function of expertise and access. Fortunately, the Islamic State’s cyber expertise overall is low,
as is its access to high-quality advice or tutelage. But unlike with the development of WMD, both
expertise in and access to cyber capabilities can change overnight, particularly should a capable
revisionist state or individual decide to assist the Islamic State. With WMD, a research-and-development
phase exists during which U.S. and other intelligence services can discern, evaluate, and plan accordingly.
With cyber weapons, space, time, and geography offer up no comparable advantages. Delivery methods
for cyber weapons are much easier to devise and disseminate, and have little to no lead-time (no lengthy
research and development phase). In short, the targets would likely not see it coming.
There is reason for concern. A 2013 edition of Inspire called upon jihadists to burn parked cars, make oil
slicks to cause car accidents, and puncture tires with nails hammered into blocks of wood. It used to be
that al-Qaeda wanted a spectacular follow-on attack to 9/11 and desired to take on the West as a whole. It
did not want just any attack; it wanted a good one. Today, al-Qaeda affiliates seem to be calling for any
attack, even those as comparatively minor as an individual picking up an AK-47 or using a private vehicle
to run over people. The Islamic State’s online magazine, Dabiq, has called for its supporters living in
Western countries to rise up individually and attack law enforcement and government officials. It seems
to have abandoned the long-sought “spectacular” follow-up to 9/11. It is reasonable to think al-Qaeda’s
attitude toward cyber weapons may change too.
Should just the right expert hacker join the Islamic State or al-Qaeda, whether for money or out of
sympathy, either group could move overnight from a cyber nuisance to a serious cyber power. It is not
inconceivable that rivals to the United States, Israel, or the cultural West in general such as Iran might
provide such cyber weapons to al-Qaeda, or even to its enemy the Islamic State. Tehran might do so as a
means to fight the United States asymmetrically, divert U.S. attention from its nuclear weapons program
or its support for Shi‘a terrorists worldwide, or simply create a deeply distracting economic drain for the
United States.
Further, the forensic attribution problem for the United States and its allies, should a cyber weapon be
used against it, would be horrendous. The cyber weapon might appear to be Russian- or Chinese- or
Iranian-made if its code were originally written in one of those countries, but that will not mean the
weapon was delivered by that state. Regardless of whether al-Qaeda or the Islamic State took credit for
the attack, the United States might be confused as to who created such a cyber weapon, who sent it and
why, and how to defend against a repeat attack.
So far, the Islamic State has not been too interested in cyber weapons for three probable reasons: cyber
weapons are not spectacular enough in their destruction (messing with websites and infrastructure is not
as powerful an image as a beheading video); it lacks the technical ability to create such weapons; and
“cyber jihad 2.0” has served it well thus far. Despite some setbacks, the Islamic State is currently flushed
with success—why change anything?
One of those successes is of a particularly unusual and alarming nature. Most Islamic State supporters
today were teenagers when 9/11 occurred and are children of the internet and social media. Their
radicalization is very recent; it is a post-bin Laden phenomenon. Their motivation for joining the Islamic
State has more to do with the dynamics of a social network that provides direction, identity, and
excitement than it does with religious understanding. The Islamic State dangles the opportunity to join
something new and exciting in front of bored and disaffected teens.19 This social media strategy is aimed
purposefully at youth worldwide. How does this work?
Islamic State videos take the traditional Western narrative, that Islamist extremists kill Muslims and are
wanton, heretical murderers, and stand it on its head. It has made images of murder the centerpiece of its
new message. Its production quality is so good that it has spawned the term “jihadi cool.” Whereas al-
Qaeda produced rather flat websites that merely posted radical content (“cyber jihad 1.0”), the Islamic
State produces videos and online magazines that are on par in quality, editing, and message delivery with
current Western media. It practices “cyber jihad 2.0” at the least through its production quality and
cutting-edge use of social media. It keeps pace with advances in Western media production, aided, no
doubt, by the many Western supporters it has managed to attract. Its video production, in particular, is
constantly uploaded, taken down but then uploaded again to numerous video sites so that it ultimately
reaches its intended audience.20 Islamic State videos proclaim righteous victory over the Shi‘a and other
so-called non-believers, about which there is nothing unusual or unexpected. But it showcases acts of
brutality, a new phenomenon that Western analysts ignore at all our peril. ISIS professionals have
managed to frame brutality in such a way that it engenders pride and a sense of inclusion, rather than
revulsion.
It does not occur to most normal adults in Western countries how this can work. We do not readily
understand why a first- or second-generation Muslim living in London, or Amsterdam, or Marseilles, or
Toronto would want to leave a typical middle-class life to go wallow in blood in the middle of the Syrian
desert. Until we do come to understand this, and understand why some such people are attracted by the
opportunity to do unspeakably brutal things to total strangers, we will never defeat the Islamic State.
What to Do
To repeat, the strategic goal of the U.S. government is to defeat al-Qaeda and the Islamic State. To do so,
the United States must shut down the insidious messages of its jihadi enemies and contest their presence
on the internet. Counter-Islamist efforts, therefore, must make it a priority to shut down its militant
websites and social media.
Well-meaning professionals argue that these websites and social media outlets serve as the means to
identify, monitor, and assess jihadi groups and their sympathizers. But the argument that the intelligence
loss would outweigh the gain of contesting these sites misunderstands the end goal: denying the enemy’s
ability to recruit, support operations, pass weapons information and formulae, and promote extremist
ideology that encourages terrorism. The point is to end the threat, not write reports about it.
 Internet key to ISIS

The internet is the most important venue for terrorist communication -

Van de Velde, 15 - adjunct professor at the Johns Hopkins University, Georgetown University, and the
National Intelligence University (James, “Crash Their Comms” The American Interest, http://www.the-
american-interest.com/2015/06/10/crash-their-comms/

The Islamic State of Iraq and al-Sham (ISIS) would not exist today were it not for its prolific and shrewd
use of the internet and social media. Al-Qaeda would have likely died years ago, too, had its appeal not
been kept alive by the same means. Without contesting extremist use of the internet, the United States and
its allies will fail to defeat the Islamic State and to eliminate al-Qaeda, both of which are, let us
remember, the stated goals of U.S. policy. Certainly, bombing ISIS without a broad and complementary
political strategy will not work, and may even prove counterproductive in the long run by strengthening
evidence for the radical Salafi narrative that all means of defense are justifiable since the West started a
war with Islam.
Lacking infrastructure and the resources of a state, Islamist extremists use the web to redress strategic
disadvantages in planning attacks, maintaining and financing their organizations, and recruiting and
inspiring new affiliates. ISIS leaders and workers will likely rely on the web to maintain a global presence
and reach, but also use it in creatively offensive ways that al-Qaeda never did.
There are three types of Salafi websites: official Islamic State and al-Qaeda websites; “wanna-be sites”
(by groups that want to be recognized as aligned); and mirror sites (groups or individuals who merely re-
post extremist content). Through the internet, these groups also maintain a somewhat organized
command-and-control structure.
Given the heavy physical stress the United States and its allies have placed on al-Qaeda in particular since
2001, some argue that al-Qaeda leadership has since devolved into “only” a media organization that now
practices terrorism only when it can get its depleted ways and means together. It is a “terrorism studio”
today and not much else; it no longer attempts much strategic planning and plotting, or deploys
facilitators, logisticians, operators, and execution managers. Once al-Qaeda lost its physical safe havens
where it hid from U.S. harassment, it established virtual safe havens.
The Islamic State’s internet presence, however, is not residual and defensive in nature; it is increasingly
sophisticated and effective. The Islamic State has established an internet sanctuary, perhaps learning from
al-Qaeda’s experience. But it has added much more savvy operational security (OPSEC) to its
communications, especially through social media. It has rejected al-Qaeda’s squeamishness about the
murder of Muslims (not that al-Qaeda has not murdered a great many Muslims anyway) and made such
murder the centerpiece of its online message. It seems to work for recruitment purposes; murder has
become a form of performance art by which the Islamic State advances its brand.
Given that al-Qaeda and the Islamic State use cyberspace to attack us in the real world, it follows that
cyberspace should constitute no special sanctuary for them. Yet for all practical purposes it does. Their
presence in cyberspace is more or less uncontested, enabling the internet to serve well as a “drive-thru”
radicalization asset. Anyone from anywhere can read the radical ideology of al-Qaeda and the Islamic
State unmolested, getting their fill of pseudo-intellectual ideology and bomb-making instructions. The
internet thus serves as a kind of on-ramp for those who then travel abroad for specific training or to make
personal connections. Once in theater, the clever use of social media allows the Islamic State to use
temporary email accounts, Twitter accounts, and hashtag re-postings to communicate crude operational
commands.
The internet has become a key means for the Islamic State leadership to bring the ideological seeker and
mentor together, and thus operationalize its forces via an infrastructure that the United States and its
Western allies developed, financed, installed, and still maintain. It provides that sense of identity and
belonging required for the disaffected and psychologically vulnerable to move to the stage of violence. In
other words, the internet has become not just a jihadi mentor—a “virtual spiritual sanctioner” as it has
been called—but also a virtual, globe-spanning minbar, the podium from which sermons in the mosque
are delivered.1 The internet provides jihadi support groups with a source of religious justification that
characterizes and is required of all jihadi cells.2 As a result, given that radicalization via online mentoring
can move faster than mentoring in person, the use of the internet shortens the timeframe between the
beginning of radicalization and the onset of terrorist activity.3

The internet gives ISIS a global recruiting presence and ability to keep
communications secret
Van de Velde, 15 - adjunct professor at the Johns Hopkins University, Georgetown University, and the
National Intelligence University (James, “Crash Their Comms” The American Interest, http://www.the-
american-interest.com/2015/06/10/crash-their-comms/

Online and OPSEC Savvy

The leadership of the Islamic State uses the internet, dedicated websites, and social media such as
YouTube, Twitter, and Facebook to propagate its ideology, history, impressive recruitment record, and
claims of battlefield success. It can do this because there is an audience. There are almost three million
Facebook members in Iraq, more than one million in Syria; 10,000 Twitter users in Iraq, 8,000 in Syria.
The Islamic State has more than 50,000 Twitter followers.4 Many of these consumers knew how to read
al-Qaeda online, and now have transferred over to the “strong horse”, the radical organization that now
leads the pack. Through social media the Islamic State leadership proclaims to the world explicitly that it
is the successor to Osama bin Laden’s legacy and is fulfilling the original goal of establishing a
caliphate.5
According to the cybersecurity company Zerofox, not only has the Islamic State built an online
propaganda strategy using many social media networks; it also employs experts in marketing, public
relations, and visual-content production with a sophistication far surpassing al-Qaeda.6 For example, ISIS
activists will use a trending hashtag as a means of infiltrating conversations by adding that hashtag to one
of their unrelated tweets. They also mass-tweet using their own designated hashtags, which gets them to
trend. In addition, ISIS has created its own app, an Arabic-language Twitter app called “The Dawn of
Glad Tidings” (or just “Dawn”). When users sign up, they give ISIS permission to send tweets through
their own personal accounts. This allows ISIS tweets to reach hundreds or thousands more accounts,
giving the perception that its content is bigger and more popular than it is. The Dawn app is used as an
education tool, distributing news and information about ISIS to its users.
ISIS also uses networks of computers it has infiltrated (“bots”) to carry out its campaigns via remote
control, rendering the individuals behind the activities unidentifiable. Because these bot armies are so
widespread and continually regenerate accounts, the group is always one step ahead of governments and
social media networks attempting to thwart its maneuvers. ISIS also distributes propaganda specifically
designed to target a Western audience, for instance by using hashtags they know the Western world is
searching for—like #worldcup2014 #fifaworldcup—for the purposes of recruitment or inciting fear. In
addition to promoting information about itself, ISIS also educates its social media followers on how to
access information blocked by governments and social media sites through TOR/anonymizer tutorials.
Quite aside from their technical prowess, those who labor for the Islamic State also produce attractive and
effective content. They produce high-quality video, which chronicles the group’s alleged historical
success and records its violence, including executions, beheadings, and attacks, to intimidate opponents
and the regimes it aspires to topple. It blends recent history, such as its supposed success against U.S.
occupation forces in post-Ba‘athi Iraq, with historical allusions to the great apocalyptic Sunni struggles
against opponents of Islam, implying to would-be recruits that now is the time to join the great, successful
Islamic State struggle. ISIS workers have also reportedly created recruitment propaganda using video
game formats.
So much for the internet being an ineffective base of operations for offensive maneuvers. As for defense,
the Islamic State leadership practices online operational security to stay anonymous and advises online
readers on how to enhance their anonymity as well. It also uses temporary accounts, changes accounts
periodically, and uses TOR to mask IPs, making the Islamic State’s communications largely dark, hard to
track or target, and resilient.
The State’s self-proclaimed leader, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, and his followers have proven exceptionally
difficult to track because they reportedly encrypt their communications and take steps to avoid being
detected by enemy surveillance. Islamic State leaders also likely use FireChat, a commercially available
service that permanently deletes messages sent via the internet, making them nearly impossible to
intercept.7 Finally in this regard, Islamic State operators study Western media carefully, including the
history of successful Western counterterrorism operations against al-Qaeda. They do this to learn how to
protect their work and their masters from similar attacks in the future.
By maintaining multiple official and non-official accounts, Islamic State cyber-operators promote the
ISIS brand and message, solicit funds, recruit followers, and maintain a crude organizational structure.
Although such use is contrary to Twitter policy, the geometric propagation of messages via use of
hashtags with links to advance perishable messages and images has allowed the Islamic State to maintain
a resilient and disposable communications structure to connect with supporters even if accounts are
subsequently shut down by Western or local internet service providers. Through decentralization, it has
largely secured its communications from the traditional warfare techniques of jamming or interception. In
a sense, it has crowd-sourced its communications.

The internet is vital to ISIS command and control

Van de Velde, 15 - adjunct professor at the Johns Hopkins University, Georgetown University, and the
National Intelligence University (James, “Crash Their Comms” The American Interest, http://www.the-
american-interest.com/2015/06/10/crash-their-comms/

All Islamic State web media productions fall under the umbrella of Al-Furqan Media, while another
media organization associated with ISIS, Fursan Al-Balagh Media, works on video transcriptions, giving
viewers the chance to both read and watch all productions.8 And whether by accident or design, Islamic
State operators have created a new form of operational command and control: C2 via app.
Thousands of Twitter followers have downloaded a Twitter app—the aforementioned Dawn of Glad
Tidings—through which users give permission to receive Islamic State messages, images of military
success, and video feeds, affording the Islamic State a Hollywood-quality feel.9 The application, flagged
by Twitter as “potentially harmful”, requests user data and personal information.10 After downloading it,
the app sends news and updates on ISIS operations in Syria and Iraq. Islamic State cadres include selected
individuals who are expert at Adobe and video production. Each Islamic State region has its own
dedicated social media accounts and supporters worldwide provide further channels through which to get
its message to Western media.11
In addition to official Islamic State social media accounts, hundreds of Islamic State sympathizers use
private accounts to connect to thousands of internet followers. Islamic State media products are thus
tweeted and then its hashtags re-tweeted by “private” supporters, enablers, and voyeurs, using the power
of social media to project an image beyond its true capability, creating what is now-known as a “Twitter
storm.”12 Imagery, slogans, and would-be success stories are all crowd-sourced, allowing quality
production to rise to the top through the power of social media. It is equivalent to allowing individual
experts in Hollywood, Silicon Valley, and beyond to advance a positive image of America independently
of any government oversight or direction.
Examples of these tactics illustrate the cleverness of ISIS media operations, which have propelled the
Islamic State far beyond al-Qaeda-afffiliated groups in the effectiveness of their information operations:
One Islamic State supporter tweeted during the 2014 World Cup, ‘This is our ball,’ along with a photo of
a decapitated head and the #WorldCup hashtag, which ensured that it would pop up on news feeds on the
World Cup.13
On July 4, 2014, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi appeared unexpectedly on social media to give a sermon that was
pre-posted via Twitter (before his video was uploaded onto YouTube) to guarantee its dissemination.14
A video series named ‘Mujatweets’ shows the life of Muslims in the Islamic State and testimonials from
Western militants reporting their alleged commitment to the new Islamic State.15
The ISN (Islamic State News), a new, online Islamic State publication in English, provides news,
information, and inspirational stories to readers worldwide (including, of course, the Western media).
Launched in May 2014, a new Islamic State media branch, Al-Hayat Media, distributes materials in
several languages, including video with subtitles, as well as articles, news reports, and translated jihadi
materials. Its main Twitter account is in German, but it also publishes in English and French, as well as
Turkish, Dutch, Indonesian, and Russian. Al-Hayat Media’s videos and materials are also distributed via
Archive.org and other free web-hosting services; they are also regularly listed on justepaste.it, a web
service for sharing free user-created contents, as well as on lesser-known social media such as Quitter and
diaspora.16
On July 8, 2014, The ISR (Islamic State Report), also known as “An Insight Into the Islamic State”,
which contains articles on Islamic State events, first began to release its showcase online magazine,
Dabiq, consisting of detailed, well-written stories in fluent English. It resembles the well-known but
cruder English-language magazine, Inspire, published by al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, famous for
providing bombing-making instructions (in slightly broken English) to aspiring terrorists worldwide.17
Dabiq is named after the area Halab (Aleppo) in Sham (Syria), mentioned in the hadith as the place for
Malahim (“Armageddon”)—an allusion to the site of a major 16th-century battle where the Ottomans
defeated their enemies and established their first caliphate.18
In short, the Islamic State’s information operations are slick, de-centralized, and resilient, designed to
withstand private-sector account cancellations for violations of terms of service. They have propelled the
Islamic State to the forefront of terrorist information-operations success. Today, the Islamic State, al-
Qaeda, and al-Qaeda affiliates use media services to upload pleas for readers to conduct local and
worldwide terrorism, manuals on how to create improvised explosive devices, invitations to join the fight
in the Middle East, and claims of success and ideological purity. Someday they may also disseminate
cyber weapons via the web, should they acquire or devise them. The odds they will are high unless they
are stopped beforehand.
 OCOs solve

OCO’s are key to stop ISIS

Van de Velde, 15 - adjunct professor at the Johns Hopkins University, Georgetown University, and the
National Intelligence University (James, “Crash Their Comms” The American Interest, http://www.the-
american-interest.com/2015/06/10/crash-their-comms/

The Fifth Domain of Warfare, so called by the Department of Defense, is here, like it or not. Cyber
attacks can amount in their significance to armed attacks, subject to international humanitarian law and
the rules of war, according to the U.S. State Department’s Legal Advisor. What is unique about this
domain is the fact that Islamist extremist activity on the web takes place every day. It is a war without
timeouts or truces.
What is also unique about this domain is that the private sector more or less owns most of this
infrastructure. The Islamic State exists in the cyber domain and specifically in social media. Unless we
demand that social media companies cleanse themselves of violent extremist content, we will need to get
used to the fact that our own counterterrorism cyber forces will be forced to fight in this media as well.
Few of us want to go there, given the hornet’s nest of constitutional issues that will arise from it. But we
may have no choice.
No counter-Islamic State strategy that ignores its use of the internet and social media will succeed. No
military strategy or comprehensive whole-of-government approach can really be whole without
addressing the Islamic State’s use of the internet. All warfare today includes the new Fifth Domain, and
the sooner we recognize its importance to our adversaries, the sooner we will begin to address the threat
seriously.

Interfering with the ISIS internet generates greater intelligence gathering and
moderates extremism
Van de Velde, 15 - adjunct professor at the Johns Hopkins University, Georgetown University, and the
National Intelligence University (James, “Crash Their Comms” The American Interest, http://www.the-
american-interest.com/2015/06/10/crash-their-comms/

There are several other secondary, but important, aspects to contesting the extremist message on the
internet. Interfering with extremist websites and social media stimulates communications and useful
chatter (‘hey, what’s going on?’) for intelligence collection. As suggested above, curtailing the aggregate
number of extremist websites allows more moderate Muslim voices to be heard among the discussion
groups and above the din of the militant ones. Contesting such websites forces extremist groups to expend
valuable time, resources, infrastructure, and technical expertise to compete with these other sources.
Challenging the al-Qaeda/Islamic State internet presence is not technically difficult for host nations,
allies, and the United States. (We simply choose not to do so for political reasons or because of the myth
that such actions would be futile.)
 Intelligence Critical to National Security

Intelligence failure responsible for Pearl Harbor

Stuart Taylor, April 29, 2014, The Big Snoop: Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Terrorists,
http://www.brookings.edu/research/essays/2014/the-big-snoop-print (is an author, a freelance journalist,
and a Brookings nonresident senior fellow. Taylor has covered the Supreme Court for a variety of
national publications, including The New York Times, Newsweek, and National Journal, where he is also
a contributing editor. His published books include Mismatch: How Affirmative Action Hurts Students It's
Intended to Help, and Why Universities Won't Admit It. In addition to his work as a journalist and
scholar, he is a graduate of Harvard Law School and practiced law in a D.C. firm.)

Beginning in the second half of the 19th century, however, technological advances made it easier for the
government to “search and seize” the contents of private communications without citizens’ knowledge,
thus depriving them of the ability to object. Wiretapping is almost as old as the telegraph, going back
at least to the Civil War. Phone tapping has been an instrument of law enforcement and
counterespionage since the beginning of the 20th century. An early instance of it was useful in
probing the intentions of real and potential foreign enemies. In the first months of 1917, the British
intercepted, decoded, and passed to Washington the “Zimmermann telegram”: a proposal from the
Kaiser Wilhelm II’s foreign minister to the Mexican government promising that if Mexico allied
itself with Germany in the event that the United States entered World War I on the side of the
Allies, Germany would reward it with the return of formerly Mexican territory in Texas, New
Mexico, and Arizona. The revelation helped stoke support for Congress’s declaration of war that April.
However, once the war had ended, President Herbert Hoover’s secretary of state, Henry Stimson,
famously shut down the “Black Chamber,” a precursor of the NSA, which had begun intercepting and
decoding foreign diplomats’ cables in peacetime, too. “Gentlemen,” Stimson harrumphed, “don’t read
each other’s mail.” Others in the U.S. government were not so naïve. By the late thirties, Army and
Navy intelligence officers, aided by civilian experts and technicians, were decoding diplomatic
cables from Tokyo. By New Year’s Day 1941, they were picking up hints that Japan was preparing
to attack the United States. But there was a failure of what today would be called “connecting the
dots.” As a result, the nation’s leaders—including Stimson, who was then Franklin Roosevelt’s
secretary of war—took no action to protect the Pacific Fleet. Senator Feinstein, the daughter of an air
raid warden in San Francisco, was 8 years old in December that year. Pearl Harbor, she feels, engendered
her hawkish views on national security and intelligence. She remembers the blackout after the attack and
a submarine net draped across the Golden Gate to prevent the Japanese from sneaking into San Francisco
Bay.
Joel Brenner views that national trauma as a reminder that the nation’s most damaging intelligence
scandals pertain not to over-zealousness, but to its opposite, “the failure to collect or understand critical
information” in time to identify a threat and provide enough advance warning to prepare for it or, better
yet, preempt it.
Intelligence necessary to protect against WMD proliferation and terrorism
Report and Recommendations of the President’s Review Group on Intelligence, December 2013, Liberty and
Security in a Changing World, December 12, http://www.whitehouse.gov/sites/default/files/docs/2013-12-
12_rg_final_report.pdf
The national security threats facing the United States and our allies are numerous and significant,
and they will remain so well into the future. These threats include international terrorism, the
proliferation of weapons of mass destruction, and cyber espionage and warfare. A robust foreign
intelligence collection capability is essential if we are to protect ourselves against such threats.
Because our adversaries operate through the use of complex communications technologies, the
National Security Agency, with its impressive capabilities and talented officers, is indispensable to
keeping our country and our allies safe and secure.

UNFETTERED INTELLIGENCE IS CRITICAL TO PREVENT TERRORISM

Ambassador L. Paul Bremer, National Commission on Terrorism Chair, 2000

["New Terrorist Threats and How to Counter Them," 7/31,
http://www.heritage.org/Research/HomelandDefense/hl678.cfm]

It is obvious that there is no substitute for good intelligence if you are going to have an effective
counterterrorist policy. I have worked in and around government for 35 years now, and I have never
seen a field in which intelligence is more central to good policy and intelligence is more difficult to
get than in the field of terrorism. If you don't have good intelligence on terrorists, you simply don't
have an effective counterterrorist policy and, most of all, you cannot prevent attacks. After all, the
basic objective of counterterrorism is to stop the attacks before they happen.

INTELLIGENCE VITAL TO THWARTING TERRORISM

Fernando Reinares, Department of Politics and Sociology, Universidad Nacional de Education a

Distancia, Madrid, War on Terrorism, ed. Alan O’Day, 2004, p. 226-7

Given the clandestine and unpredictable nature of terrorism, however, all these resources may not be
effective unless they are accompanied by mechanisms for detecting and preventing future threats.
Reliable intelligence is an essential tool. Experience shows that, as long as the other components
function as they should, success in the state’s counter-terrorism campaign is directly proportional
to the emphasis placed on the gathering and analyzing of reliable informatio n. On the contrary, when
intelligence is insufficient or inadequate, the terrorist group may sense the window of opportunity they
are being offered and will not hesitate to exploit this advantage by escalating its campaign of insurgent
violence. In 1976, for reasons that have never been sufficiently clarified, the Italian Government decided
to dismantle the special anti-terrorist units it had created only a few years earlier and ordered far-reaching
reorganization of its secret services. Terrorist attacks, which until then had been diminishing in frequency,
immediately began to pick up and did not ease again until the early 1980s. Not coincidentally, by that
time, revamped intelligence services put under greater supervisory control of the legislative and executive
branches, had begun to produce results.
 Intelligence Necessary to Prevent Genocide

Intelligence necessary to prevent human trafficking and mass atrocities

Report and Recommendations of the President’s Review Group on Intelligence, December 2013, Liberty and
Security in a Changing World, December 12, http://www.whitehouse.gov/sites/default/files/docs/2013-12-
12_rg_final_report.pdf
Intelligence is designed not only to protect against threats but also to safeguard a wide range of national
security and foreign policy interests, including counterintelligence, counteracting the international
elements of organized crime, and preventing drug trafficking, human trafficking, and mass atrocities.
 RFID Links

RFID technology defeats terrorism

Gene Kaprowski, August 13, 2014, UPI, “Wireless World: RFID to Thwart Terrorism,”
http://www.upi.com/Science_News/2004/08/13/Wireless-World-RFID-to-thwart-
terrorism/88291092413872/ DOA: 5-1-15
An associate of Osama bin Laden crawls into a container -- along with some new luxury cars -- in a shipyard in
Hamburg, Germany. The goal -- shipping himself to the United States and evading the Department of Homeland
Security, with its high-tech officers on the ground at major airports, armed with databases of suspects' photos. He is
foiled, however, when a silent alarm is triggered, and an alert is sent to security over the airwaves, as he lifts
the lid of the container in the warehouse. A wireless radio frequency identification or RFID security tag on
the container sent the signal, silently, without alerting the intruder. This scenario is one the government, major
shippers and transportation companies are envisioning as possible for the near future. "The security of American
ports continues to be a critical issue for homeland security," Robert Jackson, an attorney with Reed Smith LLP,
located in the firm's Washington, D.C., office, told United Press International. RFID technology, long touted as in-
store anti-theft devices for retailers, is evolving and now is "the answer for homeland defense at our ports," Ben
Quinones, a partner in the technology law practice of Pillsbury Winthrop in California's Silicon Valley, told UPI.
The technology, developed by private sector research and development labs -- at companies like Avery Dennison,
among others -- goes by several names, but one well-known product is called the "security strap," a spokesman for
the company told UPI. Once goods are sealed inside a box, a longshoreman or another worker affixes the security
strap. That enables shippers to track the cargo containers through their entire overseas trip. Tampering with the seal
brings a security check. Companies like SAMSys are moving forward with second-generation RFID security
technologies that may be even more effective. Sun Microsystems Inc. recently opened a test center in Dallas, giving
customers a location to test an array of RFID scenarios, a spokesman told UPI. Even food and drug companies are
eyeing the technology, fearful that rogues may tamper with or, worse yet, counterfeit the nation's pharmaceutical
supplies. The technology also is garnering funds at government research laboratories, as scientists are
anxious to improve the state of the art for RFID. Last month, the U.S. Department of Energy's Oak Ridge
National Laboratory reached a development deal with Spectrum Signal Processing Inc. for a RFID platform,
endorsed by the Pentagon, for an array of applications, a spokesman told UPI. RFID security technology currently
comes in many forms, experts said. "Tags on containers, for rail cars, are fairly large and are active," John
Parkinson, chief technologist, North American Region, with the consulting firm Capgemini in suburban Chicago,
told UPI. "They contain a power source and can broadcast a signal that can be tracked by a satellite. Load the tag
with a manifest of what's in the container, and you can track it as it moves along the global supply chain." Other
kinds of tags operate passively but still are good for catching stowaways, Parkinson said. “Pass the tag through a
broadcast RF (radio frequency) from a reader and the tag gets enough energy to squawk out a short code so it can be
used to look up what's on the pallet or in the carton," he said. "If the passive tag IDs point to data that specifies size
and weight, a quick calculation and weighbridge datum tells you if the container is full and over or under weight.
Stowaways or added materials would show up." Some technology companies, like RAE Systems Inc. and a wireless
semiconductor maker called Ember Corp., don't think RFID tags provide enough information or security. They
believe wireless sensor technology will be more effective at monitoring shipping containers. Around Christmas last
year, the companies demonstrated a prototype wireless security monitoring system, designed to help carriers of
cargo comply with federal regulations seeking to prevent terrorists from smuggling nuclear weapons and other
weapons of mass destruction into the United States. The Department of Homeland Security last Nov. 18 declared it
wanted cargo companies that ship to American ports to equip their containers to prevent terrorist threats. The
prototype technology developed by RAE Systems and Ember uses embedded RF chips and networking software to
wrap cargo in a virtual Web network, which can detect weapons grade materials, as well as detail when containers
have been opened. "It's easier to detect potential terrorists in American ports when we know what's happening
inside the container at all times," RAE Systems Chief Executive Officer Robert Chen said in a statement. More
than 7 million shipping containers pass through U.S. ports each year, experts said. "The sheer volume of
cargo entering our country every day makes it too easy for terrorists to smuggle dangerous cargo," Ember
CEO Jeff Grammer said in a statement. The movement for wireless technology to track potential terrorist threats
also is creating some consumer spin-offs, experts said. The Airport IT Trends Survey, sponsored by the airline
information technology industry, reported 8 percent of responding airports already offer RFID tracking for
passenger baggage. This is expected to increase to 25 percent of airports during the next two years. That
could, one day, mean no more irretrievable luggage, lost forever in some cargo bin. Long-term, RFID also
could speed up the process for importers to bring legitimate goods into the United States. The Department of
Homeland Security has started using RFID tags to identify freight-carrying trucks as they cross the border with
Canada and, by the end of the year, the technology is expected to be deployed to other land entry points into the
United States. Another use is RFID cards for those people who frequently cross the border into the U.S. Congress is
eyeing these technology developments, especially now that the Pentagon and Homeland Security are pushing RFID
projects, and views them as replacing less-effective video surveillance methods. "RFID chips are more powerful
than today's video surveillance technology," said Sen. Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., during a conference this spring at the
Georgetown University Law Center. "RFIDs are more reliable, they are 100 percent automatic, and they are likely to
become pervasive, because they are significantly less expensive."
RFID technology provides security against terrorism
Laura Wiegler, 2014, June 20, RFID Insider, “Securing Entry: RFID is Making us Safer,” DOA: 5-2-15
In 2001, the database the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) uses to check visa and passport applicants
held about 7 million visa records and over 2 million passport records, according to the DHS. Further, they said
that, “If a visa applicant turned out to be a possible match for a terrorism-related CLASS record, the consular
officer requested a Security Advisory Opinion (SAO) from the Visa Office in Washington.  Such requests
were sent via cables, as were the Department’s responses.  This multi-step cable process to communicate with posts
and to coordinate with other government agencies resulted in long wait times for both the consular officers and the
applicants.” A simpler, more efficient way By 2005, though, those long wait times were going to change – at
least in theory – as RFID was introduced to the average American passenger traveling internationally. Today,
the State Department issues both passport cards and passport books that are “smart” enough to read our
information, the former at a distance and the latter at close range. The U.S. employs biometrics, which can be
obtained through facial recognition, fingerprints, or the scanning of irises, but apparently requirements can vary.
Michael Holly, Senior Advisor for International Affairs, Passport Services in the U.S. Department of State Bureau
of Consular Affairs told RFIDinsider that “We use both fingerprints and facial recognition [for visas].  We’ve also
studied the use of iris images.” He did not elaborate further, but it’s widely speculated that scanning iris images is
not as reliable, and thus less popular, than scanning fingerprints and recognizing faces. For passports, moreover, a
digitized and readable photo is used, forgoing fingerprints on its contactless chip. Insofar as the Government’s
rationale behind RFID’s use, Holly claims the history far precedes 9-11, a common barometer for measuring the
nation’s security practices. Indeed, according to the U.S. Government, RFID has been used along the nation’s land
borders with Canada and Mexico since 1995. While Holly didn’t spell this out, the new passports have been
designed to better protect the public from terrorism, even though it’s arguable whether or not they are also
easing hassles at airports. Toward that end, there are bells and whistles attached to modern-day passports, and
depending on whether one has the “card” or the “book”, the technology differs. “What we provide to a U.S.
traveling citizen bearing a passport card is a protective sleeve with that document,” Holly says. “But with a passport
we do a number of things – these are two different technologies: proximity and vicinity.” He says with a passport
card “vicinity technology” is employed; and a number of things are done to protect it “from the possibility of
skimming data from the chip, and eavesdropping. We use anti-attenuation tape, a skimming sleeve that blocks the
possibility of someone trying to skim data from the chip if the book is closed,” he says. The borders agent can thus
obtain information discreetly, and in real time, according to Holly. “They’re [the passport issuers] using PKI (public
key infrastructure) and in association with the RFID chip we can …confirm data that appears on the passport’s data
page and [which one] can authenticate using the digital signatures,” he says. Obviously, in an era when a plane can
go missing for weeks or months, and two passengers can board with stolen passports, security at least worldwide is
hardly foolproof. Nevertheless, Holly believes that over about the past decade, the American traveler’s experience is
far more secure than it was in the halcyon days of early air travel. “We use a security protocol known as the “basic
access control” that requires, in order for the chip to communicate with a reader, that [the passport owner’s] book
must be open, that the machine- readable zone be read.” He says this “zone” is two lines of OCR code at bottom of
the passport page, and from which “a number of pins are derived, and then once that happens, the chip will
communicate with the reader, releasing the data on the chip.” In the case of passport books, the readers are at the
customs booths for use upon entry to the foreign country. But in the case of cards, which he explains are commonly
used when U.S. citizens travel by car from the northernmost and southernpost parts of the country, the data is read
from a greater distance. (See article on toll booth RFID use.) Both [the card type and book type] are passports but
the book uses RFID proximity technology, he explains. “The chip in the passport book is a microprocessor. It stores
data on it. …The passport card does not store any data. It simply points [via a recognized serial number] to a
record stored in a secure database.” The Netherlands-based Gemalto, a global digital security firm, has been
working with the U.S. Government for several years on rolling out RFID for use on or with passports. Gemalto says
on its website that in August of 2012, the Government Printing Office (GPO) awarded the company with a second
consecutive five-year contract. “Gemalto first partnered with [the] GPO in 2006 following stringent evaluations to
meet agency requirements,” the company says on its site
 Borders Links
Border surveillance is k2 preventing terrorism
Smarick et al. 12 ,( Kathleen Smarick and Gary D. LaFree of the National Consortium for the Study of
Terrorism and Responses to Terrorism at the University of Maryland. 11/12 “Border Crossings and
Terrorist Attacks in the United States: Lessons for Protecting against Dangerous Entrants” START,
http://www.start.umd.edu/sites/default/files/files/publications/START_BorderCrossingsTerroristAttacks.p
df CCC)

An essential step in this project was determining the frequency and dynamics of border crossings by
individuals who conducted or who wanted to conduct terrorism-related activities in the United
States . Towards that goal, the project built upon the existing holdings of the American Terrorism Study
(ATS) in this effort. The ATS, housed at the University of Arkansas, catalogs and systematically codes
information on more than 300 Federal court cases involving Federal terrorist charges since 1980 and,
following a review of other possible resources, proved to be the most useful starting point for
compiling open-source, quantitative data on terrorist border crossings. Since 1989, the American
Terrorism Study (ATS) has received lists of court cases and associated indictees that resulted from an
official FBI terrorism investigation spanning 1980 through 2004. Housed at the University of Arkansas’
Terrorism Research Center in Fulbright College (TRC), the ATS now includes almost 400 cases from the
FBI lists. Of these, approximately 75% of cases have complete court documentation, and almost all of
those collected have been coded into the ATS database, while the ATS team continues to track new cases
by collecting, reviewing, and coding new and additional court documentation. The ATS includes
terrorism incidents and attacks, thwarted or planned terrorism incidents sometimes referred to as
preventions, material support cases for terrorism, general terrorism conspiracies, and in some
cases, immigration fraud; the common denominator among all ATS events is that the FBI investigated
these events as terrorism-related incidents. During preliminary research for this project, court records
from 378 terrorism cases found in the ATS dataset were reviewed for information on potential border
crossing events related to terrorism cases. The documents for each court case were manually reviewed by
researchers to determine whether the collected records reported that one of the defendants or accomplices
in a case crossed a U.S. border at some point. Thirty-eight percent of the reviewed cases—145 cases—
from 1980 through 2004 were found to either have: • direct mention of a border crossing in the court
documents, or • a link to a terrorism incident that involved a known border crossing, either before
or after an incident. After compiling this list of court cases for inclusion, each identified court case
was then linked to a criminal incident involving terrorism charges. Initial reviews revealed a
connection to a border-crossing event in a total of 58 successful terrorist attacks, 51 prevented or
thwarted attacks, 26 material support cases, 33 immigration fraud incidents, and 4 general terrorism
conspiracies . Additional reviews of relevant information on indictees and their activities resulted in a
reduction in the number of successful terrorist attacks associated with these individuals to a total of 43.
Appendix 2 provides more details on the data collection process and how a reliable collection
methodology was established to create the U.S. Terrorist Border Crossing Dataset (USTBC), using the
ATS as a starting point. National Consortium for the Study of Terrorism and Responses to Terrorism A
Department of Homeland Security Science and Technology Center of Excellence Border Crossings and
Terrorist Attacks in the United States 12 Systematic evaluation by the research team revealed that the
American Terrorism Study is a reliable and useful resource for identifying individuals associated with
terrorist attacks or terrorist criminal cases (such as conspiracies) and for determining which of these
individuals crossed U.S. borders in advance of or in the wake of their terrorism-related behavior. This is
largely because the ATS is based on court documents, which among sources of data on terrorism are the
most likely to reference relevant border crossing activity. The Global Terrorism Database, which is based
primarily on media sources, can serve a supporting role in this research, but the ATS is the primary
source allowing for construction of a new, relational database on U.S. Terrorist Border Crossings
(USTBCs). That being said, it is important to recognize that the ATS is not a perfect data source. As
noted above, its contents are limited to individuals and information related to court cases in which one or
more defendant was charged with Federal terrorism charges. As such, the contents of ATS clearly
represent a subset of all terrorists or attempted terrorists in the United States, as it systematically omits
those who:  were never arrested or faced any charges,  were charged with offenses not directly related
to terrorism,  were charged at the non-Federal level, or  were engaged in dangerous activity that does
not meet the FBI’s definition of a terrorism case. Throughout this project, the research team was careful
to respect the limitations of this data collection and to draw conclusions that recognize that the border
crossing events included in this project likely represent a non-representative subset of all border crossing
attempts by terrorists or intended terrorists. Despite these limitations, though, the data that was built upon
the baseline of ATS provides important insights into the nexus between border crossings and terrorism.
The U.S. Terrorism Border Crossing Dataset The final versions of the codebooks used to develop the U.S.
Terrorist Border Crossing (USTBC) data collection are presented in Appendix 3. Based upon knowledge
gained from pilot efforts (as discussed above and in Appendix 2), the project resulted in two codebooks—
one focused on dynamics of a bordercrossing event involving someone associated with a Federal
terrorism court case, and another focused on the characteristics of the individuals associated with Federal
charges who were involved in the bordercrossing event. Data collection for the USTBC lasted for
approximately one year and was primarily conducted by research assistants at the Terrorism Research
Center at the University of Arkansas.3 The resultant data that comprise the USTBC are available in
Appendix 4. Table 4 provides a snapshot summary of these data, which include detailed information on
the location of an attempted crossing, the timing of a crossing relative to attempted or actual terrorist
activity, the origin or destination of an attempted crossing, and more. The data also include specific
information on border crossers, including their citizenship status, their criminal history, and key
demographics (including level of education, marital status, etc.) Appendix 5 provides descriptive statistics
from the border-crossing and border-crosser data. 3 Special thanks to Kim Murray and Summer Jackson
of the Terrorism Research Center for their efforts in combing through the courtcase material and
assembling these data for the USTBC. National Consortium for the Study of Terrorism and Responses to
Terrorism A Department of Homeland Security Science and Technology Center of Excellence Border
Crossings and Terrorist Attacks in the United States 13 Border Crossings Identified in USTBC Attempts
to Enter the United States Of the 221 border crossings identified in this project as involving individuals
who were indicted by the U.S. government in terrorism-related cases, the majority (129 crossings)
involved an individual attempting to enter the United States, while the remainder (92 crossings) involved
an individual attempting to exit the United States. Eighty-seven percent of the attempted border crossings
were successful, rather than being thwarted by law enforcement or foiled by some other events or
developments. Additional discussion on the nature of successful crossings versus those who were
apprehended at the border is presented below. Among those attempts to enter the United States, the
most frequent origin for these crossing efforts was Canada.4 But, as Figure 2 illustrates, such
attempted entries originated from all corners of the world.

US Border Patrol proves that surveillance is key to anti-terror efforts

Stamey 14 (Barcley; DOMESTIC AERIAL SURVEILLANCE AND HOMELAND SECURITY:
SHOULD AMERICANS FEAR THE EYE IN THE SKY; March 2014)
The leading national agency currently using drones to combat a wide range of domestic threats is U.S.
Customs and Border Protection. With its fleet of seven MQ-1 Predators and three MQ-1 Guardians—
Predators modified for marine surveillance—CBP 26 is at the forefront of large-scale drone operations.
With an annual budget exceeding $11 billion, CBP is well equipped for protecting our national security
while combating potential terrorist threats.55 But how efficiently are those funds being used, and what is
meant by effectiveness? According to Merriam-Webster, effectiveness is “producing a decided, decisive,
or desired effect or result.”56 Ultimately, that desired result is safe international borders. Accomplishing
this result involves the apprehension of illegal immigrants, interdiction of illicit drugs, and prevention of
terrorist infiltration, which CBP does quite well, but with respect to UAS, effectiveness must be viewed
on a much broader scale. This section takes into account the size of CBP, its operational budget, and
couples it with published results. According to CBP, the primary mission of drone use is “anti-terrorism
by helping to identify and intercept potential terrorists and illegal cross-border activity.”57 CBP uses its
Predators and Reapers to accomplish this goal through human detection and tracking, surface asset
coordination, and threat detection through IR sensors in multiple scenarios. Previously mentioned sensor
suites allow the Predator to detect movement along the border, identify actual personnel numbers, and
track the location of threats all while being unobserved to the individuals on the ground. With their long
loiter times, Predators allow officials to monitor gaps along the border while maximizing the efforts of
ground personnel in actual interdiction missions. After witnessing the functionality of actual Predator
operations in Afghanistan, this author realizes the value in having high definition video sensors overhead
during dangerous operations. This type of technology certainly has a place in homeland security missions,
and future capabilities will provide a clear advantage to U.S. personnel in combating border security. This
force multiplier mindset is one CBP has adopted and publicizes regularly to justify the success of its
drone program. Long loiter times, remote area access, and flexibility during National Special Security
Events are common claims.

Unmanned Ariel Vehicles fill current surveillance gap on the border

Haddal 10 ( CC; Homeland Security: Unmanned Aerial Vehicles and Border Surveillance CRS Report
RS21698. Washington, DC: Library of Congress, Congressional Research Service, July 8, 2010.)
One potential benefit of UAVs is that they could fill a gap in current border surveillance by improving
coverage along remote sections of the U.S. borders. Electro-Optical (EO) sensors (cameras) can identify
an object the size of a milk carton from an altitude of 60,000 feet.14 UAVs also can provide precise and
real-time imagery to a ground control operator, who would then disseminate that information so that
informed decisions regarding the deployment of border patrol agents can be made quickly. Additionally,
the Predator B used along the southern border can fly for more than 30 hours without having to refuel,
compared with a helicopter’s average flight time of just over 2 hours. The ability of UAVs to loiter for
prolonged periods of time has important operational advantages over manned aircraft. The longer flight
times of UAVs means that sustained coverage over a previously exposed area may improve border
security. The range of UAVs is a significant asset when compared to border agents on patrol or stationary
surveillance equipment. If an illegal border entrant attempts to transit through dense woods or
mountainous terrain, UAVs would have a greater chance of tracking the violator with thermal detection
sensors than the stationary video equipment which is often used on the borders. It is important to note,
however, that rough terrain and dense foliage can degrade the images produced by a UAV’s sensory
equipment and thus limit their effectiveness at the borders. Nevertheless, the extended range and
endurance of UAVs may lessen the burdens on human resources at the Homeland Security: Unmanned
Aerial Vehicles and Border Surveillance Congressional Research Service 4 borders. Also, UAV accidents
do not risk the lives of pilots, as do the helicopters that currently patrol U.S. borders

Border security stops terrorism

Zuckerman, Bucci, Carafano, no date
(Jessica Zuckerman, Steven P. Bucci, Ph.D. Director, Douglas and Sarah Allison Center for Foreign and
National Security Policyj and James Jay Carafano, Ph.D. Vice President for the Kathryn and Shelby
Cullom Davis Institute for National Security and Foreign Policy, and the E. W. Richardson Fellow, 13, 7-
22-2013, "60 Terrorist Plots Since 9/11: Continued Lessons in Domestic Counterterrorism," Heritage
Foundation, http://www.heritage.org/research/reports/2013/07/60-terrorist-plots-since-911-continued-
lessons-in-domestic-counterterrorism CCC)

Chiheb Esseghaier and Raed Jaser—April 2013.  Chiheb Esseghaier and Raed Jaser were arrested in
April 2013 for attempting to carry out an attack on a Via Railway train travelling from Canada to
the U.S. The attack, authorities claimed, was supported by an al-Qaeda element in Iran, although there is
currently no evidence that it was state-sponsored. [205] The exact route of the targeted train has not been
identified, and Iranian authorities vehemently deny that al-Qaeda is operating within Iranian borders.
Esseghaier and Jaser have been charged in Canada with conspiracy to commit murder for the benefit of a
terrorist group, participating in a terrorist group, and conspiring to interfere with transportation facilities
for the benefit of a terrorist group. Esseghaier has also been charged with participating in a terrorist
group, and both men face up to life in prison.[206] The two men are awaiting trial. Chiheb Esseghaier
wants to represent himself, basing his defense on the Quran instead of on the Canadian criminal code,
which has caused delays in the proceedings.[207]

Continued use of border surveillance technology is crucial to the detection of and response to
threats on the border
Haddal, Specialist in Immigration Policy, 8/11/10 (Chad C. Haddal, Congressional Research Service
report, August 11, 2010, “Border Security: The Role of the U.S. Border Patrol”
https://www.fas.org/sgp/crs/homesec/RL32562.pdf, accessed 7/15/15 JH @ DDI)
Perhaps themost important technology used by the Border Patrol are the surveillance assets currently in
place at the border. The program has gone through several iterations and name changes. Originally known as the Integrated Surveillance
Information System (ISIS), the program’s name was changed to the America’s Shield Initiative (ASI) in FY2005. DHS subsequently folded ASI
into the Secure Border Initative (SBI) and renamed the program SBInet Technology (SBInet). Once
it is beyond the pilot phase,
SBInet will, according to DHS, develop and install “new integrated technology solutions to provide
enhanced detection, tracking, response, and situational awareness capabilities. ”19 The other program under
SBI is the SBI Tactical Infrastructure program, which, according to DHS, “develops and installs physical
components designed to consistently slow, delay, and be an obstacle to illegal cross-border activity.” 20 In
the late 1990s, the Border Patrol began deploying a network of Remote Video Surveillance (RVS) systems
(i.e., camera systems), underground sensors, and the Integrated Computer Assisted Detection (ICAD) database
into a multi-faceted network designed to detect illegal entries in a wide range of climate conditions . This
Integrated Surveillance Intelligence System (ISIS) attempted to ensure seamless coverage of the border by combining the feeds from multiple
color, thermal, and infrared cameras mounted on different structures into one remote-controlled system with information generated by sensors
(including seismic, magnetic, and thermal detectors). When a sensor is tripped, an alarm is sent to a central
communications control room at a USBP station or sector headquarters. USBP personnel monitoring the control room screens use the
ICAD system to re-position RVS cameras towards the location where the sensor alarm was tripped (although some camera positions are fixed and
cannot be panned). Control room personnel then alert field agents to the intrusion and coordinate the response.

Information gathered from surveillance activities is key to any effective response to terrorist threats
along the border
Fisher, U.S. Customs and Border Protection Office of Border Patrol Chief, 5/8/12 (Michael, Department
of Homeland Security, “Written testimony of U.S. Customs and Border Protection Office of Border Patrol
Chief Michael Fisher for a House Committee on Homeland Security, Subcommittee on Border and
Maritime Security hearing titled “Measuring Border Security: U.S. Border Patrol’s New Strategic Plan
and the Path Forward.”” http://www.dhs.gov/news/2012/05/08/written-testimony-us-customs-and-border-
protection-house-homeland-security; accessed 7/15/15 JH@ DDI)
Information gathered from reconnaissance, community engagement, sign-cutting and technology together provide
situational awareness and intelligence and helps us to best understand and assess the threats we face along our
borders. Information and intelligence will empower Border Patrol leadership and front line agents to get ahead of the
threat, be predictive and proactive. Integration denotes CBP corporate planning and execution of border security operations, while
leveraging partnerships with other federal, state, local, tribal, and international organizations. Integration of effort with these organizations will
ensure we bring all available capabilities and tools to bear in addressing threats. Lastly, through rapid response, we will deploy capabilities
efficiently and effectively to meet and mitigate the risks we confront. Put simply, rapid response means the Border Patrol and its partners can
quickly and appropriately respond to changing threats. Goal 1: Secure America’s Borders The 2012 Strategic Plan has two interrelated and
interdependent goals. In the first goal, the Border Patrol will work with its federal, state, local, tribal, and international partners to secure
America’s borders using information, integration and rapid response in a risk-based manner. There are five objectives within this goal: Prevent
Terrorists and Terrorist Weapons from Entering the United States Manage Risk Disrupt and Degrade Transnational Criminal Organizations
(TCOs) Whole-of-Government Approach Increase Community Engagement I. Prevent Terrorists and Terrorist Weapons from Entering the
United States The current risk environment is characterized by constantly evolving threats that are both
complex and varying, and the Border Patrol must strategically apply intelligence to ensure that operations
are focused and targeted against the greatest threats. The Border Patrol’s ability to prevent and disrupt
such threats is enhanced through increased information sharing and operational integration, planning, and execution with our
domestic and foreign law enforcement partners. Integration with our federal, state, local, tribal, and international partners’
intelligence and enforcement capabilities into the planning and execution of CBP operations is critical to
our ability to secure our nation’s borders.

The use of necessary surveillance technology is key to the identification and prevention of terrorist
threats on the border
Office of Border Patrol, September 2004 (THE OFFICE OF BORDER PATROL AND THE OFFICE
OF POLICY AND PLANNING, US CUSTOMS & BORDER PROTECTION, “National Border Patrol
Strategy” http://www.au.af.mil/au/awc/awcgate/dhs/national_bp_strategy.pdf, accessed 7/15/15 JH @
DDI)
The Border Patrol currently uses a mix of agents, information, and technology to control the border. The
Border Patrol’s ability to establish situational awareness, monitor, detect, respond to, and identify
potential terrorists, instruments of terrorism, and criminals relies heavily on interdiction and deterrence-
based technology. Having the necessary technology to support the Border Patrol priority and traditional
missions cannot be overstated. In the future, there must be continued assessment, development, and
deployment of the appropriate mix of personnel, technology, and information to gain, maintain, and
expand coverage of the border and ensure that resources are deployed in a cost-effective, efficient
fashion. Technology which enhances operational awareness and effectiveness includes camera systems for
day/ night/infrared work, biometric systems such as IDENT/IAFIS, processing systems like ENFORCE, sensoring
platforms, large-scale gamma X-rays, and aerial platforms, and other systems. Technologies requiring modernization include wireless
and tactical communications and computer processing capabilities. Coordination between Border Patrol and inspectional personnel at the ports of
entry ensures the most efficient use of trained personnel and technology. In the future, the Border Patrol will take advantage of the targeting and
selectivity tools made available in the Automated Commercial Environment (ACE) and the National Targeting Center. The continued
testing, evaluation, acquisition, and deployment of appropriate border enforcement technologies will be
pursued vigorously so that the maximum force-multiplier effect is achieved in support of both the priority and traditional missions.

Any gap in security on the border allows international terror groups to come into the United States
Wilson 15 [Reid Wilson, 2/26/15, covers national politics for the Washington Post, "Texas officials warn
of immigrants with terrorist ties crossing southern border," Washington Post,
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/govbeat/wp/2015/02/26/texas-officials-warn-of-immigrants-with-
terrorist-ties-crossing-southern-border/ jf]

A top Texas law enforcement agency says border

security organizations have apprehended several members of
known Islamist terrorist organizations crossing the southern border in recent years, and while a surge of officers
to the border has slowed the flow of drugs and undocumented immigrants, it’s costing the state tens of millions of dollars. In a report to Texas
elected officials, the state Department of Public Safety says border
security agencies have arrested several Somali
immigrants crossing the southern border who are known members of al-Shabab , the terrorist group that
launched a deadly attack on the Westgate shopping mall in Nairobi, Kenya, and Al-Itihaad al-Islamiya, another Somalia-based group once funded
by Osama bin Laden. Another undocumented immigrant arrested crossing the border was on multiple
U.S. terrorism watch lists, the report says. According to the report, one member of al-Shabab, apprehended in
June 2014, told authorities he had been trained for an April 2014 suicide attack in Mogadishu. He said he escaped
and reported the planned attack to African Union troops, who were able to stop the attack. The FBI believed another undocumented immigrant
was an al-Shabab member who helped smuggle several potentially dangerous terrorists into the U.S. Authorities also apprehended immigrants
who said they were members of terrorist organizations in Sri Lanka and Bangladesh. The Department of Public Safety said the report, first
published by the Houston Chronicle, was not meant for public distribution. “[T]hat report was inappropriately obtained and [the Chronicle was]
not authorized to possess or post the law enforcement sensitive document,” department press secretary Tom Vinger said in an e-mail. U.S.
Customs and Border Protection did not respond to requests for comment. The
department said it had come into contact in
recent years with “special interest aliens,” who come from countries with known ties to terrorists or
where terrorist groups thrive. Those arrested include Afghans, Iranians, Iraqis, Syrians, Libyans and Pakistanis. In all, immigrants
from 35 countries in Asia and the Middle East have been arrested over the past few years in the Rio Grande Valley. The department says there is
no known intelligence that specifically links undocumented immigrants to terrorism plots, but the authors warn it’s almost certain that foreign
terrorist organizations know of the porous border between the U.S. and Mexico. “It
is important to note that an unsecure
border is a vulnerability that can be exploited by criminals of all kinds,” Vinger said. “And it would
be naive to rule out the possibility that any criminal organizations around the world, including
terrorists, would not look for opportunities to take advantage of security gaps along our country’s
international border.”
Maximized surveillance on the border is key to stopping terrorism
Willis et al 10 [Henry H. Willis, 2010, director of the RAND Homeland Security and Defense Center,
with Joel B. Predd, Paul K. Davis and Wayne P. Brown, RAND.org,
“Measuring the Effectiveness of Border Security Between Ports-of-Entry”,
http://www.rand.org/content/dam/rand/pubs/technical_reports/2010/RAND_TR837.pdf, jf]

One of the unexpected results of our study was recognition of the importance of networked intelligence in elaborating objectives for and
measuring effectiveness of border security.11 This came about for many reasons. First, all of the focus missions are best understood in national
terms: Border security contributes significantly to several high-level national objectives , but results depend
sensitively on interactions with and the performance of other federal and local agencies, as well as economic and demographic conditions outside
of DHS’s control. Second, national-level effectiveness depends not just on individual component or agency
effectiveness but also on components’ ability to share information and work collaboratively, i.e., to network. This
is perhaps most obvious with respect to preventing terrorism, in that individuals might enter the
country who are vaguely suspicious but who cannot reasonably be arrested at the border. Responsibility
for follow-up then transfers to, e.g., the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI). However, the FBI’s ability to follow up—either
immediately or when further information emerges—might depend critically on information collected and effectively
transferred by border agencies to the FBI. The word “effectively” is key because all agencies are deluged with data. The 9/11
Commission’s report dramatized the consequences of ineffectiveness: It is not that information for apprehending the perpetrators did not exist,
but rather that the dots were not connected and the relevant agencies did not cooperate well (National Commission on Terrorist Attacks upon the
United States, 2004). Third, national-level law enforcement also depends on the effectiveness of the justice system, including the ability to
convict and punish. That, in turn, often depends on authorities being able to construct an extensive, fact-based story of criminal behavior from
which, cumulatively, guilt can reasonably be inferred by a jury. Fourth, the nature
and quality of information collected by
border-security components, the consistency with which it is collected , and the effectiveness with which the data
are both transferred to national databases and—where appropriate—highlighted in cross-agency actions, are leverage points for improved
national-level effectiveness, especially in relation to terrorism- or drug-related functions. Border-security eff orts sometimes will query detected
travelers against data sets of known or suspected terrorists or criminals. This is especially relevant at ports of entry, ports of egress in some
modes, and in cases in which border enforcement detains an illegal crosser. In other settings, border-enforcement agencies collect
as much information as possible on individuals, their conveyances, license plates, accounts, and
other records of persons detained for crossing illegally but for whom no prior records exist. The same
is true in the maritime regions when individuals are arrested for illegal drug smuggling or illegal migrant smuggling. The collected
information can become future tactical intelligence (and used in prosecutions) if the detained person
becomes involved in criminal or terrorist functions at a later date. Discussions with component agencies indicate
that this is an important capability to measure. Technologically, it is even possible to tag individuals so that subsequent
surveillance within the United States (or another country) is possible.12

Border surveillance prevents terrorist groups from attempting attacks

Willis et al 10 [Henry H. Willis, 2010, director of the RAND Homeland Security and Defense Center,
with Joel B. Predd, Paul K. Davis and Wayne P. Brown, RAND.org,
“Measuring the Effectiveness of Border Security Between Ports-of-Entry”,
http://www.rand.org/content/dam/rand/pubs/technical_reports/2010/RAND_TR837.pdf, pg 19, jf]
The principal contributions that border security makes to counterterrorism relate to preventing certain
kinds of terrorist attacks dependent on flows into the country of people or materials. These
contributions can be illustrated by considering what opportunities exist to disrupt terrorist attacks while
they are being planned and orchestrated. Through a number of planning efforts, DHS and its
components have developed detailed planning scenarios of terrorist events (DHS, 2006). Each of
these scenarios has been deconstructed into attack trees that are useful for considering how DHS
border-security programs contribute to terrorism security efforts. In their most generic form, these
attack trees specify dimensions of attack scenarios with respect to building the terrorist team, identifying
a target, and acquiring a weapon (see Figure 4.1). This decomposition of attack planning provides a
structure around which to consider how interdiction, deterrence, and networked intelligence contribute to
preventing terrorist attacks and, thus, why it is relevant to measure these functions. DHS border-security
eff orts focus on interdiction of terrorist team members and weapons or weapon components when
they cross U.S. borders. Examples of initiatives that are intended to enhance these capabilities include
the Secure Border Initiative, the acquisition of Advanced Spectroscopic Portals for nuclear detection, the
Secure Communities Initiative, and US-VISIT. In addition, it is often pointed out that, when border-
security measures are perceived to be effective, terrorists groups may be deterred from attacking in
particular ways, or possibly from attacking at all. This could result from awareness of what type of
surveillance is occurring or the capability of interdiction systems. In either case, deterrence refers to the
judgment of terrorists that they will not be successful, leading them to choose another course of
action. Finally, many border-security initiatives also contribute information to the national
networked-intelligence picture. For example, the Secure Communities Initiative has implemented new
capabilities to allow a single submission of fingerprints as part of the normal criminal arrest and booking
process to be queried against both the FBI and DHS immigration and terrorism databases. This effort
makes it easier for federal and local law enforcement to share actionable intelligence and makes it more
difficult for terrorists to evade border-security efforts.
 Prisons
Current prisons k2 stopping terrorism
Kaplan 09 (Fred Kaplan 9, 5-29-2009, "There are already 355 terrorists in American prisons.," Slate
Magazine,
http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/war_stories/2009/05/there_are_already_355_terrorists_i
n_american_prisons.html CCC)
President Obama's remark that some Guantanamo detainees might be transferred to American prisons has
prompted an extraordinary, and intellectually feeble, storm of protest. Former Vice President Dick
Cheney kicked off the campaign when he said, during his May 21 speech at the American Enterprise
Institute, that "to bring the worst terrorists inside the United States would be a cause for great danger and
regret in the years to come." Sitting lawmakers—especially those from states such as Kansas and
Colorado where federal prisons are based—raised the same specter and shouted the ancient cry of
principled rebellion: "Not In My Back Yard!" It makes one wonder: Do any of these legislators know
who's in their backyards already, with no apparent detriment to their constituents' daily lives, much less
the nation's security? According to data provided by Traci L. Billingsley, spokeswoman for the U.S.
Bureau of Prisons, federal facilities on American soil currently house 216 international terrorists
and 139 domestic terrorists . Some of these miscreants have been locked up here since the early
1990s. None of them has escaped. At the most secure prisons, nobody has ever escaped, period . As
recited in Congress and on cable-news talk shows, the fears of moving Gitmo prisoners here seem to be
these: that the terrorist prisoners might escape (statistics to the contrary be damned), that they might
convert their fellow inmates with jihadist propaganda, that other members of al-Qaida might infiltrate the
surrounding communities (to do what—spring them?), or that their presence might sow panic in those
communities. Maybe these people don't understand what life is like in these "supermax" prisons. Take
ADX Florence, the supermax in Colorado—"the Alcatraz of the Rockies"—that serves as the home to
Omar Abdel-Rahman, the "blind sheikh" who organized the 1993 World Trade Center bombing; Zacarias
Moussaoui, one of the Sept. 11 plotters; Richard Reid, the shoe-bomber; Theodore Kaczynski, the
"Unabomber"; and Terry Nichols, who helped plan the Oklahoma City bombing, to name a few. These
are all truly dangerous people, but it's not as if they run into one another in the lunch line or the yard.
There is no lunch line; there is no yard. Most of the prisoners are kept in solitary confinement for 23
hours a day. For one hour, they're taken to another concrete room, indoors, to exercise, by themselves.
Their only windows face the sky, so they have no way of knowing even where they are within the prison.
Phone calls to the outside world are banned. Finally, the prison is crammed with cameras and motion
detectors. Compartments are separated by 1,400 remote-controlled steel doors; the place is surrounded by
12-foot-high razor-wire fences; the area between the wire and the walls is further secured by laser beams
and attack dogs. The Bureau of Prisons operates similar facilities—also full of terrorists and murderers—
in Terre Haute, Ind.; Marion, Ill.; and elsewhere. And the Defense Department operates a few dozen
military prisons scattered around the country, some of which would be suitable for housing the exiles
from Guantanamo.
 FISA links
Prohibiting NSA data collection under FISA prevents extensive analysis if data, k2 prevent
terrorism

Bradbury 15 ( Steven. G, “BALANCING PRIVACY AND SECURITY”, HARVARD JOURNAL OF LAW AND PUBLIC
POLICY, https://scholar.google.com/scholar?as_ylo=2011&q=FISA+approvals&hl=en&as_sdt=0,5)

Responding to public opposition to the NSA’s telephone¶ metadata program, Congress is currently
considering legislation¶ that would prohibit the collection of bulk metadata under¶ FISA. In my view,
such a restriction is a bad idea. Under this¶ legislation, the NSA would be unable to collect data from
multiple¶ companies where necessary to assemble a single, efficiently¶ searchable database.31 This
restriction would also mean that¶ the NSA would be prevented from collecting and storing data¶ in bulk
where doing so is the only way to preserve important¶ business records that may be useful for a
counterterrorism investigation.32¶ Without the ability for U.S. intelligence agencies¶ to acquire the data
in bulk under FISA, these important business¶ records would only exist for as long as the private
companies¶ happen to retain the data for their own business purposes ¶ or as required by regulatory
agencies for reasons unrelated to¶ national security.33 For example, telephone companies typically¶ retain
their metadata calling records for only 18 months, as¶ specified by the Federal Communications
Commission for¶ purposes of resolving customer billing disputes.34 Under its¶ metadata program, on the
other hand, the NSA was storing the¶ data for five years, so that it could conduct more extensive
historical¶ analyses of calling connections involving suspected terrorist¶ numbers—historical analyses
that can often provide very¶ important new leads for FBI investigations.

FISA is an archaic mechanism that doesn’t allow law enforcement to respond to modern threats,
Status quo allows for sufficient NSA capabilities
CFR 13 (Council on Foreign Relations, “U.S. Domestic Surveillance” CFR,
http://www.cfr.org/intelligence/us-domestic-surveillance/p9763)

After 9/11, the Bush administration opted not to seek approval from the FISC before intercepting
"international communications into and out of the United States of persons linked to al-Qaeda (PDF) or
related terrorist organizations." The special secret court, set up in 1978 following previous
administrations' domestic spying abuses, was designed to act as a neutral overseer in granting government
agencies surveillance authorization.¶ After the NSA program was revealed by the New York Times in late
2005, former attorney general Alberto R. Gonzales argued (PDF) that President Bush had the legal
authority under the constitution and congressional statute to conduct warrantless surveillance on U.S.
persons "reasonably believed to be linked to al-Qaeda." The 2001 Authorization for Use of Military Force
(AUMF), without specifically mentioning wiretapping, grants the president broad authority to use all
necessary force "against those nations, organizations, or persons he determines planned, authorized,
committed, or aided the [9/11] terrorist attacks." This includes, administration officials say, the powers to
secretly gather domestic intelligence on al-Qaeda and associated groups. ¶ The Bush administration
maintained that the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) was an outdated law-enforcement
mechanism that was too time-consuming given the highly fluid, modern threat environment.
Administration officials portrayed the NSA program as an "early warning system" (PDF) with "a military
nature that requires speed and agility." Moreover, the White House stressed that the program was one not
of domestic surveillance but of monitoring terrorists abroad, and publicly referred to the operation as the
"Terrorist Surveillance Program." Opponents of the program referred to it as "domestic spying." ¶ Under
congressional pressure, Gonzales announced in January 2007 plans to disband the warrantless
surveillance program and cede oversight to FISC, but questions about the legality of the program lingered
in Congress and Gonzales resigned months later.¶ But Washington's vow to seek FISA approval for
domestic surveillance was short-lived. In July 2007--weeks before Gonzales stepped down--intelligence
officials pressed lawmakers for emergency legislation to broaden their wiretapping authority following a
ruling by the court overseeing FISA that impacted the government's ability to intercept foreign
communications passing through telecommunications "switches" on U.S. soil.
 Financial Surveillance Links
Financial surveillance is key to stopping terrorist organizations
Atlas 15 [Terry Atlas, 2-6-2015, Senior Writer in Foreign Policy/National Security Team for Bloomberg
News, "Follow the money new game plan in thwarting terrorism," Seattle Times,
http://www.seattletimes.com/news/follow-the-money-new-game-plan-in-thwarting-terrorism/]

Economic and financial intelligence is critical to targeting and enforcing sanctions against Iran, North Korea and
Russia; strangling the flow of money to terrorist organizations, drug cartels and weapons traffickers; tracking
nuclear proliferation; and assessing the strength of nations such as Russia and China that are now part of the global economy.
Treasury personnel in Washington, D.C. — and in Afghanistan, Pakistan and the Persian Gulf — have worked with intelligence and

military colleagues to attack the finances of the Taliban, al-Qaida and other terrorist groups . The
department has provided expertise and actionable intelligence to civilian and military leaders through “threat finance cells” for

Afghanistan and Iraq, and worked elsewhere with the U.S. Special Operations Command. How much the intelligence mission has changed

is highlighted by the move this month by David Cohen, the Treasury undersecretary for terrorism and financial intelligence to become

deputy director of the Central Intelligence Agency. Cohen, 51, whose Treasury responsibilities included sanctions policy, replaces Avril

Haines, a lawyer who’s now President Obama’s deputy national security adviser. It’s the first time a Treasury official has moved into such

a senior CIA post. That has been noticed in the intelligence community, where the Treasury has become a recognized power, and among

the specialized legal and financial community affected by the nation’s increasing use of economic coercion against adversaries.

“Financial intelligence is incredibly important, and it’s much more important than it used to
be,” said attorney Christopher Swift, a former Treasury official who investigated financing of terrorist groups and weapons proliferators.
“Cohen’s move to CIA underscores that.” Financial intelligence has come into its own as the U.S.
increasingly turns to sanctions, asset freezes and other financial actions to thwart adversaries
from al-Qaida operatives to Russian President Vladimir Putin. It’s a tactic that Ian Bremmer, the president of New York-based
Eurasia Group, recently called the “weaponization of finance.” The U.S. strategy is “premised on the simple reality that all of our

adversaries, to one degree or another, need money to operate, and that by cutting off their financial lifelines, we can significantly impair

their ability to function,” Cohen said at a conference in London in June. Financial intelligence exposes vulnerabilities
of adversaries — whether nations or individuals — who need access to the global financial system. Concealing financial
flows can be harder than avoiding surveillance of emails and phone calls, which terrorists have
tried to do in the aftermath of Edward Snowden’s disclosures about U.S. communications
intercepts. “When people think about intelligence, they think about James Bond and running operations against the Russians or the
Chinese, and that still goes on and we shouldn’t diminish the importance of it,” said Swift, an adjunct professor of national security
studies at Georgetown University in Washington, D.C. “But if you’re looking at the other types of organizations in the global community

that are causing problems for the United States and its allies, a lot of them are non-state actors, they’re criminal syndicates, they’re

narcotics syndicates, they’re transnational terrorist syndicates, and the best way to figure out how those
organizations work, who’s part of those organizations, and the best way to degrade those
organizations is follow the money,” he said. The U.S. government has vastly expanded its collection and use of financial
intelligence, bolstered by a series of post-9/11 laws and executive orders that have given the Treasury Department a leading role in

financial intelligence and sanctions. The Treasury Department has more than 700 personnel dealing with terrorist and financial

intelligence. The Treasury’s Terrorist Finance Tracking Program, which has access to the Swift international banking
transaction network, participated in investigations into the 2013 Boston Marathon bombing, threats
to the 2012 London Summer Olympic Games and the 2011 plot to assassinate the Saudi
Arabian ambassador in D.C., which U.S. officials said originated with senior members of the Quds force of Iran’s Islamic
Revolutionary Guards Corps. The Financial Crimes Enforcement Network, a part of the Treasury’s intelligence operation that regulates

the financial industry to prevent money laundering and terrorist financing, receives more than a million reports a year on
potentially suspect cash movements from financial institutions , Cohen said in a speech in January. FinCen’s
information, combined with data from other sources, assists investigators in “connecting the dots” involving
sometimes previously unknown individuals and businesses, according to the Treasury.
 Links specific to Phone Meta-Data

Phone Meta-Data key to check attacks on the homeland.

Shea ‘14
At the time of this testimony, Teresa Shea was the director of signals intelligence, or SIGINT, which involves intercepting and
decoding electronic communications via phones, email, chat, Skype, and radio. Ms. Shea graduated from the Georgia Institute of
Technology with a Bachelor of Science degree in Electrical Engineering. She earned her Master of Science Degree in Electrical
Engineering from Johns Hopkins University. Ms. Shea is a graduate of the National Security Studies Leadership Program at the
Maxwell School, Syracuse University. She also attended the Intelligence Community Program at the Kellogg School of
Management. Ms. Shea joined the NSA workforce in 1984 as an Electrical Engineer where she developed technical solutions to
SIGINT requirements. Since then she has served as project engineer, program manager, technical director, and line manager in
the Signals Intelligence Directorate and its predecessor organizations. Ms. Shea participated in the NSA Graduate Fellowship
Program and was selected to be a Director’s Fellow. Since her tour as a Director’s Fellow, Ms. Shea has served in multiple
management positions. Ms. Shea was the Chief of Tailored Access Operations group within the Data Acquisition organization in
the Signals Intelligence Directorate. Amicus Brief for Smith v. Obama – before The US District Court for THE DISTRICT OF
IDAHO – December 20th – This cite is a bit tricky to find – it was submitted within the addendum section of Acting Assistant
Attorney General Branda’s Amicus Brief in the matter of Smith v. Obama – before the United States Ninth Circuit Court of
Appeals. Her testimony concludes with “I declare under penalty of perjury that the foregoing is true and correct to the best of my
knowledge”. Jan 23rd - It is towards the bottom of a lengthy addendum section – https://www.eff.org/document/governments-
smith-answering-brief

6. One of the greatest challenges the U.S. faces in combating international terrorism and preventing potentially catastrophic
terrorist attacks on our country is identifying terrorist operatives and networks, particularly those operating
within the U.S. Detecting and preventing threats by exploiting terrorist communications has been, and continues to be, one
of the tools in this effort. It is imperative that we have the capability to rapidly detect a ny terrorist threat inside the
U.S. 7. One method that the NSA has developed to accomplish this task is analysis of metadata associated with
telephone calls within, to, or from the U.S. The term "telephony metadata" or "metadata" as used here refers to data collected under the
program that are about telephone calls—such as the initiating and receiving telephone numbers, and the time and duration of the calls—but does not include the
substantive content of those calls or any subscriber identifying information. 8. By
analyzing telephony metadata based on telephone
numbers associated with terrorist activity, trained expert intelligence analysts can work to determine whether known or suspected
terrorists have been in contact with individuals in the U.S. 9. Foreign terrorist organizations use the international telephone system to
communicate with one another between numerous countries ail over the world, including calls to and from the U.S. When they are located inside the U.S., terrorist
operatives also make domestic U.S. telephone calls. The
most analytically significant terrorist-related communications are those
with one end in the U.S., or those that are purely domestic, because those communications are particularly likely to
identify suspects in the U.S. whose activities may include planning attacks against the homeland.

Meta-data vital to check terror attacks - 9-11 proves.

Shea ‘14
At the time of this testimony, Teresa Shea was the director of signals intelligence, or SIGINT, which involves intercepting and
decoding electronic communications via phones, email, chat, Skype, and radio. Ms. Shea graduated from the Georgia Institute of
Technology with a Bachelor of Science degree in Electrical Engineering. She earned her Master of Science Degree in Electrical
Engineering from Johns Hopkins University. Ms. Shea is a graduate of the National Security Studies Leadership Program at the
Maxwell School, Syracuse University. She also attended the Intelligence Community Program at the Kellogg School of
Management. Ms. Shea joined the NSA workforce in 1984 as an Electrical Engineer where she developed technical solutions to
SIGINT requirements. Since then she has served as project engineer, program manager, technical director, and line manager in
the Signals Intelligence Directorate and its predecessor organizations. Ms. Shea participated in the NSA Graduate Fellowship
Program and was selected to be a Director’s Fellow. Since her tour as a Director’s Fellow, Ms. Shea has served in multiple
management positions. Ms. Shea was the Chief of Tailored Access Operations group within the Data Acquisition organization in
the Signals Intelligence Directorate. Amicus Brief for Smith v. Obama – before The US District Court for THE DISTRICT OF
IDAHO – December 20th – This cite is a bit tricky to find – it was submitted within the addendum section of Acting Assistant
Attorney General Branda’s Amicus Brief in the matter of Smith v. Obama – before the United States Ninth Circuit Court of
Appeals. Her testimony concludes with “I declare under penalty of perjury that the foregoing is true and correct to the best of my
knowledge”. Jan 23rd - It is towards the bottom of a lengthy addendum section – https://www.eff.org/document/governments-
smith-answering-brief

10. The telephony metadata collection program was specifically developed to assist the U.S, Government in detecting such
communications between known or suspected terrorists who are operating outside of the U.S. and who are communicating
with others inside the U.S., as well as communications between operatives who are located within the U.S. 11. Detecting and linking these
types of communications was identified as a critical intelligence gap in the aftermath of the September
11,2001 attacks. One striking example of this gap is that, prior to those attacks, the NSA intercepted and transcribed seven
calls made by hijacker Khaiid al-Mihdhar, then living in San Diego, California, to a telephone identifier
associated with an al Qaeda safe house in Yemen . The NSA intercepted these calls using overseas signals
intelligence capabilities, but those capabilities did not capture the calling party's telephone number
identifier. Because they lacked the U.S. telephone identifier, NSA analysis mistakenly concluded that al-Mihdhar was overseas and not in California. Telephony
metadata of the type acquired under this program, however, would have included the missing information and might have
permitted NSA intelligence analysts to tip FBI to the fact that al-Mihdhar was calling the Yemeni safe
house from a U.S. telephone identifier. 12. The utility of analyzing telephony metadata as an intelligence tool has long been
recognized. As discussed below, experience also shows that telephony metadata analysis in fact produces information pertinent
to FBI counterterrorism investigations, and can contribute to the prevention of terrorist attacks.

( ) Yes, Meta-data has checked specific terror attacks. It also exposes broader
terror cells.
Shea ‘14
At the time of this testimony, Teresa Shea was the director of signals intelligence, or SIGINT, which involves intercepting and
decoding electronic communications via phones, email, chat, Skype, and radio. Ms. Shea graduated from the Georgia Institute of
Technology with a Bachelor of Science degree in Electrical Engineering. She earned her Master of Science Degree in Electrical
Engineering from Johns Hopkins University. Ms. Shea is a graduate of the National Security Studies Leadership Program at the
Maxwell School, Syracuse University. She also attended the Intelligence Community Program at the Kellogg School of
Management. Ms. Shea joined the NSA workforce in 1984 as an Electrical Engineer where she developed technical solutions to
SIGINT requirements. Since then she has served as project engineer, program manager, technical director, and line manager in
the Signals Intelligence Directorate and its predecessor organizations. Ms. Shea participated in the NSA Graduate Fellowship
Program and was selected to be a Director’s Fellow. Since her tour as a Director’s Fellow, Ms. Shea has served in multiple
management positions. Ms. Shea was the Chief of Tailored Access Operations group within the Data Acquisition organization in
the Signals Intelligence Directorate. Amicus Brief for Smith v. Obama – before The US District Court for THE DISTRICT OF
IDAHO – December 20th – This cite is a bit tricky to find – it was submitted within the addendum section of Acting Assistant
Attorney General Branda’s Amicus Brief in the matter of Smith v. Obama – before the United States Ninth Circuit Court of
Appeals. Her testimony concludes with “I declare under penalty of perjury that the foregoing is true and correct to the best of my
knowledge”. Jan 23rd - It is towards the bottom of a lengthy addendum section – https://www.eff.org/document/governments-
smith-answering-brief

55. The value of telephony metadata collected under Section 215 is not hypothetical. While many specific instances of the
Government's use of telephony metadata under Section 215 remain classified, a number of instances have been disclosed in declassified materials. 56. An
illustration of the particular value of the bulk metadata program under Section 215—and a tragic example of what can occur in its absence—is the case
of 9/11 hijacker Khalid al-Mihdhar, which I have described above. The Section 215 telephony metadata collection program addresses
the information gap that existed at the time of the al-Mihdhar case. It allows the NSA to rapidly and effectively note these types
 the
of suspicious contacts and, when appropriate, to tip them to the FBI for follow-on analysis or action. 57. Furthermore, once an identifier has been detected,
NSA can use bulk telephony metadata along with other data sources to quickly identify the larger network and possible
coconspirators both inside and outside the U.S. for further investigation by the FBI with the goal of preventing future terror ist attacks.

Meta-data key – their “alternatives” would hamper the counter-terror ops of

several agencies, not just NSA.
Shea ‘14
At the time of this testimony, Teresa Shea was the director of signals intelligence, or SIGINT, which involves intercepting and
decoding electronic communications via phones, email, chat, Skype, and radio. Ms. Shea graduated from the Georgia Institute of
Technology with a Bachelor of Science degree in Electrical Engineering. She earned her Master of Science Degree in Electrical
Engineering from Johns Hopkins University. Ms. Shea is a graduate of the National Security Studies Leadership Program at the
Maxwell School, Syracuse University. She also attended the Intelligence Community Program at the Kellogg School of
Management. Ms. Shea joined the NSA workforce in 1984 as an Electrical Engineer where she developed technical solutions to
SIGINT requirements. Since then she has served as project engineer, program manager, technical director, and line manager in
the Signals Intelligence Directorate and its predecessor organizations. Ms. Shea participated in the NSA Graduate Fellowship
Program and was selected to be a Director’s Fellow. Since her tour as a Director’s Fellow, Ms. Shea has served in multiple
management positions. Ms. Shea was the Chief of Tailored Access Operations group within the Data Acquisition organization in
the Signals Intelligence Directorate. Amicus Brief for Smith v. Obama – before The US District Court for THE DISTRICT OF
IDAHO – December 20th – This cite is a bit tricky to find – it was submitted within the addendum section of Acting Assistant
Attorney General Branda’s Amicus Brief in the matter of Smith v. Obama – before the United States Ninth Circuit Court of
Appeals. Her testimony concludes with “I declare under penalty of perjury that the foregoing is true and correct to the best of my
knowledge”. Jan 23rd - It is towards the bottom of a lengthy addendum section – https://www.eff.org/document/governments-
smith-answering-brief

58. As the case examples in the FBI declaration accompanying this declaration demonstrate, Section 215 bulk telephony metadata is a resource not only in isolation,
but also for investigating threat leads obtained from other SIGINT collection or partner agencies. This is especially true for the NSA-FBI partnership. The Section 215
telephony metadata program enables NSA intelligence analysts to evaluate potential threats that it receives from or reports to the FBI
in a more complete manner than if this data source were unavailable. 59. Section 215 bulk telephony metadata
complements other counterterrorist-related collection sources by serving as a significant enabler for NSA intelligence
analysis. It assists the NSA in applying limited linguistic resources available to the counterterrorism mission against links that have the highest probability of
connection to terrorist targets. Put another way, while Section 215 does not contain content, analysis of the Section 215 metadata can help the NSA
prioritize for content analysis communications of non-U.S. persons which it acquires under other authorities. Such persons are of heightened interest if they
are in a communication network with persons located in the U.S. Thus, Section 215 metadata can provide the means for steering and applying content analysis so
that the U.S. Government gains the best possible understanding of terrorist target actions and intentions. 60. Reliance
solely on traditional, case-by-case intelligence gathering methods, restricted to known terrorist identifiers , would
significantly impair the NSA's ability to accomplish many of the aforementioned objectives. 61. Without the ability to
obtain and analyze bulk metadata, the NSA would lose a tool for detecting communication chains that link to identifiers
associated with known and suspected terrorist operatives, which can lead to the identification of previously unknown persons of
interest in support of anti-terrorism efforts both within the U.S. and abroad. Having the bulk telephony metadata available to query is part of
this effort, as there is no way to know in advance which numbers will be responsive to the authorized queries. 62. The bulk metadata allows retrospective analyses of
prior communications of newly discovered terrorists in an efficacious manner. Any
other means that might be used to attempt to
conduct similar analyses would require multiple, time-consuming steps that would frustrate needed rapid
analysis in emergent situations, and could fail to capture some data available through bulk metadata analysis. 63.
If the telephony metadata are not aggregated and retained for a sufficient period of time, it will not be possible for the NSA to detect chains of communications that
cross different providers and telecommunications networks. But for the NSA's metadata collection, the NSA would need to seek telephonic records from multiple
providers whenever a need to inquire arose, and each such provider may not maintain records in a format that is subject to a standardized query. 64. Thus, the
Government could not achieve the aforementioned benefits of Section 215 metadata collection through
alternative means. 65. The use of more targeted means of collection—whether through subpoenas, national security letters
 would
("NSLs"), or pen-register and trap-and-trace ("PR/TT") devices authorized under the FISA— solely of records directly pertaining to a terrorism subject
fail to permit the comprehensive and retrospective analyses detailed above of communication chains that might, and sometimes do, reveal
previously unknown persons of interest in terrorism investigations. Targeted inquiries also would fail to capture
communications chains and overlaps that can be of investigatory significance, because targeted inquiries would eliminate the NSA's ability to collect and analyze
metadata of communications occurring at the second "hop" from a terrorist suspect's initial "seed"; rather, they would only reveal communications directly involving
the specific targets in question. In other words, targeted inquiries would capture only one "hop." As a result, the Government's ability to discover and analyze
communications metadata revealing the fact that as-yet unknown identifiers are linked in a chain of communications with identified terrorist networks would be
impaired. 66. In sum, any
order immediately barring the Government from employing the Section 215 metadata
collection program would
deprive the Government of unique capabilities that could not be completely replicated by other means,
and as a result would cause an increased risk to national security and the safety of the American public.

Phone Meta-data key to boost terror detection.

Shea ‘14
At the time of this testimony, Teresa Shea was the director of signals intelligence, or SIGINT, which involves intercepting and
decoding electronic communications via phones, email, chat, Skype, and radio. Ms. Shea graduated from the Georgia Institute of
Technology with a Bachelor of Science degree in Electrical Engineering. She earned her Master of Science Degree in Electrical
Engineering from Johns Hopkins University. Ms. Shea is a graduate of the National Security Studies Leadership Program at the
Maxwell School, Syracuse University. She also attended the Intelligence Community Program at the Kellogg School of
Management. Ms. Shea joined the NSA workforce in 1984 as an Electrical Engineer where she developed technical solutions to
SIGINT requirements. Since then she has served as project engineer, program manager, technical director, and line manager in
the Signals Intelligence Directorate and its predecessor organizations. Ms. Shea participated in the NSA Graduate Fellowship
Program and was selected to be a Director’s Fellow. Since her tour as a Director’s Fellow, Ms. Shea has served in multiple
management positions. Ms. Shea was the Chief of Tailored Access Operations group within the Data Acquisition organization in
the Signals Intelligence Directorate. Amicus Brief for Smith v. Obama – before The US District Court for THE DISTRICT OF
IDAHO – December 20th – This cite is a bit tricky to find – it was submitted within the addendum section of Acting Assistant
Attorney General Branda’s Amicus Brief in the matter of Smith v. Obama – before the United States Ninth Circuit Court of
Appeals. Her testimony concludes with “I declare under penalty of perjury that the foregoing is true and correct to the best of my
knowledge”. Jan 23rd - It is towards the bottom of a lengthy addendum section – https://www.eff.org/document/governments-
smith-answering-brief

47. Among other benefits, the

bulk collection of telephony metadata under Section 215 has an important value to NSA
intelligence analysts
tasked with identifying potential terrorist threats to the U.S. homeland, in support of FBI, by
enhancing their ability to detect, prioritize, and track terrorist operatives and their support networks both in the U.S. and abroad. By
applying the FISC-ordered RAS standard to telephone identifiers used to query the metadata, NSA intelligence analysts are able to: (i) detect domestic identifiers
calling foreign identifiers associated with one of the foreign terrorist organizations and discover identifiers that the foreign identifiers are in contact with; (ii) detect
foreign identifiers associated with a foreign terrorist organization calling into the U.S. and discover which domestic identifiers are in contact with the foreign
identifiers; and (iii) detect possible terrorist-related communications occurring between communicants located inside the U.S. 48. Al though the NSA
possesses a number of sources of information that can each be used to provide separate and independent indications of potential terrorist
activity against the U.S. and its interests abroad, the best analysis occurs when NSA intelligence analysts can consider the
information obtained from each of those sources together to compile and disseminate to the FBI as complete a
picture as possible of a potential terrorist threat. While telephony metadata is not the sole source of information available to NSA
counterterrorism personnel, it provides a component of the information NSA intelligence analysts rely upon to execute this
threat identification and characterization role.
 Restrictions on FBI/CIA Cooperation

FBI/CIA cooperation is critical to continued CT

Dinshaw 6-13-15, Reporter
Fram, “Animosity between CIA and FBI before 9/11 debilitated spies: newly declassified documents”,
http://www.nationalobserver.com/2015/06/13/news/animosity-between-cia-and-fbi-911-debilitated-spies-
newly-declassified-documents
According to a trove of documents declassified by the CIA on June 12, al-Qa’ida’s operational activity in
the United States and Canada was greater than previously thought leading up to the 9/11 attacks on the
World Trade Center and the Pentagon, with Tenet's leadership blamed for much bad judgement. ¶ The CIA
report details how tension between the CIA and FBI hindered counter-terrorism investigations, and how
intelligence agencies repeatedly failed to put future 9/11 hijackers on a watch list. ¶ It describes an often-
vicious conflict between George Tenet’s CIA and the FBI before 9/11, as well as the spy agency’s
difficulties in gathering Human Intelligence (HUMINT) and mounting a covert strike to capture or kill
bin Laden, after his organization bombed US embassies in East Africa and attacked the USS Cole in
2000.¶ “The key pre-9/11 CIA-FBI relationship with respect to al-Qa’ida, that between UBL (Usama Bin
Laden) station and the FBI’s New York Field Office (the Bureau’s office of origin or office with
responsibility for al-Qa’ida), was troubled at best and dysfunctional at worst,” states the documents.¶ One
CIA member told the investigating team that an FBI representative from the Bureau’s New York Field
Office was there to spy on behalf of his chief, who did not trust the UBL station. ¶ The FBI representative,
in turn, told investigators that he was mistrusted as New York’s ‘spy’ and felt like an outcast, saying: “…
many of his supervisors and peers did, in fact, characterize him that way." ¶ Many of those interviewed
said that the worst animosity occurred in a crucial period between 1997 and 1999, after which attempts
were made to mend fences, with little success. ¶ The report notes that the CIA’s UBL station had a
smoother relationship with FBI Headquarters’ counter-terrorism office, but those interviewed said that
supposedly monthly meetings were erratic at best. ¶ Nonetheless, the UBL station and FBI counter-
terrorism heads established a good working relationship. ¶ Lack of cooperation despite stepping up effort
to investigate bin Laden¶ But on Dec. 24 1998, then-CIA chief George Tenet called in a memo for “a new
phase in our effort against bin Ladin,” urging that efforts against al-Qa’ida’s chief be stepped up
dramatically.¶ “We need an integrated plan which captures these elements and others which may be
appropriate. This plan must be fully co-ordinated with the FBI,” said Tenet in his memo. ¶ But co-
operation between the CIA and other agencies remained inadequate. On at least three occasions from
January 2000 – August 2001, agencies “failed to recommend future 9/11 hijackers Nawaf al-Hazmi and
Khalid al-Mihdhar for watchlisting.”¶ “…the Director of Central Intelligence (DCI) acknowledged in his
testimony that [the] CIA was not sufficiently focused on advising the State Department to watchlist all
terrorist operatives, attributing this to uneven practices, bad training, and a lack of redundancy,” the report
states.

FBI and CIA cross-agency cooperation is essential

Jackson et al ‘9, American lawyer and the Chief United States district judge on the United States
District Court for the Middle District of Louisiana
Brian Anthony, “The Challenge of Domestic Intelligence in a Free Society: A Multidisciplinary Look at
the Creation of a U.S. Domestic Counterterrorism Intelligence Agency”, https://books.google.com/books?
id=1MYQCCfuv4QC&dq=%22domestic+surveillance%22+%22interagency+cooperation
%22&source=gbs_navlinks_s
As time has passed, the cast of agencies involved in domestic intel-¶ ligence activities has grown, and
therefore, coordination among these¶ agencies has grown increasingly complicated. The events of 9/11
high-¶ lighted interagency-coordination problems, and once again, calls For ¶ reorganization arose. "The
establishment of the Department of Home-¶ land Security promises to further complicate both the
delineation of¶ responsibilities and coordination across agencies. ¶ The coordination of domestic
intelligence activities is particularly¶ complex because such activities overlap with the responsibilities of
so¶ many agencies. The military and CIA have gradually been restricted¶ to foreign intelligence activities,
while the FBI has taken on the pri-¶ mary role in domestic intelligence activities. However, there must be ¶
coordination and information exchange among these agencies because ¶ threats have become increasingly
transnational in nature.¶ In addition to these historical interagency-coordination prob- ¶ lems, the events of
9/11 also led to increasing calls to separate law ¶ enforcement and intelligence activities. Since the late
1950s, the FBI¶ increasingly took on surveillance activities until the Church Commit- ¶ tee reforms in the
1970s put additional oversight and accountability¶ mechanisms in place. With the events of 9/ 1 1, the FBI
has once again¶ been asked to take on increased surveillance responsibilities , and some¶ have questioned
whether law enforcement and intelligence activities ¶ can be conflated in a single organization because of
the risk that such¶ activities will come into conflict with one another. ¶ Thus, domestic surveillance efforts
in the United States have his-¶ torically been extremely Complex because they require coordination ¶ across
Various government agencies, coordination across international¶ and domestic activities, and melding of
various organizational cultures.¶ The nation has always struggled with the delineation of responsibilities¶
across agencies and how to streamline the domestic intelligence enter- ¶ prise. "The calls for reorganization
since the 9/11 attacks are merely the¶ latest episode in_a cyclical reevaluation of the organizational
structure¶ of the country's domestic surveillance activities.

Interagency cooperation is crucial to domestic intelligence

Rosenbach and Peritz ‘9, Executive Director of the Belfer Center for Science and International
Affairs at the Harvard Kennedy School and Associate at the Belfer Center for Science and International
Affairs at the Harvard Kennedy School of Government
Eric and Aki, “Confrontation or Collaboration? Congress and the Intelligence Community”,
http://belfercenter.ksg.harvard.edu/files/IC-book-finalasof12JUNE.pdf
Domestic Intelligence¶ Unlike many nations, the United States does not have a dedicated organization
focused on domestic¶ intelligence collection. Although the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) is the
principal domestic¶ intelligence agency, the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) and Department of
Defense (DoD) also¶ play limited domestic intelligence roles. In response to criticism following the
attacks of 9/11, the FBI¶ began reforms to increase their collection and analysis of domestic intelligence,
especially in regards to¶ terrorism. Nonetheless, critics contend that FBI intelligence collection continues
to play a secondary¶ role to the FBI’s primary mission, federal law enforcement. ¶ This memo provides new
members of Congress with an overview of U.S. domestic intelligence and the ¶ issues most relevant to the
111th Congress.¶ Domestic Intelligence before September 11, 2001¶ Since its creation in 1908, the FBI has
been responsible for both domestic intelligence and law ¶ enforcement. From the 1930s through 1960s, the
FBI focused on cases of espionage and foreign¶ subversion. The Church Committee investigation of
intelligence abuses in the 1970s disclosed a series ¶ of FBI—along with CIA and NSA—violations of
Americans’ civil liberties. Congress passed a series ¶ of reform laws in the late 1970s, including the
Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA), to prevent ¶ future abuses.¶ In the wake of the intelligence
scandals of the 1970s, concern about the potential for intelligence ¶ agencies to inappropriately collect
information that could be used to prosecute citizens prevailed. This ¶ concern eventually morphed into a
mistaken belief that intelligence officials could not legally share ¶ information with FBI criminal
investigators. The resulting “wall” of bureaucratic obstacles virtually ¶ halted the flow of intelligence
information provided to domestic law enforcement agencies. The 9/11 ¶ Commission highlighted this
shortcoming as a major impediment to national security. ¶ Post-9/11 Domestic Intelligence Paradigm¶ The
attacks of 9/11 resulted in major organizational and functional changes within the Intelligence ¶
Community and dramatically shifted FBI priorities from traditional criminal matters to international ¶
counterterrorism threats and intelligence gathering. ¶ After much debate, the 9/11 Commission
recommended against creating a dedicated domestic ¶ intelligence agency, and instead recommended that
the FBI expand and improve its intelligence ¶ The Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs |
The Harvard Kennedy School 45¶ capabilities. In order to improve its domestic intelligence capacity, the
FBI pursued the following¶ initiatives:¶ Joint Terrorism Task Forces ( JTTFs): The JTTFs are multi-agency
task forces located in more than¶ 100 locations nationwide. JTTFs bring local, state, and federal law
enforcement and intelligence¶ agencies together to share information and conduct operations to prevent
terrorist operations.¶ Prior to September 11, 2001, the United States had 35 JTTFs. Shortly after the
attacks, the FBI¶ Director instructed all FBI field offices to establish formal terrorism task forces. ¶
Personnel: The FBI hired hundreds of counterterrorism analysts and linguists, and re-tasked more ¶ than
700 personnel from criminal investigations to counterterrorism and counterintelligence ¶ duties.¶ National
Security Branch: The Bureau merged its intelligence, counterintelligence, and ¶ counterterrorism divisions
into a unified “National Security Service” in 2005. ¶ Field Intelligence Groups (FIGs): FIGs are composed
of Special Agents, Intelligence Analysts,¶ and other FBI specialists in each of the FBI’s 56 field offices.
They are designed to integrate the¶ “intelligence cycle” into FBI field operations and manage the Field
Office Intelligence Program in¶ coordination with the Directorate of Intelligence at FBI Headquarters. ¶
Domain Management Initiative: In November 2005, the FBI launched the Domain Management ¶ Initiative
to focus attention on national security threats within each field offices “geographic ¶ domain.” The goal of
program is to develop a comprehensive understanding of the threats relevant ¶ to each field office’s region.
 Link Boosters: vs Critical Terrorism Affs
Their critique of islamophobia undercuts the effectiveness and resolve of the fight
against terrorism – this risks large-scale violence
Hanson ‘4
(Victor Davis, Professor of Classical Studies at CSU Fresno, City Journal, Spring, http://www.city-
journal.org/html/14_2_the_fruits.html)
much of our appeasement of Middle Eastern terrorists derived from a new
Rather than springing from realpolitik, sloth, or fear of oil cutoffs,

sort of anti-Americanism that thrived in the growing therapeutic society of the 1980s and 1990s . Though the abrupt
collapse of communism was a dilemma for the Left, it opened as many doors as it shut. To be sure, after the fall of the Berlin Wall, few Marxists could argue for a state-controlled economy or mouth the old romance about a workers’
paradise—not with scenes of East German families crammed into smoking clunkers lumbering over potholed roads, like American pioneers of old on their way west. But if the creed of the socialist republics was impossible to take
seriously in either economic or political terms, such a collapse of doctrinaire statism did not discredit the gospel of forced egalitarianism and resentment against prosperous capitalists. Far from it. If Marx receded from economics

departments, his spirit reemerged among our intelligentsia in the novel guises o f post-structuralism, new historicism, multiculturalism, and all the
other dogmas whose fundamental tenet was that white male capitalists had systematically oppressed women,
minorities, and Third World people in countless insidious ways. The font of that collective oppression, both at home and abroad, was the rich, corporate, Republican, and white United States. The fall of the Soviet Union

enhanced these newer post-colonial and liberation fields of study by immunizing their promulgators from charges of fellow-traveling or being dupes of Russian expansionism. Communism’s demise

likewise freed these trendy ideologies from having to offer some wooden, unworkable Marxist alternative to

the West; thus they could happily remain entirely critical, sarcastic, and cynical without any obligation to
suggest something better, as witness the nihilist signs at recent protest marches proclaiming: “I Love Iraq, Bomb Texas.” From writers like Arundhati Roy and
Michel Foucault (who anointed Khomeini “a kind of mystic saint” who would usher in a new “political
spirituality” that would “transfigure” the world) and from old standbys like Frantz Fanon and Jean-Paul
Sartre (“to shoot down a European is to kill two birds with one stone, to destroy an oppressor and the man he oppresses at the same time”), there filtered down a vague notion that
the United States and the West in general were responsible for Third World misery in ways that transcended the dull old class
struggle. Endemic racism and the legacy of colonialism, the oppressive multinational corporation and the humiliation and

erosion of indigenous culture brought on by globalization and a smug, self-important cultural condescension—all this and more explained poverty and
despair, whether in Damascus, Teheran, or Beirut. There was victim status for everybody, from gender, race, and class at home to
colonialism, imperialism, and hegemony abroad. Anyone could play in these “area studies” that cobbled
together the barrio, the West Bank, and the “freedom fighter” into some sloppy global union of the
oppressed—a far hipper enterprise than rehashing Das Kapital or listening to a six-hour harangue from Fidel. Of course, pampered Western intellectuals since Diderot have
always dreamed up a “noble savage,” who lived in harmony with nature precisely because of his distance from the corruption of Western civilization. But now this
fuzzy romanticism had an updated, political edge: the bearded killer and wild-eyed savage were not merely better than we because they lived apart in a pre-modern
landscape. No: they had a right to strike back and kill modernizing Westerners who had intruded into and disrupted

their better world—whether Jews on Temple Mount, women in Westernized dress in Teheran, Christian missionaries in Kabul, capitalist profiteers in Islamabad, whiskey-drinking oilmen in Riyadh, or miniskirted
tourists in Cairo. An Ayatollah Khomeini who turned back the clock on female emancipation in Iran, who

murdered non-Muslims, and who refashioned Iranian state policy to hunt down, torture, and kill liberals
nevertheless seemed to liberal Western eyes as preferable to the Shah —a Western-supported anti-communist, after all, who was engaged in the
messy, often corrupt task of bringing Iran from the tenth to the twentieth century, down the arduous, dangerous path that, as in Taiwan or South Korea, might eventually lead to a consensual, capitalist society like our own. Yet

in the new world of utopian multiculturalism and knee-jerk anti-Americanism, in which a Noam Chomsky could proclaim Khomeini’s
gulag to be “independent nationalism,” reasoned argument was futile. Indeed, how could critical debate arise for those “committed to social

change,” when no universal standards were to be applied to those outside the West? Thanks to the
doctrine of cultural relativism, “oppressed” peoples either could not be judged by our biased and
“constructed” values (“false universals,” in Edward Said’s infamous term) or were seen as more pristine than
ourselves, uncorrupted by the evils of Western capitalism. Who were we to gainsay Khomeini’s butchery
and oppression? We had no way of understanding the nuances of his new liberationist and “nationalist” Islam. Now back in the hands of indigenous peoples, Iran might offer the world an alternate path, a different
“discourse” about how to organize a society that emphasized native values (of some sort) over mere profit. So at precisely the time of these increasingly frequent

terrorist attacks, the silly gospel of multiculturalism insisted that Westerners have neither earned the right
to censure others, nor do they possess the intellectual tools to make judgments about the relative value of different cultures. And if
the initial wave of multiculturalist relativism among the elites —coupled with the age-old romantic forbearance for Third World roguery—explained
tolerance for early unpunished attacks on Americans, its spread to our popular culture only encouraged
more. This nonjudgmentalism—essentially a form of nihilism—deemed everything from Sudanese
female circumcision to honor killings on the West Bank merely “different” rather than odious . Anyone who has taught
freshmen at a state university can sense the fuzzy thinking of our undergraduates: most come to us prepped in high schools not to make “value judgments” about “other” peoples who are often “victims” of American “oppression.”

Thus, before female-hating psychopath Mohamed Atta piloted a jet into the World Trade Center, neither
Western intellectuals nor their students would have taken him to task for what he said or condemned him as hypocritical for his
parasitical existence on Western society. Instead, without logic but with plenty of romance, they would more likely have excused him as a victim of

globalization or of the biases of American foreign policy. They would have deconstructed Atta’s
promotion of anti-Semitic, misogynist, Western-hating thought, as well as his conspiracies with Third
World criminals, as anything but a danger and a pathology to be remedied by deportation or incarceration.

There isn’t a root cause of terrorism – and if there is, trying to find it just allows
violence to flourish. We must win the fight first and figure out what caused it later
ElShtain ‘7
(Jean Bethke Elshtain is the Laura Spelman Rockefeller Professor of Social and Political Ethics at the
University of Chicago, The Price Of Peace: Just War in the Twenty-First Century, Edited by Charles
Reed and David Ryall)
Of course it
is sometimes the case that elements of movements that resort to terrorism – say, the Irish Republican Army –
also develop a political arm and begin negotiating a political settlement. No political solution is possible, however, when
the destruction of innocent civilians and some fantastic notion, say, of restoration of the classical
caliphate, as in bin Ladenism, is the alleged aim. Thus, bin Laden, in fatwa after fatwa, calls upon the
faithful to kill ‘crusaders, Jews and infidels’ wherever and whenever they are found. He disdains any
distinction between Americans in uniform and those going about daily civilian life. His claim is that to
kill all Americans anywhere is a ‘duty for every Muslim . . . God willing, America’s end is near.’6 Terrorism is terrorism Before
turning to the context of ethical evaluation and restraint within which just war thinkers insist terrorism and measures used to combat it should be located, it is
important to examine some apologies for terrorism, that remove the onus of moral criticism and condemnation from those committed to terrorist deeds. For there
are some who insist now, as they have in the past, that the victims of terror somehow ‘had it coming’. Others claim
that those who resort to terror have no other option as they are in a state of ‘rage’ as well as helplessness so they must use whatever
weapons they can. Then, too, there is the ‘everybody does it’ claim . These lines of thought strip away a moral
vocabulary of the sort required to make crucial distinctions between rule-governed war making and
terrorism. One often finds rationales for terrorist acts that, in the rush to exculpate, wind up patronising
those who resort to terrorism. As theologian David Yeago writes: To suppose that the Islamic faith, or Arab culture, or
poverty and the experience of oppression somehow lead young men directly, of themselves, to be capable of flying
an airliner full of passengers into a building crowded with unsuspecting civilians is deeply denigrating to Muslims, to Arabs,
and to the poor and oppressed. It requires us to suppose that Muslims, or Arabs, or the poor lie almost
beyond the borders of a shared humanity, that however much we pity and excuse them, we cannot rely on
them simply because they are Muslims, Arabs, or oppressed to behave in humanly and morally
intelligible ways. I would suggest that this is a dangerous line of thought, however humanely motivated it may
initially be.7 This is a powerful – and controversial – argument and it warrants some unpacking. Often arguments that take the form of ‘they have no other
option’ are working with crude binary models of victim/victimiser or oppressor/ oppressed. If the victimising is absolute on one side of the pair, it follows that
victimisation is absolute. If this is so, then victims will and must resort to anything they can to undo their ‘oppression’. The origins of such an approach conceptually
most likely lie with Hegel’s famous (or infamous) master/slave dialogue. More recently, this argument is associating with a text that was a staple in third worldist
ideological circles, namely, Franz Fanon’s The Wretched of the Earth.8 Unsurprisingly, these sorts of arguments have resurfaced with Islamist fanaticism and
terrorism. But no
one has thus far made a convincing case that ‘structural’ causes lie behind a resort to
terrorism – like poverty and desperation. It is, therefore, clear that we must look at terrorism not as epiphenomenal
to some underlying problem but as itself the problem. Poverty does not breed terrorism. The vast majority
of the poor never resort to terrorism. The attackers of 9/11 weremiddle class and reasonably well
educated. Alan Krueger and Jitka Maleckova have explored in depth the relationship, if any, between economic deprivation and terrorism. They conclude that a
‘careful review of the evidence provides little reason for optimism that a reduction in poverty or an increase in educational attainment would, by themselves,
meaningfully reduce international terrorism’. The issue is important, they aver, because drawing
a false causal connection between
poverty and terrorism is potentially quite dangerous. We may be led to do nothing about terrorism, and
we may also lose interest in providing support for developing nations should the terrorism threat wane.
By ‘falsely connecting terrorism to poverty’, policy-makers, analysts and commentators only ‘deflect
attention from the real roots of terrorism’, which are political, ideological and religious .9 There is a huge gap
between claiming that poverty ‘causes’ terrorism and acknowledging the ways in which terrorist entities exploit various conditions, including desperation of all sorts.
The key lies in the word ‘exploit’. Terrorists
exploit certain conditions. These conditions are part of the matrix out of
which terrorism grows. It does not follow that terrorism is caused by these conditions . Because terrorists exploit
certain conditions, it makes good sense for those who are victimised by terrorism to seek to ameliorate the conditions out of which terrorism may flow. But this gets
very tricky very fast, not only for the reasons noted above, but because a good bit of al-Qaeda terrorism of the sort that stunned the United States and Great Britain is
the act of those who became ideologically inflamed actors within the very bosom of the society they seek to destroy. In light of the enormous varieties of
circumstances that may yield up terrorists, those
combating terrorism must in their response, first and foremost,
concentrate on terrorism itself. Confronted with a serial killer, the first thing police seek to do is to stop
the violence. Attempting to discern what particular concatenation of circumstances led to this particular
person taking up serial killing comes later. Urgency is added to this effort if one recognises that there are
always unscrupulous political leaders who are only too happy to exploit the very conditions that make
terrorist recruitment easier. To alter the circumstances is to alter their own fortunes, to the extent that they have profited from the misery of their own
people. Acknowledging this in no way removes responsibility from the shoulders of others, but what it does
do is to alert us to a kind of sacralisation of victimhood that invites exculpation when the ‘victim’
commits abhorrent acts. This is itself a patronising gesture that traffics in the most demeaning sorts of
cultural stereotypes.

Their lack of resolve is defeatism: causes the US to use nuclear force against
terrorists – which is obviously worse than the squo
Peters ‘5
(Ralph, fmr US Army intel officer, prizewinning writer and strategist, New Glory, 72-75)
We all hope that we shall never have to use a nuclear weapon. But faced with implacable enemies determined to destroy us,
inadequate conventional measures increase the likelihood that we will eventually need to resort to weapons of mass
destruction ourselves. The use of such weapons seems unthinkable today, but sufficient destruction wreaked against our
homeland could bring about a rapid change of heart . We value our sense of humanity, but we, too, will do whatever it takes
to survive. In world of nuclear proliferation—which neither of our political parties, nor our closest allies, have demonstrated the strength of will to stop—the
chance that we will live out our lives without witnessing at least a regional nuclear exchange is far
lower than any one of us might like. Weapons of mass destruction are ideal for enemies intent upon mass
destruction. At least some of our current and future enemies—Islamist fanatics—seek nothing less than the elimination of
our country and the destruction of civilization. They do not, and will not, have the strength to achieve their goal, but they are likely to gain the
capability to inflict losses on our society and economy far more painful than those of 9/11. If we lack the fortitude to do whatever it
takes to win we may be certain that our enemies do not share our reticence . Despite the terrible dangers of the Cold War,
the truth is that American and its allies have lived through a golden age of safety. That age is now at an end. Despite our best efforts to secure our homeland, we live
And the only enduring means to reduce that vulnerability isn’t
in an age of vulnerability unprecedented since our frontier days.
We must carry the struggle relentlessly to our enemies, as we have done with broad
frisking Grandma at the airport.
success since 9/11. We can win the War on Terror. Or any other war. But only if we are willing to fight
for a long time to come. The losers in the War on Terror will be those who first despair. Our fanatical
enemies cannot defeat us. But we can defeat ourselves through a failure of will. The nonsense that
“victory isn’t possible today” is an absurdity foisted upon us by academics and pundits. Victory is always
possible. If we’re willing to pay the price. And if we are not we should not engage in military adventures that only worsen the plight of a
broken world. To do great good with the military you often must begin by doing great harm to the enemies
of the good. Sparing our enemies is not an act of virtue . Nor does it mean that they will choose to spare us. It is essential
that our military help civilian decision makers escape the cancerous lies concocted by think tanks and university
faculties about war. The military’s first domestic mission is education: to help civilian decision makers unlearn the nonsense they have been taught
throughout their careers. If our uniformed leaders neglect this educational mission they will have no right to complain when their advice is ignored in a crisis, when
Warfare is a bath of blood
our troops are misused, and when the nation’s leaders leave our military holding the (body) bag after things go wrong.
in a pool of horror. Any imagined alternative is not war. The observations offered above sound cruel. But warfare is not kind. If we are
unwilling to accept that it is not enough to defeat an enemy technically, but that [they] he must be
convinced of [their] his defeat, we will continue to falter. The shock of an attack by our military in a general war
should be so overwhelming—so deadly, graphically destructive, and uncompromising—that the enemy, faced with
unbearable losses, loses his will to fight. When we face particularly tenacious enemies whose resolve to
resist does not waver we must be willing to destroy them . If we shrink from the acts of destruction
necessary to defeat an enemy thoroughly we will find ourselves suffering unnecessary casualties in a needlessly
protracted struggle. Even in comparatively benign peacekeeping operations we always should display overwhelming force. No potential enemy should be
allowed to calculate a chance of success for himself. In operations short of war the appearance of irresistible strength can sometimes
obviate the need to use that strength. But when we allow ourselves to appear diffident we only compound
our problems. Many strategic lessons come from the schoolyard—no bully respects weakness, for example. Our ambition to do everything military cleanly,
quickly, and cheaply in political terms has brought us to the point where we are often better at encouraging our enemies than we are
at defeating them. Only strength is respected in the world beyond our shores. Not kindness, not wisdom, not
the philosophical constructs so impressive to graduate students, but strength . A strong state that
allows itself to appear weak will be challenged by weak states hoping to appear strong. There is no
substitute for being feared. Paradoxically, we are undermined by our own capabilities. As we saw in Iraq, even when stripped to a bare minimum of
forces our military is so skilled that it can wage campaigns and win conventional wars with breathtaking speed. But a swift war without attendant devastation inflicts
no pain on the enemy population—and often too little on the enemy’s combatants. It is not enough to win fast, although speed is
increasingly essential. The victory must be devastating . Under different circumstances and against different opponents the amount of
physical destruction required will vary widely. But while we may wish to minimize friendly casualties, it’s a counterproductive absurdity to go
to outlandish lengths to spare our enemies. We must get rid of the notion that we can make our enemies
love us. This sounds harsh to American ears. But many of us will live to see our enemies commit such
horrendous acts of brutality that the fiercest observations offered here will become second nature to us.
Once enough of our fellow citizens have been slaughtered because of our fecklessness we will learn to
kill with relish once again.

Critiquing the underpinnings of existing strategy is a link

Peters ‘6
(Ralph, fmr US intelligence officer and best-selling author, Never Quit the Fight, 220-221)
The difference is that the extremists in Iraq don’t expect a battlefield victory. They’re fighting for time.
They hope to wear us down, to maintain a level of photogenic chaos in just enough of Iraq to keep the
media hot. They’ll keep chipping away at our forces, praying that our will will prove far weaker than our
weapons. They don’t expect to force out our military through violence. They hope our political leaders
will withdraw our troops. The terrorists have done their homework. They know that a disheartening
number of our politicians share one of their beliefs: a low opinion of the American people, a notion that
we’re weak, that we’re quitters. The terrorists know that our Marines aren’t afraid of them. But they
believe that our politicians are terrified. Of you. So you’re the target of every bomb, bullet, and blade
our enemies wield. Those Marines were killed to discourage you. They were targeted to ignite political
discord in the United States. They died to give ammunition to those in Washington who view our dead
only as political liabilities. There are practical military issues the administration hasn’t addressed. Our
forces in Iraq always have been too few. Much of the equipment with which our Marines and soldiers are
equipped is old, inappropriate, and inadequate. We went to war with a military designed by defense
contractors, not by warriors. But while those issues are real, we can’t afford to play politics with the vital
global struggle of our times, the battle with the psychotic strain of Islam that generates terror. Ultimately,
the fate of Iraq won’t be decided by our enemies. And it won’t be decided by our troops. It’s going to be
decided by you. By your voice and your vote. The terrorists mean to help you make your decision.
 Digital Surveillance
Digital surveillance is key – obstructs terrorist organization and execution
Sergei Boeke 15, research fellow at the International Center for Counter-Terrorism, LLM from Vrije
Universiteit Amsterdam, Quirine Eijkman, “State surveillance in cyberspace,” from Terrorism Online:
Politics, Law and Technology ed. Jarvis, MacDonald, Chen, 3/24/15, pp. 133
**modified for gendered language; original text retained
Digital surveillance or eavesdropping does, however, have a severe disruptive effect on the workings of
terrorist groups and their operations. Despite the shroud of secrecy that intelligence services would like to maintain over SIGINT
collection, terrorists are well aware of the risks of using the telephone and the Internet. One reason that the
search for bin Laden took ten years was his systematic avoidance of all phones and the Internet . It would be
his courier, Al Kuwaiti, who would lead the CIA to bin Laden’s hideout in Abbottabad, Pakistan. SIGINT, nonetheless, played a vital role. In the
summer of 2010, for the first time in almost a year, Al Kuwaiti, a known acquaintance of bin Laden, used the
cellphone sim card that US intelligence had linked to him, and he accepted a call with that sim card close to bin Laden’s
compound (ABC News 2011). He had previously always followed fastidious operational security , driving more than an
hour-and-a-half from the compound before inserting the battery in his cell phone, thereby preventing the NSA from pinpointing
his starting point. The call he accepted in 2010 was from an old friend who asked what he was up to. Al Kuwaiti
replied that he was back with the people he was with before, eliciting the response “may God facilitate" (Woodward 2011). This set analysts on
the trail, mobilising further human sources and satellite imagery to finally identify the compound where bin Laden was hiding. This example
of targeted surveillance illustrates three important points . First, it makes clear that top terrorist operators follow
strict operational security procedures, whereby some avoid telephones completely and others can have many
different ones, switching their use and taking the batteries out when they can. The terrorist leaders who avoid phones altogether are forced to
communicate through other means, often reverting to the old fashioned letter. This places serious
impediments on the organisation and its ability to execute of complex attacks."' Second, there are indications
that whereas terrorist leaders are often exceptionally careful with their telephone or Internet
communications when it concerns their “professional” activities, they can be more careless with their social
contacts. Unless a terrorist is acting completely alone and has perfect online and telephone discipline there is a good
chance that somewhere in the chain of cvcnts [they] he cannot resist an old friends call or place a digital
misstep during which [they compromise themself] he compromises himself (Schmidt and Cohen 2013). Third,
content and context remain essential. Without a good translation (preferably by native speakers) and knowledge of the context, Al Kuwaiti’s
words would have remained meaningless and the value of his call misunderstood.
 Internet Surveillance
Internet surveillance is key to counter homegrown terrorism – threats are
underestimated
Victor Beattie 5/11, Editor of Voice of America, official external broadcast institution of the United
States federal government, "Homeland Security Chief: Global Terror Threat Has Entered ‘New Phase’,"
5/11/15, www.voanews.com/content/us-security-chief-warns-of-new-phase-in-terrorist-
threat/2762237.html
U.S. Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson says the fight against global terrorism has entered a new phase with
groups like the Islamic State (IS) successfully using social media to inspire others to join them or to launch
domestic attacks. Johnson’s comments Sunday on the ABC program This Week followed the revelation that federal law
enforcement has hundreds of investigations underway to determine who might pose a threat of
homegrown terrorism.¶ Secretary Johnson noted the Islamic State group’s ability to reach into the homeland to recruit homegrown
jihadists.¶ "Because of the use of the Internet, we could have little, or no, notice in advance of an independent
attacker attempting to strike. And so, that’s why law enforcement at the local level needs to be ever more
vigilant, and we’re constantly reminding them to do that," said Johnson.¶ Johnson says every attack or attempted attack
represents a lesson learned and, as the threat evolves since the September 11, 2001 attacks, there has been closer
cooperation among federal, state and local law enforcement officials.¶ Last week, the director of the Federal
Bureau of Investigation (FBI), James Comey, warned there might be thousands of Islamic State followers online in
the United States and the challenge is to determine who among them poses a real threat.¶ Earlier this month,
two gunmen attacked an event near Dallas, Texas, where cartoons of Islam's Prophet Muhammad were being judged in a
contest. The gunmen were killed in an exchange of gunfire with police, in which a security guard was also wounded. Comey said his agency had
warned the Garland, Texas police to be on the lookout for Elton Simpson and accomplice Nadir Soofi hours before the attack. ¶ Johnson said he
and other federal
officials are trying to counter social media recruitment efforts by reaching out to the
Muslim community in the United States.¶ "Since I have been secretary, I have personally participated in engagements with
community leaders in the Islamic community and elsewhere. I’ve been to New York, Boston, Minneapolis, Chicago, Los Angeles and other
places where I personally meet with community leaders about countering violent extremism in their communities. That has to be part of our
efforts in this new phase," said Johnson.¶ Johnson said a lot of the counter-narrative to what he acknowledges to be a "slick and effective"
message by the IS group to would-be terrorists on social media must come from those communities. ¶ "It hasto come from Islamic
leaders who, frankly, can talk the language better than the federal government can and so, when I meet with community leaders, Islamic
leaders, it’s one of the things we urge them to do. Some have begun it. We’ve seen some good progress, but there’s a lot
more than can be done," he said.¶ Johnson described as prudent and cautious steps taken by the U.S. military to increase security at
bases across the country, after the FBI warned that Islamist militants could target troops or local police. ¶ Appearing on the Fox News Sunday
broadcast from Paris, Congressman Michael McCaul, chairman of the House Homeland Security Committee, said there
has been an uptick in threat streams against local police and military bases.¶ "We’re seeing these on an
almost daily basis. It’s very concerning. I’m over here with the French counter-terrorism experts on the Charlie Hebdo case, how we can
stop foreign fighters coming out of Iraq and Syria to Europe. But then, we have this phenomenon in the United States where they
(terrorists) can be activated by the Internet . And, really, terrorism has gone viral," said McCaul.¶ McCaul said
the potential terror threat may even be greater than the FBI has outlined. He said the United States faces
two threats: one from fighters coming out of the Middle East and the other from thousands at home who will take up the
call to arms when the IS group sends out an Internet message. He warned the threat will only get worse, largely because of the
existence of so many failed states in the Middle East and North Africa.
 Surveillance-Proof Channels
Any surveillance-proof channels will be used by terrorists
Rahul Sagar 15, Associate Professor of Political Science at Yale-NUS College, “Against Moral
Absolutism: Surveillance and Disclosure After Snowden,” Ethics & International Affairs 29(2),, pp. 145-
159
A second deficiency relates to the disproportionality of the disclosures. Even though the NSA's domestic surveillance program was deemed
lawful by the FISC, we could take the view that the lack of public debate about the capture of domestic metadata justified Snowden and
Greenwald's disclosure of this particular program. But even so, it is hard to see how we could justify their disclosure of domestic
surveillance methods, bearing in mind that these methods could help gather intelligence on what even Snowden and
Greenwald might consider legitimate targets, namely, domestic terror plots.¶ It is harder still to understand what purpose
was served by disclosing NSA foreign surveillance methods such as the deployment of “backdoors” in commonly used hardware and software.
Apparently the purpose was to alert countries and individuals around the world to the threat that the NSA poses to their privacy. Snowden
and Greenwald have since encouraged countries to develop new infrastructure so that their communications
do not have to transit through the United States, and have urged individuals to employ encryption and to cease using the services of
companies that collaborate with the NSA. But this approach misses the point: if channels of communication that are immune to
surveillance exist, these would be used not only by dissidents but also by terrorists. This is why the NSA
is obliged to use all available means to crack new channels of communications (or else they could rightly be
accused of negligence in the wake of a terrorist attack that relies on such channels). The approach taken by the
President's Review Group is more balanced. Troubled by the prospect that aggressive surveillance methods could lead to a loss of trust in
Internet-based services, they recommend that the United States should typically disclose known vulnerabilities in widely used software and
hardware, but allow nonetheless that “in rare instances” the government may “briefly authorize” using such a vulnerability for “priority
intelligence collection.”27
Frontlines for Terror DA
 FT Cyber Link Turn
The link outweighs the turn – they can’t solve cyberterror because the database still
exists, BUT any period without data collection increases the risk of an attack
Christi Parsons 5/28, Brian Bennett, "If NSA surveillance program ends, phone record trove will
endure," 5/28/15, www.latimes.com/nation/la-na-nsa-phones-20150529-story.html#page=1
The National Security Agency will mothball its archive of Americans' telephone records mammoth , isolating the computer servers where

but will not destroy the database if its legal authority

they are stored and blocking investigators' access, expires to collect the material on schedule this Sunday, officials said

¶ The NSA's determination to keep billions of domestic toll records for counter-terrorism and
Thursday.

espionage investigations adds another note of uncertainty to a debate that pits the Obama administration's national security team against opponents who argue the government data trove

violates Americans' privacy and civil liberties.¶ The political and legal dispute will come to a head Sunday when the Republican-led Senate returns to work a day early to seek a resolution — hours before the law used to authorize the controversial NSA program, and several other key
counter-terrorism provisions, expires at 11:59 p.m.¶ The final eight hours — starting at 3:59 p.m. Sunday — will see a flurry of activity at U.S. phone companies and at the NSA as engineers take down servers, reconfigure monitoring software and unplug hardware from the main pipeline of
telephone data traffic, according to several senior administration officials.¶ If the Senate stalemate pushes past 7:59 p.m., holes in the incoming data will begin to appear — and will grow — until nothing is collected after midnight, the officials said, speaking on condition of anonymity to

We're in uncharted waters," one official said. "We have not had to confront
discuss internal planning.¶ " addressing the terrorist
threat without these authorities. And it's going to be fraught with unnecessary risk ¶ ." At that point, even if the Senate acts, the officials said it could

take three or four days to go back to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court, also known as the FISA court, for a legal order to restart the system and to reboot the complex data transfer networks at the telephone companies and at the NSA headquarters at Ft. Meade, Md. ¶ Any Senate

Letting the
action short of approving legislation that already has passed the House will result in a gap in the NSA archive of so-called metadata — records that show the time, date and numbers called, but not the contents — of virtually every domestic phone call. ¶

bulk collection program go dark even for a few days is "playing national security Russian roulette ," said

and "hoping that we don't

another official, need [the data] to do a national security investigation ¶
have an instance where the FBI s ." If lawmakers vote

before 8 p.m. Sunday, the NSA could reverse the shutdown and prevent a gap, the officials said. But that last-hour possibility appears unlikely. ¶ Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.), who is running for the GOP presidential nomination and who has fought the NSA domestic program and filibustered to

Atty. Gen.
stop it, told supporters in a fundraising letter Thursday that he was determined to "relegate the NSA's illegal spy program to the trash bin of history, where it belongs." ¶ Administration officials have stepped up their own alarms. On Wednesday,

Loretta Lynch said a failure to act would cause "a serious lapse in our ability to protect the American
people."¶ U.S. intelligence and law enforcement officials say
The provision in the law used to authorize the NSA's bulk collection program is one of three legal authorities set to expire.

all three are vital to tracking potential terrorists in the United States ¶ . The bulk collection of U.S. phone records was started in secret after the Sept. 11, 2001,

terrorist attacks. It was specifically authorized by the FISA court starting in 2006, and was revealed to the public in 2013 in documents leaked by renegade former NSA contractor Edward Snowden. ¶ President Obama vowed to change the NSA program after Snowden's disclosures sparked
an uproar, and the White House has embraced the so-called USA Freedom Act, which passed the House on May 13 by a bipartisan vote of 338 to 88. ¶ The measure would shift the burden of holding the data back to the telephone companies, and require them to configure their systems so the
NSA could access the data. It also would require the government to get a court order to search the records for phone numbers linked to suspected terrorists at home and abroad. It sets a six-month transition period for the changes to take effect. ¶ Lynch and James R. Clapper, the director of
national intelligence, assured House leaders in a letter this month that the bill "preserves the essential operational capabilities of the telephone metadata program and enhances other intelligence capabilities needed to protect our nation and its partners." ¶ But the Senate debate hit a roadblock
when Paul and others, including Democratic Sen. Ron Wyden of Oregon, argued that the NSA program should simply expire, and efforts to pass the House bill foundered in disarray Saturday before the lawmakers decamped for a weeklong holiday recess. ¶ At that point, the NSA put
planning teams on "hot standby" and started working through telecommunications engineering to prepare for shutting down the networks that now connect investigators to the phone records, according to one senior official involved in the planning. ¶ The NSA contacted telephone companies
to explain their plans and discuss how to help the private companies stop the automatic provision of calling records.¶ They also have sought to configure monitoring software so officials can't access the archive. If they do, alerts will trigger and features will block the delivery of off-limits
information.¶ "You can't make a mistake on this," said one of the officials. "This is the most regulated thing that we do at NSA." If the authority lapses, he added, the agency would "lock it down with the same certainty with which we operate." ¶ The NSA won't wipe the collected data off its
servers, officials said, but will lock all doors into the system. Investigators could use the trove only if Congress acts and the FISA court approves new searches. ¶ In addition to cutting off the phone searches, the expiration of the law would end the "roving wiretap" authority that lets FBI
agents keep up with suspected terrorists or spies who switch "burner" phones to evade surveillance. ¶ Another authority set to expire is the "lone wolf" provision that lets the FBI apply to the court for permission to conduct wiretaps on a target they think is engaged in a terrorist activity but

As we face a
who isn't linked to a specific terrorist group.¶ That authority hasn't been used, but it becomes more valuable every time Islamic State militants use the Internet to urge supporters to launch independent attacks, said one senior domestic security official. ¶ "

decentralized and increasingly dispersed terrorism threat extolling actors to conduct , and one where [Islamic State] is

opportunistic attacks, this is not a tool that we want to see go away ¶ Counter-terrorism officials ," the official said.

would be facing "a big roll of the dice" if the authorities are allowed to expire, Rep. Adam B. Schiff (D-Burbank), ranking member of the House Intelligence Committee, said in a telephone interview from Los Angeles.
 FT Doesn’t Solve
It’s try-or-die for counter-terrorism – empirics are meaningless in the context of
prevention
Rachel Brand 14, Senior Advisor to the U.S. Chamber Litigation Center and member of the Privacy
and Civil Liberties Oversight Board, "Report on the Telephone Records Program Conducted under
Section 215 of the USA PATRIOT Act and on the Operations of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance
Court," 1/23/14, https://www.pclob.gov/library/215-Report_on_the_Telephone_Records_Program.pdf
There is no easy way to calculate the value of this program. But the
test for whether the program’s potential benefits justify
its continuation cannot be simply whether it has already been the key factor in thwarting a
previously unknown terrorist attack. Assessing the benefit of a preventive program such as this one requires a
longer-term view.¶ The overwhelming majority of the data collected under this program remains untouched,
unviewed, and unanalyzed until its destruction. But its immediate availability if it is needed is the program’s
primary benefit. Its usefulness may not be fully realized until we face another large-scale terrorist plot
against the United States or our citizens abroad. But if that happens, analysts’ ability to very quickly scan
historical records from multiple service providers to establish connections (or avoid wasting precious time on
futile leads) could be critical in thwarting the plot.¶ Evidence suggests that if the data from the Section
215 program had been available prior to the attacks of September 11, 2001, it could have been instrumental in
preventing those attacks.693 The clear implication is that this data could help the government thwart a
future attack. Considering this, I cannot recommend shutting down the program without an adequate alternative in place, especially in light
of what I view to be the relatively small actual intrusion on privacy interests.

Death counts don’t quantify efficacy – domestic surveillance confers numerous

strategic benefits
Elizabeth Cook 14, member of the Privacy and Civil Liberties Oversight Board, "Report on the
Telephone Records Program Conducted under Section 215 of the USA PATRIOT Act and on the
Operations of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court," 1/23/14, https://www.pclob.gov/library/215-
Report_on_the_Telephone_Records_Program.pdf
Finally, I have a different view from the Board as
to the efficacy and utility of the Section 215 program. Although the Report
purports to consider whether the program might be valuable for reasons other than preventing a specific terrorist
attack, the tone and focus of the Report make clear that the Board does believe that to be the most important
(and possibly the only) metric. I consider this conclusion to be unduly narrow. Among other things, in today’s
world of multiple threats, a tool that allows investigators to triage and focus on those who are more likely to be doing
harm to or in the United States is both good policy and potentially privacy-protective . Similarly, a tool that allows
investigators to more fully understand our adversaries in a relatively nimble way, allows investigators to verify and
reinforce intelligence gathered from other programs or tools, and provides “peace of mind,” has value.¶ I
would, however, recommend that the NSA and other members of the Intelligence Community develop metrics for assessing the efficacy and
value of intelligence programs, particularly in relation to other tools and programs. The natural tendency is to focus on the operation of a given
program, without periodic reevaluations of its value or whether it could be implemented in more privacy-protective ways. Moreover, the
natural tendency of the government, the media, and the public is to ask whether a particular program has
allowed officials to thwart terrorist attacks or save identifiable lives . Periodic assessments would not only
encourage the Intelligence Community to continue to explore more privacy protective alternatives, but also allow the government to
explain the relative value of programs in more comprehensive terms. I hope that our Board will have the
opportunity to work with the Intelligence Community on such an effort.
Statistics are irrelevant – effective counter-terrorism is a question of political clout
Beatrice de Graaf 10, Bob de Graaff, “Bringing politics back in: the introduction of the ‘performative
power’ of counterterrorism,” Critical Studies on Terrorism 3(2), 2010
In sum, it is almost impossible to measure arithmetically the outcome of counterterrorism efforts. However,
this does not mean that we cannot and should not try to assess the effect of governmental policies . The issues
outlined above suggest that it is not necessarily the policy measures and their intended results as such, but much more the
way in which they are presented and perceived that determine the overall effect of the policy in
question.¶ The key question is therefore really: What do counterterrorism policy-makers want? They set the agenda with
respect to the phenomenon of terrorism, define it in a certain way and link it to corresponding measures. Subsequently, they
execute these measures, behind closed doors, and with the tacit permission of the public – or, conversely, they feel forced to ‘market’ their
measures first, in order to generate a substantial level of public and political support.¶ The
way in which they perform, or in other
words carry out the process of countering terrorism, can have more impact than the actual arrests being
made (or not being made). This is what we call the performativity of counterterrorism, or its ‘performative power’.
The authors would like to introduce the concept ‘performativity’ 1 in this discussion, expressing the extent to which a national
government, by means of its official counterterrorism policy and corresponding discourse (in statements,
enactments, measures and ministerial remarks), is successful in ‘selling’ its representation of events, its set of solutions to the
terrorist problem, as well as being able to set the tone for the overall discourse regarding terrorism and
counterterrorism – thereby mobilising (different) audiences for its purposes. 2
 FT metadata solves

Encryption prevents access to key communication data

Hess, Executive Assistant Director of the FBI, 15 (Amy Hess, Executive Assistant Director of
the FBI, “ENCRYPTION TECHNOLOGY POLICY ISSUES”, 4/29/15,
HTTP://congressional.proquest.com.proxy.lib.umich.edu/congressional/docview/t39.d40.04293003.d94?
accountid=14667)//EM*Edited for easier flow
Law enforcement and national security investigators need to be able to access communications and
information to obtain the evidence necessary to prevent crime and bring criminals to justice in a court of law. We do so
pursuant to the rule of law, with clear guidance and strict judicial oversight. But increasingly, even armed with a court order based
on probable cause, we are* [the FBI is] too often unable to access potential evidence. The Communications
Assistance for Law Enforcement Act (CALEA) requires telecommunication carriers to be able to
implement court orders for the purpose of intercepting communications. But that law wasn`t designed to cover many of the
new means of communication that exist today. Currently, thousands of companies provide some form of communication
service, but most do not have the ability to isolate and deliver particular information when ordered to do so
by a court. Some have argued that access to metadata about these communications - which is not encrypted - should be sufficient for law
enforcement. But metadata is incomplete information, and can be is difficult to analyze when time is of the essence. It
can take days to parse metadata into readable form, and additional time to correlate and analyze the data to
obtain meaningful and actionable information.
 FT cloud solves

Cloud storage fails – backdoors are key

Hess, Executive Assistant Director of the FBI, 15 (Amy Hess, Executive Assistant Director of
the FBI, “ENCRYPTION TECHNOLOGY POLICY ISSUES”, 4/29/15,
HTTP://congressional.proquest.com.proxy.lib.umich.edu/congressional/docview/t39.d40.04293003.d94?
accountid=14667)//EM
Additional Considerations Someassert that although more and more devices are encrypted, users back-up and store much of
their data in ``the cloud,`` and law enforcement agencies can access this data pursuant to court order. For several
reasons, however, the data may not be there . First, aside from the technical requirements and settings needed to
successfully back up data to the cloud, many companies impose fees to store information there - fees which
consumers may be unwilling to pay. Second, criminals can easily avoid putting information where it
may be accessible to law enforcement. Third, data backed up to the cloud typically includes only a
portion of the data stored on a device, so key pieces of evidence may reside only on a criminal`s or
terrorist`s phone, for example. And if criminals do not back up their phones routinely, or if they opt out of uploading to the cloud
altogether, the data may only be found on the devices themselves devices which are increasingly encrypted.
 FT hacking solves

Brute force attacks fail – backdoors are key

Hess, Executive Assistant Director of the FBI, 15 (Amy Hess, Executive Assistant Director of
the FBI, “ENCRYPTION TECHNOLOGY POLICY ISSUES”, 4/29/15,
HTTP://congressional.proquest.com.proxy.lib.umich.edu/congressional/docview/t39.d40.04293003.d94?
accountid=14667)//EM
But without a solution that enables law enforcement to access critical evidence, many investigations could be at a dead end. The same is true for
cyber security investigations; if there is no way to access encrypted systems and data, we may not be able to identify those who seek to steal our
technology, our state secrets, our intellectual property, and our trade secrets. A
common misperception is that we can simply
break into a device using a ``brute force`` attack - the idea that with enough computing resources devoted to the
task, we can defeat any encryption. But the reality is that even a supercomputer would have difficulty with
today`s highlevel encryption standards. And some devices have a setting that erases the encryption key if
someone makes too many attempts to break the password, effectively closing all access to that data. Finally, a
reasonable person might also ask, ``Can`t you just compel the owner of the device to produce the information in a readable form?`` Even if we
could compel an individual to provide this information, a suspected criminal would more likely choose to defy the court`s order and accept a
punishment for contempt rather than risk a 30-year sentence for, say, production and distribution of child pornography. Without access to the
right evidence, we fear we may not be able to identify and stop child predators hiding in the shadows of the Internet, violent criminals who are
targeting our neighborhoods, and terrorists who may be using social media to recruit, plan, and execute an attack in our country. We may not be
able to recover critical information from a device that belongs to a victim who can`t provide us with the password, especially when time is of the
essence.

NSA can’t crack encryption—Need encryption keys to access

The Nation ’15 (The Nation is America’s oldest continuously published weekly magazine, devoted to reporting
on politics and culture. The Nation has bureaus in Washington, D.C., London, and South Africa, with departments
covering architecture, art, corporations, defense, environment, films, legal affairs, music, peace and disarmament,
poetry, and the United Nations, http://www.nationmultimedia.com/breakingnews/NSA-cant-crack-common-
encryption-software-top-hack-30251390.html)CK
Publicly available encryption programmes are so tough that they can't be cracked by the experts at the US
National Security Agency (NSA), an authoritative expert has told one of the world's top hacker
jamborees. The assurance, delivered by Jacob Applebaum during this month's Chaos Communication
Congress (CCC) in Hamburg, Germany, ends months of speculation that the NSA may have found a
backdoor into such privacysoftware. Services like PGP for protecting emails and OTR (off the record) for
protecting messaging are pretty safe, agreed experts at CCC, which attracts some of the globe's top
hacking experts every January. "PGP and OTR are two ways to keep spies from looking through your
stuff," says US activist Applebaum. He said communications protected end to end with these services
cannot be read by the NSA. Period. Options like the SSL encryption protocol can be surmounted though,
he said. SSL is used - often by banks and internet retail - to keep prying eyes from seeing which websites
are being accessed and what's sent to them. SSH, used by system administrators to get into other
computers and run them, can also be cracked. It's not clear, though, if the NSA has actually cracked their
protocols. Instead, it seems the US electronic intelligence agency is trying to collect keys so it can crack
encrypted communication by other methods. That's according to documents released by whistleblower
Edward Snowden, a former NSA contractor, which have been published by German news magazine Der
Spiegel.
 FT court order solves

Court orders can’t compel decryption – backdoors are key

Crocker, attorney at the Electronic Frontier Foundation, 14 (Andrew Crocker, Graduate
of Harvard Law and attorney at the Electronic Frontier Foundation in civil liberties, “Sifting Fact from
Fiction with All Writs and Encryption: No Backdoors”, 12/3/14,
https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2014/12/sifting-fact-fiction-all-writs-and-encryption-no-
backdoors)//EM*Edited for easier flow
Following recent reports in the Wall Street Journal and Ars Technica, there’s been new interest in the government’s use of a relatively obscure
law, the All Writs Act. According to these reports, the government has invoked the All Writs Act in order to compel the assistance of smartphone
manufacturers in unlocking devices pursuant to a search warrant. The reports are based on orders from federal
magistrate judges in
Oakland and New York City issued to Apple and another unnamed manufacturer (possibly also Apple) respectively,
requiring them to bypass the lock screen on seized phones and enable law enforcement access . These reports
come at an interesting time. Both Apple and Google have announced expanded encryption in their mobile
operating systems. If a device is running the latest version of iOS or Android, neither company will be
able to bypass a user’s PIN or password and unlock a phone, even if the government gets a court
order asking it to do so. The announcements by Apple and Google have in turn led to calls for “golden keys”—hypothetical backdoors
in devices intended to allow only law enforcement to access them. As we’ve explained, we think these proposals to create backdoors totally
misunderstand the technology and make for terrible policy. Amid this prospect of a second “Cryptowar” is the lurking fear that the government
might force unwilling companies to include backdoors in their products, even if they’re not required by Congress to do so. We sometimes hear
from jaded developers and others who think that all it would take to force a backdoor is one National Security
Letter. While NSLs are unconstitutional, even the government admits that they* [NSLs] can only be used to obtain
limited information, which does not include forcing anyone to backdoor a product . Nevertheless, this fear is
feeding some of the interest generated by the press reports about the government’s invocation of All Writs Act in the unlocking cases.

Court orders fail – backdoors are key

Hess, Executive Assistant Director of the FBI, 15 (Amy Hess, Executive Assistant Director of
the FBI, “ENCRYPTION TECHNOLOGY POLICY ISSUES”, 4/29/15,
HTTP://congressional.proquest.com.proxy.lib.umich.edu/congressional/docview/t39.d40.04293003.d94?
accountid=14667)//EM
Encryption of stored data is not new, but it has become increasingly prevalent and sophisticated . The challenge
to law enforcement and national security officials has intensified with the advent of default encryption settings and
stronger encryption standards on both devices and networks. In the past, a consumer had to decide whether to encrypt data stored on
his or her device and take some action to implement that encryption. With today`s new operating systems, however, a device and all of a
user`s information on that device can be encrypted by default - without any affirmative action by the consumer. In the past,
companies had the ability to decrypt devices when the Government obtained a search warrant and a court order. Today, companies have
developed encryption technology which makes it impossible for them to decrypt data on devices they
manufacture and sell, even when lawfully ordered to do so. Although there are strong and appropriate cybersecurity and
other reasons to support these new uses of encryption, such decisions regarding system design have a tremendous impact on law enforcement`s
ability to fight crime and bring perpetrators to justice. Evidence of criminal activity used to be found in written ledgers, boxes, drawers, and file
cabinets, all of which could be searched pursuant to a warrant. But like the general population, criminal
actors are increasingly
storing such information on electronic devices. If these devices are automatically encrypted, the
information they contain may be unreadable to anyone other than the user of the device. Obtaining a search warrant for
photos, videos, email, text messages, and documents can be an exercise in futility. Terrorists and other criminals know this and will
increasingly count on these means of evading detection.
Data encryption eviscerates the third party doctrine – Lack of encryption permits government
access
Christopher Soghoian Ph.D 06 (Principal Technologist with the Speech, Privacy, and Technology Project at
the American Civil Liberties Union. He is also a Visiting Fellow at Yale Law School's Information Society Project.
Caught in the Cloud: Privacy, Encryption, and Government Back Doors in the Web 2.0 Era Privacy and Law
Enforcement pg. 391 http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=1421553)CK
“The third party doctrine is the Fourth Amendment rule that scholars love to hate. It is . . . widely
criticized as profoundly misguided. Decisions applying the doctrine *top[] the chart of [the] most-
criticized Fourth Amendment cases.’”95 However, for the purposes of this article, it can be summarized
by stating that online service providers can be compelled to reveal their customers’ private documents
with a mere subpoena.96 As such, the government is not required to obtain a search warrant,97
demonstrate probable cause98 or go before a judge. While the third party doctrine is certainly the current
tool of choice for the government’s evisceration of the Fourth Amendment, is not completely to blame for
the lack of privacy online. The real and often overlooked threat to end-user privacy is not this legal rule,
but the industry-wide practice of storing customers’ data in plain text, forgoing any form of encryption.
Simply put, if encryption were used to protect users’ stored data, the third party doctrine would for the
most part be moot.
 FT voluntary solves

Compelling fails – backdoors are key

Hess, Executive Assistant Director of the FBI, 15 (Amy Hess, Executive Assistant Director of
the FBI, “ENCRYPTION TECHNOLOGY POLICY ISSUES”, 4/29/15,
HTTP://congressional.proquest.com.proxy.lib.umich.edu/congressional/docview/t39.d40.04293003.d94?
accountid=14667)//EM
But without a solution that enables law enforcement to access critical evidence, many investigations could be at a dead end. The same is true for
cyber security investigations; if there is no way to access encrypted systems and data, we may not be able to identify those who seek to steal our
technology, our state secrets, our intellectual property, and our trade secrets. A common misperception is that we can simply break into a device
using a ``brute force`` attack - the idea that with enough computing resources devoted to the task, we can defeat any encryption. But the reality is
that even a supercomputer would have difficulty with today`s highlevel encryption standards. And some devices have a setting that erases the
encryption key if someone makes too many attempts to break the password, effectively closing all access to that data. Finally, a reasonable person
might also ask, ``Can`t you just compel the owner of the device to produce the information in a readable form?`` Even
if we could
compel an individual to provide this information, a suspected criminal would more likely choose to defy
the court`s order and accept a punishment for contempt rather than risk a 30-year sentence for , say,
production and distribution of child pornography. Without access to the right evidence, we fear we may not be able to
identify and stop child predators hiding in the shadows of the Internet, violent criminals who are targeting
our neighborhoods, and terrorists who may be using social media to recruit, plan, and execute an attack in
our country. We may not be able to recover critical information from a device that belongs to a victim
who can`t provide us with the password, especially when time is of the essence.
 FT Sunset Thumper
Sunset provisions allowed for continuing investigations
Benjamin Wittes 14, Senior Fellow in Governance Studies at the Brookings Institution, “On the oddity
of the Patriot Act sunset provisions,” Nov 2014, http://www.lawfareblog.com/2014/11/on-the-oddity-of-
the-patriot-act-sunset-provisions/
Last week, the New York Times‘s Charlie Savage had what seems to me a pretty big, if under-discussed, scoop—or perhaps we should say that
he channelled to the public a pretty big scoop by former Senate Intelligence Committee chief counsel Michael Davidson. The news, which
certainly caught me unawares, is that the Patriot Act sunset provision—stated in Section 105 of this law and extended until
June 1, 2015 in this one—doesn’t quite say what everyone—from advocates to members of Congress to the administration itself—seems to think
it says. Writes Savage: The law says that Section 215, along with another section of the Patriot Act, expires on “June 1, 2015,
except that former provisions continue in effect with respect to any particular foreign intelligence investigation
that began before June 1, 2015, or with respect to any particular offense or potential offense that began or
occurred before June 1, 2015.” Michael Davidson, who until his retirement in 2011 was the Senate Intelligence Committee’s top staff
lawyer, said this meant that as long as there was an older counterterrorism investigation still open, the court
could keep issuing Section 215 orders to phone companies indefinitely for that investigation. “It was always
understood that no investigation should be different the day after the sunset than it was the day before,” Mr. Davidson
said, adding: “There are important reasons for Congress to legislate on what, if any, program is now warranted. But considering the
actual language of the sunset provision, no one should believe the present program will disappear solely
because of the sunset.” Mr. Davidson said the widespread assumption by lawmakers and executive branch officials, as well as in news
articles in The New York Times and elsewhere, that the program must lapse next summer without new legislation was incorrect.
 FT “Name an attack that the program stopped”

Our 1NC Boot ev says 50 terror attacks have been stopped. Our Lewis ev proves
others have been discouraged.

Meta-data does not need to directly stop attacks – it’s indirectly allowed for
prioritization.
Lewis ‘14
James Andrew Lewis is a senior fellow and director of the Strategic Technologies Program at the Center for Strategic and
International Studies in Washington, D.C., where he writes on technology, security, and the international economy. Before
joining CSIS, he worked at the US Departments of State and Commerce as a Foreign Service officer and as a member of the
Senior Executive Service. His diplomatic experience included negotiations on military basing in Asia, the Cambodia peace
process, and the five-power talks on arms transfer restraint. Lewis received his Ph.D. from the University of Chicago.
“Underestimating Risk in the Surveillance Debate” - CENTER FOR STRATEGIC & INTERNATIONAL STUDIES -
STRATEGIC TECHNOLOGIES PROGRAM – December - http://csis.org/publication/underestimating-risk-surveillance-debate

Assertions that a collection program contributes nothing because it has not singlehandedly prevented an
attack reflect an ill-informed understanding of how the United States conducts collection and analysis to
prevent harmful acts against itself and its allies. Intelligence does not work as it is portrayed in films—solitary
agents do not make startling discoveries that lead to dramatic, last-minute success (nor is technology consistently
infallible). Intelligence is a team sport. Perfect knowledge does not exist and success is the product of the efforts of teams of dedicated individuals from many
agencies, using many tools and techniques, working together to assemble fragments of data from many sources into a coherent picture. Analysts assemble
this mosaic from many different sources and based on experience and intuition. Luck is still more important than anyone would like and the
alternative to luck is acquiring more information. This ability to blend different sources of intelligence has improved U.S. intelligence
capabilities and gives us an advantage over some opponents.

Aff demand to “name one attack the program stopped” is wrong and a poor
standard.
Branda ‘14
(et al; JOYCE R. BRANDA, Acting Assistant Attorney General, BRIEF FOR THE APPELLEES - Amicus Brief for Smith v.
Obama – before the United States Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals. “Amici” means “friend of the court” and – in this context - is
legal reference to the Reporters Committee – October 2 nd - https://www.eff.org/document/governments-smith-answering-brief)

Plaintiff asks the government to show more, claiming that the program is an unconstitutional means of serving the paramount need of
preventing terrorist attacks because the government has not “describe[d] a single instance” in which the program has
“actually stopped an imminent attack” or “aided . . . in achieving any objective that was time-sensitive in nature.” Pl. Br. 33 (quoting Klayman,
957 F. Supp. 2d. at 40). The Constitution does not require an anti-terror ism program to have demonstrably
prevented a specific terrorist attack to be reasonable. See Von Raab, 489 U.S. at 676 n.3 (“a demonstration of danger as to any particular airport or
airline” is not required since “[i]t is sufficient that the Government have a compelling interest in preventing a n otherwise
pervasive societal problem from spreading”); Cassidy, 471 F.3d at 84-85; MacWade, 460 F.3d at 272. Nor is it problematic that the
Section 215 program is only “one means” among many government programs that work together to accomplish the paramount
goal of countering terrorism. Pl. Br. 35. To protect the Nation, the government employs a range of counter-terror ism tools and
investigative methods in concert, which often serve different functions in order to complement one another in the service of achieving the overarching goal
of preventing attacks. Those tools rarely, however, operate in isolation , and nothing in the Fourth Amendment’s special needs
jurisprudence requires a showing that any single program is essential or itself prevented a particular attack. The government has provided
examples in which the Section 215 program provided timely and valuable assistance to ongoing counter-
terrorism investigations. See ER 74-75.
 FT Arab-American Relations, Intel Coop turn

( ) Even if Arab-American communities are frustrated with Fed policy, it doesn’t

mean they don’t cooperate with Federal investigations.

Miller ‘6
Joel – holds a Ph.D. Sociology from Surrey University; and M.Sc. Social Research Methods (Awarded Distinction) from Surrey
University; and a B.A. (Hons) Human Sciences, Oxford University, UK. Visiting Professor at The Institute of Criminology,
University of Malaga, Spain; and Senior Research Associate, Vera Institute of Justice - “LAW ENFORCEMENT & ARAB
AMERICAN COMMUNITY RELATIONS AFTER SEPTEMBER 11, 2001 Technical Report” - June 2006 -
http://www.vera.org/sites/default/files/resources/downloads/Arab_American_technical_report.pdf

Relations between Arab American communities and law enforcement agencies overall fell into two qualitative categories. Toward local police agencies, Arab American s reported a
fair amount of good will, even in jurisdictions where the two have little interaction. Where departments acted on this good will, evidence indicates that their efforts have already paid dividends in

perceptions of federal law enforcement , on the other hand, were less

the form of reduced tension and improved rates of reporting. Community

positive. Even though most of the FBI field offices in the study had reached out to Arab American communities,
many Arab Americans remained fearful and suspicious of federal efforts. Despite the challenges enumerated
above, our research also found that both community members and law enforcement respondents want to
improve relations. In fact, a select number of police departments have already implemented promising practices to do so ,
such as providing police officers with cultural sensitivity training relevant to their work, recruiting Arab American officers, and establishing police-community liaisons. However, more
jurisdictions could benefit from these and similar undertakings, including, for example, creating clearly defined policies for dealing with issues relevant to immigrant communities, conducting

such efforts can lead not only to

consistent outreach to Arab communities, and demonstrating cultural awareness during community interactions. Where adopted,

increased dialogue but also to meaningful partnerships that, consistent with community policing philosophy, better address concerns
about local and national security.

( ) Their turn is a myth – it’s complete hype to suggest that Muslim Americans
aren’t already cooperating with law enforcement.

M.P.A.C. ‘11
The Muslim Public Affairs Council is a public service agency working for the civil rights of American Muslims, for the
integration of Islam into American pluralism, and for a positive, constructive relationship between American Muslims and their
representatives. Since 1988, MPAC has worked diligently to promote a vibrant American Muslim community and enrich
American society through exemplifying the Islamic values of Mercy, Justice, Peace, Human Dignity, Freedom, and Equality for
all. Over the years, MPAC has built a reputation as a consistent and reliable resource for government and media, and is trusted by
American Muslims as an authentic, experienced voice. “Muslim Americans and Law Enforcement Partnerships” - Muslim Public
Affairs Council website – Feb 11th - http://www.mpac.org/programs/government-relations/dc-news-and-views/muslim-
americans-and-law-enforcement-partnerships.php

Despite the enormous effort to separate mainstream Islam and Muslims from bin Ladin’s extremism and violence, a
dangerous myth of “Muslim
silence” on terrorism persists. Anti-Muslim pundits have gone as far as to accuse Muslim Americans of being a “fifth column” or enemy within our
nation, and even claim the community sympathizes and harbors violent extremists. This myth-laden discourse has reached such a fever
pitch that officials such as Rep. Peter King (R-NY) are now planning Congressional hearings examining the “non-cooperation”
of Muslim Americans with law enforcement, and their supposed failure to tackle extremists’ ideology. The fact is that law
enforcement officials and security experts have been tackling this issue head-on alongside the Muslim
American community. . Earlier this week, MPAC hosted a briefing on Capitol Hill to discuss law enforcement engagement with Muslim American
communities. The forum’s featured experts were CNN National Security Analyst Peter Bergen, former National Security Council Director Roger Cressey, Los
Angeles County Sheriff Lee Baca and MPAC Government and Policy Analyst Alejandro Beutel.
 FT Only Suspected Terrorists
“Suspected terror monitoring” is ineffective because it doesn’t stop the unknown
terrorist
James Andrew Lewis 14, senior fellow and director of the Strategic Technologies Program at the Center
for Strategic and International Studies, December 2014, “Underestimating Risk in the Surveillance
Debate,” http://csis.org/files/publication/141209_Lewis_UnderestimatingRisk_Web.pdf
The echoes of September 11 have faded and the fear of attack has diminished. We are reluctant to accept
terrorism as a facet of our daily lives, but major attacks —roughly one a year in the last five years—are
regularly planned against U.S. targets , particularly passenger aircraft and cities . America’s failures in the
Middle East have spawned new, aggressive terrorist groups . These groups include radicalized recruits
from the West—one estimate puts the number at over 3,000—who will return home embittered and
hardened by combat. Particularly in Europe, the next few years will see an influx of jihadis joining the
existing population of homegrown radicals, but the United States itself remains a target.
America’s size and population make it is easy to disappear into the seams of this sprawling society.
Government surveillance is, with one exception and contrary to cinematic fantasy, limited and
disconnected. That exception is communications surveillance, which provides the best and perhaps the
only national-level solution to find and prevent attacks against Americans and their allies . Some of the
suggestions for alternative approaches to surveillance, such as the recommendation that NSA only track
“known or suspected terrorists,” reflect both deep ignorance and wishful thinking . It is the unknown
terrorist who will inflict the greatest harm.
 FT Useless Data
No such thing as useless data – it stops us from going after false leads
James Andrew Lewis 14, senior fellow and director of the Strategic Technologies Program at the Center
for Strategic and International Studies, December 2014, “Underestimating Risk in the Surveillance
Debate,” http://csis.org/files/publication/141209_Lewis_UnderestimatingRisk_Web.pdf

What is left out of this picture (and from most fictional portrayals of intelligence analysis) is the number of false leads the
analysts must pursue, the number of dead ends they must walk down, and the tools they use to decide that something is a false lead or
dead end. Police officers are familiar with how many leads in an investigation must be eliminated through legwork and query before an accurate
picture emerges. Most leads are wrong, and much
of the work is a process of elimination that eventually focuses in on
the most probable threat. If real intelligence work were a film, it would be mostly boring . Where the metadata
program contributes is in eliminating possible leads and suspects.

This makes the critique of the 215 program like a critique of airbags in a car—you own a car for years, the
airbags never deploy, so therefore they are useless and can be removed . The weakness in this argument is that
discarding airbags would increase risk. How much risk would increase and whether other considerations outweigh this increased
risk are fundamental problems for assessing surveillance programs. With the Section 215 program, Americans gave up a portion of their privacy
in exchange for decreased risk. Eliminating 215 collection is like subtracting a few of the random pieces of the
jigsaw puzzle. It decreases the chances that the analysts will be able to deduce what is actually going on
and may increase the time it takes to do this. That means there is an increase in the risk of a successful
attack . How much of an increase in risk is difficult to determine, but this is crucial for assessing the value of domestic surveillance programs.

If the risk of attack is increasing , it is not the right time to change the measures the United States has put in
place to deter another 9/11. If risk is decreasing, surveillance programs can be safely reduced or eliminated. A more
complicated analysis would ask if the United States went too far after 9/11 and the measures it put in place
can be reduced to a reasonable level without increasing risk . Unfortunately, precise metrics on risk and effectiveness do not
exist, 12 and we are left with the conflicting opinions of intelligence officials and civil libertarians as to what makes effective intelligence or
counterterrorism programs. There are biases on both sides, with intelligence officials usually preferring more information to less and civil
libertarians can be prone to wishful thinking about terrorism and opponent intentions.13

Interviews with current and former intelligence officials give us some guidance in deciding this . The
consensus among these individuals is that 215 is useful in preventing attacks, but the least useful of the programs
available to the intelligence community. If there was one surveillance program they had to give up, it would be 215 before any others, but ending
215 would not come without some increase in risk.
 FT Link Turn- Data Overload
New data programs solve info overload
Lavenda 3-21-15, Technology strategist
David, “How Smartphone Metadata Can Help Prevent Information Overload”,
http://www.cmswire.com/cms/mobile-enterprise/how-smartphone-metadata-can-help-prevent-
information-overload-024591.php?pageNum=2
Where to Next? Where No Man Has Gone Before ¶ The rapid deployment of sensor-rich smart mobile
devices, coupled with the proliferation of distributed, heterogeneous cloud services provides a fertile
ground for almost limitless opportunities to define contexts that could pinpoint and surface the
information you need "right here, right now."¶ Validation of this trend was provided by Microsoft’s recent
announcement of the Office Graph. Microsoft’s Office Graph uses “signals from email, social
conversations, documents, sites, instant messages, meetings and more to map the relationships between
the people and things that make your business go.” Apps that can tap into the intelligence of Office Graph
and related sources, might finally be able to crack the information overload problem. ¶ The Internet of
Things is ultimately the top level of sophistication available for context-aware situations. Specifically,
when devices will be able to communicate amongst themselves, the sky is literally the limit about what is
possible. The opportunities to reduce information overload afforded by the coupling of sensors, context
and machine-machine interactions will be covered in a future article.

Data tagging and organization do too

Harari 6-23-15, Thompson Reuters
Ofer, “Big Data Intelligent Tagging: Bringing Order to Information Overload”,
http://tabbforum.com/opinions/big-data-intelligent-tagging-bringing-order-to-information-overload
Data has long been the driving force in financial services, and it continues to play an important role
powering everything from governments to healthcare. In this era of Big Data, the ongoing flow of
information can be overwhelming or distracting. But when used intelligently, today’s open data economy
can drive informed, strategic decisions and give a financial service firm an edge in the marketplace.
Structured, machine-readable and intelligent information is essential in an evolving landscape in which
there are more than three billion online users globally, generating millions of text documents daily. ¶ For
example, satellite images now offer incredible detail about the state of crops in various parts of the world.
Machines can sort through corporate SEC filings faster than any human. Bricks-and-mortar retailers can
track the number of people going into stores, how long they spent there and what they walked out with –
while online rivals such as Amazon know what people searched for and can make a good guess about
what they might order and when. News is now disseminated on social sites such as Twitter faster than
through traditional news agencies – and it comes in greater quantity than ever before. ¶ [Related: “In-
House Alpha: Mining the Unstructured Data Within”] ¶ But the abundance of data is only the beginning –
firms still face the crucial task of making sense of it all and deriving tangible benefits from it. In a vast
digital world, how can a company get to the heart of what is needed and make valuable connections
between people, subjects, places and more? For Big Data to be useful, our clients must connect the dots,
find what is relevant and leave the rest behind – in other words, separate the wheat from the chaff.¶
Thomson Reuters Intelligent Tagging, powered by Calais, has been used for the past six years inside
Thomson Reuters to effectively mine content, help analysts collect and curate information, and make
content searchable in our flagship products such as Eikon, WestlawNext and more. We are now making
this exact same service available to our clients as well, providing technology and business professionals
access to the automatic generation of rich, semantic metadata and providing a way to link, tag and find
relationships within content to increase its value and gain competitive advantage. ¶ But Intelligent Tagging
also goes far beyond classic entity identification. It uses Natural Language Processing (NLP), text
analytics and data mining technologies to derive meaning from all that unstructured information –
including research reports, news articles and blog posts. It then connects extracted entities to Thomson
Reuters “core entity masters,” which provide even more information and connections to leverage for
search and analytics.¶ Thomson Reuters internal Content Marketplace defines a global information model
across the organization where each content set is managed centrally with keeping “one version of the
truth” and with ontology and linkages to other content sets (like Organization Authority, People
Authority, Industries, Deals and more). Thomson Reuters Intelligent Tagging is the glue that links any
unstructured content, using metadata, to the relevant authorities (e.g., a News story that mentions a
merger deal will be linked to the latest Deals tear sheet and the data on those companies in the
Organization Authority).¶ Our unified approach provides a comprehensive and unique perspective that
cuts through the clutter and makes relevant connections. It helps clients standardize data definitions, share
information across the enterprise and leverage knowledge hidden in the daily deluge of information as
well as in data stores. This allows end users, such as analysts, managers, advisors or anyone seeking
information, to move from long, challenging data searches, to gaining the insight and advantage that
provide a competitive edge.¶ Intelligent Tagging: As Simple as Child’s Play¶ With this service available
now to our clients, data can be easily searched for meaningful, usable information that can help the
business be more competitive.¶ 1. Tagging¶ Using NLP, machine learning and other methods, Thomson
Reuters Intelligent Tagging analyzes any kind of documents and finds the entities and events within it. ¶
This automatically adds rich, semantic, machine-readable metadata to the client’s content that is
connected to the highly curated data of Thomson Reuters. ¶ 2. Intelligence¶ The tags are delivered to the
client’s platforms and incorporated into applications for search, analytics, alerts, news aggregation and
other use cases.¶ 3. Linkages¶ Linkages to Thomson Reuters authorities with up-to-date metadata are
available at any point in time.¶ As a news and information company, Thomson Reuters has been amassing
a host of data for years, giving us unparalleled ability to make the connections we’re now sharing through
Intelligent Tagging. Our own teams rely on this proprietary service as an essential building block for
developing new products and services. As the marketplace moves faster and grows more competitive, the
relevance of intelligent information is becoming increasingly clear. With Intelligent Tagging, the ability
to sort through the universe of information to find the news item, document or dataset that could put you
ahead of the competition has become “child’s play.” ¶ Data About Data¶ Metadata is “data about data.” For
example, a book’s title and author is metadata. In information systems, a tag is a non-hierarchical
keyword or term assigned to a piece of information (such as an Internet bookmark, digital image, or
computer file). This kind of metadata helps describe an item and allows it to be found again by browsing
or searching. By tagging, clients can start to create an organized, linked metadata store that can be
constantly updated and searched for intelligent insight. For example, by tagging entities in a given article
and then connecting those entities to Thomson Reuters’ rich metadata, a user would have access to a
wealth of information, such as:¶ Entities: Examples are companies, people, places and products. ¶
Relationships: John Doe works for Acme Corp., which is a pharma company in Dallas. ¶ Facts: John Doe
is a 42-year-old, male CFO.¶ Events: Jane Doe was appointed a board member of Acme Corp. ¶ Topics:
Story is about M&As in the pharma industry.

No risk of info overload – NSA is using graph analysis and has a massive storage
center. Large data records are key to investigations.
Harris 13 (Derrick Harris, Senior writer about technology at Gigaom and Senior
Research Analyst at Mesosphere, with a J.D. from the University of Nevada-Las
Vegas School of Law, “Here’s how the NSA analyzes all that call data,” Gigaom, 6
June 2013, https://gigaom.com/2013/06/06/heres-how-the-nsa-analyzes-all-that-call-data/ , *fc)
There are numerous methods the NSA could use to extract some insights from what must be a mind-
blowing number of phone calls and text messages, but graph analysis is likely the king. As we’ve
explained numerous times over the past few months, graph analysis is ideal for identifying connections
among pieces of data. It’s what powers social graphs, product recommendations and even some fairly
complex medical research.
But now it has really come to the fore as a tool for fighting crime (or intruding on civil liberties,
however you want to look at it). The NSA is storing all those Verizon (and, presumably, other carrier
records) in a massive database system called Accumulo, which it built itself (on top of Hadoop) a few
years ago because there weren’t any other options suitable for its scale and requirements around stability
or security. The NSA is currently storing tens of petabytes of data in Accumulo.
In graph parlance, vertices are the individual data points (e.g., phone numbers or social network users)
and edges are the connections among them. In late May, the NSA released a slide presentation detailing
how fast fast Accumulo is able to process a 4.4-trillion-node, 70-trillion-edge graph. By way of
comparison, the graph behind Facebook’s Graph Search feature contains billions of nodes and trillions of
edges. (In the low trillions, from what I understand.)
So, yes, the NSA is able to easily analyze the call and text-message records of hundreds of million of
mobile subscribers. It’s also building out some massive data center real estate to support all the data
it’s collecting.
How might a graph analysis work within the NSA? The easy answer, which the government has
acknowledged, is to figure out who else is in contact with suspected terrorists. If there’s a strong
connection between you and Public Enemy No. 1, the NSA will find out and get to work figuring out who
you are. That could be via a search warrant or wiretap authorization, or it could conceivably figure out
who someone likely is by using location data.
Having such a big database of call records also provides the NSA with an easy way to go back and
find out information about someone should their number pop up in a future investigation.
Assuming the number is somewhere in their index, agents can track it down and get to work figuring out
who it’s related to and from where it has been making calls.

NSA can deal with big data – databases and partnerships with private companies
allow for effective analysis
Gallagher, ’13 ( Sean [ intelligence reporter and former Navy officer]; "What the NSA can do with
“big data”," Ars Technica, http://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2013/06/what-the-nsa-can-do-
with-big-data/2/, page 2)
Ironically, about the same time these two programs were being exposed, Internet companies such as Google and Yahoo were solving the big data
storage and analysis problem. In November of 2006, Google published a paper on BigTable, a database with petabytes of capacity capable of
indexing the Web and supporting Google Earth and other applications. And the work at Yahoo to catch up with Google's GFS file system—the
basis for BigTable—resulted in the Hadoop. BigTable and Hadoop-based databases
offered a way to handle huge amounts of
data being captured by the NSA's operations, but they lacked something critical to intelligence operations: compartmentalized
security (or any security at all, for that matter). So in 2008, NSA set out to create a better version of BigTable, called Accumulo—now an Apache
Foundation project. Accumulo is a "NoSQL" database, based on key-value pairs. It's a design similar to Google's BigTable or Amazon's
DynamoDB, but Accumulo has special security features designed for the NSA, like multiple levels of security access. The program is built on the
open-source Hadoop platform and other Apache products. One of those is called Column Visibility—a capability that allows individual items
within a row of data to have different classifications. That allows users and applications with different levels of authorization to access data but
see more or less information based on what each column's "visibility" is. Users with lower levels of clearance wouldn't be aware that the column
of data they're prohibited from viewing existed. Accumulo
also can generate near real-time reports from specific
patterns in data. So, for instance, the system could look for specific words or addressees in e-mail
messages that come from a range of IP addresses; or, it could look for phone numbers that are two
degrees of separation from a target's phone number. Then it can spit those chosen e-mails or phone
numbers into another database, where NSA workers could peruse it at their leisure. In other words, Accumulo
allows the NSA to do what Google does with your e-mails and Web searches—only with everything that flows across the Internet, or with every
phone call you make. It works because of a type of server process called "iterators." These pieces of code constantly process the information sent
to them and send back reports on emerging patterns in the data. Querying a multi-petabyte database and waiting for a response would be deadly
Accumulo is just one
slow, especially because there is always new data being added. The iterators are like NSA's tireless data elves.
weapon in the NSA's armory. The aggregated data pumped out of Accumulo can be pulled into other
tools for analysis, such as Palantir's analytic databases and its Graph application. Graph builds a
visualization of the links between "entities" based on attributes and relationships and searches based on
those relationships—conceptually similar to Facebook's Unicorn search and social graph, Google's Knowledge Graph, and Microsoft
Research's Satori.

Empirical examples have proven that “big data” is actually more effective in
detecting terrorists.
Press, 13 (Gil Press, a marketing, publishing, research and education consultant, "The Effectiveness Of
Small Vs. Big Data Is Where The NSA Debate Should Start", 6-12-2013, Forbes,
http://www.forbes.com/sites/gilpress/2013/06/12/the-effectiveness-of-small-vs-big-data-is-where-the-nsa-
debate-should-start/)
In his Wired story, Bamford pointed
to a breakthrough in code-breaking and the building of a more powerful supercomputer
as the prime motivations behind the sweeping of more and more data. And more to come—the reason for storing
all the data is “What can’t be broken [as in code-breaking] today may be broken tomorrow .” But Bamford may
have missed the rise of the big data and machine learning experts at the NSA and the replacement of supercomputers with “commodity” servers
and storage devices for the cost-efficient processing of very large sets of data, using software that was first develop by Google, then enhanced and
open-sourced by other Web-native companies (and that the NSA further developed and even gave back as the open-source Accumulo;
seeGigaOm and Wired). The
availability of new hardware, software, and people well versed in the new ways of
big data answered the new post-9/11 needs and probably drove a shift in focus from deciphering encrypted
data to finding non-encrypted “digital crumbs” left by and pointing to potential terrorists . “If you’re
looking for a needle in the haystack, you need a haystack,” Jeremy Bash, chief of staff to Leon E. Panetta, the former
C.I.A. director and defense secretary, told MSNBC. That building a giant haystack is the way to go, and that you don’t need even to know what
needle you are looking for, it will simply “emerge” from the data, is certainly what the NSA learned from big data advocates. “Now go out and
gather some data, and see what it can do,” three Google researchers recommended in their influential 2009 paper, “The Unreasonable
Effectiveness of Data” (PDF). That the paper dealt with a very specific domain—language processing—and argued only for the superiority of
Google’s trillion-word corpus over pre-conceived ontologies, did not deter big data advocates from claiming the superiority of “data-as-a-model”
(i.e., don’t use models, let the data speak) in all other domains, even claiming it is transforming science (forget about making hypotheses). The
broad impact of these claims was evident last week when a Wall Street Journal editorial defending the NSA declared “ The effectiveness
of data-mining is proportional to the size of the sample, so the NSA must sweep broadly to learn what is
normal and refine the deviations.” Size matters, end of story. The Wall Street Journal also reported that the NSA
has tried, failed, and tried again to follow this “more data is better” philosophy until is saw success in 2010 with
a program for the detection of the location of IEDs in Afghanistan . “Analysts discovered that the system’s
analysis improved when more information was added, ” we are told. Whatever the magnitude of the improvement was, it
could not have justified in my opinion this reaction from a former U.S. counterterrorism official, as reported by the Journal: “ It’s the
ultimate correlation tool… It is literally being able to predict the future .” But if you want to believe that some
success in a specific, narrow task indicates you can predict the future everywhere else, you proceed to collect all the data you can collect because
you assume eventually it will tell you whatever you want to know and even what you don’t know that you don’t know. The New York Times
mentioned anotherstrand of influence on the NSA in the early 2000s: “When American analysts hunting
terrorists sought new ways to comb through the troves of [data]… they turned to Silicon Valley computer
experts who had developed complex equations to thwart Russian mobsters intent on credit card fraud.” Rachel
Schutt, Senior Research Scientist at Johnson Research Labs, brought up this venerable and fairly successful example of data mining when I asked
her (via email) about the NSA: “If they are building something like the equivalent of a fraud detection system for a credit card company, or some
sort of suspicious activity detection system, then that needs to be running on all data streaming into the system. If they didn’t let all calls
go through the fraud detection system, then they’ll miss fraud. This would be like a credit card company not saving all
transactions or observing all transactions.” Schutt also explained why the NSA task of identifying specific individuals is
different from the population-level work of traditional statistics : “Our understanding of statistical modeling is different
when it comes to user-level data. It used to be we thought in terms of sampling in order to make inferences about the entire population. But with
user-level data, we want to know aboutevery individual. For a specific individual, we might want to sample from their phone calls if we discover
we don’t need to keep it all (though how can you be sure?). It could be we only take snapshots or aggregates for that individual over time and that
is sufficient to know they are not a terror threat with some level of confidence.”

The NSA is using technological advancements, such as innovative algorithms and

approaches, to successfully sort through big data—data overload is no longer a
problem.
Ouellette, 13 (Jennifer Ouellette, writer for the Quanta Magazine, "Scientific Data Has Become So
Complex, We Have to Invent New Math to Deal With It", 10-9-2013, WIRED,
http://www.wired.com/2013/10/topology-data-sets/)
“How the hell do you analyze that data?” DeDeo wondered. It wasn’t the size of the data set that was daunting; by big data standards, the size
was quite manageable. It was the sheer complexity and lack of formal structure that posed a problem. This “big data” looked nothing like the
kinds of traditional data sets the former physicist would have encountered earlier in his career, when the research paradigm involved forming a
hypothesis, deciding precisely what one wished to measure, then building an apparatus to make that measurement as accurately as possible. “In
physics, you typically have one kind of data and you know the system really well,” said DeDeo. “Now we have this new multimodal data
[gleaned] from biological systems and human social systems, and the data is gathered before we even have a hypothesis.” The data is there in all
its messy, multi-dimensional glory, waiting to be queried, but how does one know which questions to ask when the scientific method has been
turned on its head? DeDeo is not the only researcher grappling with these challenges. Across every discipline, data sets are getting
bigger and more complex, whether one is dealing with medical records, genomic sequencing, neural networks in the brain,
astrophysics, historical archives, or social networks . Alessandro Vespignani, a physicist at Northeastern
University who specializes in harnessing the power of social networking to model disease outbreaks, stock market behavior, collective social
dynamics, and election outcomes, has collected many terabytes of data from social networks such as Twitter, nearly all
of it raw and unstructured. “We didn’t define the conditions of the experiments, so we don’t know what we are capturing,” he said.
Today’s big data is noisy, unstructured, and dynamic rather than static . It may also be corrupted or incomplete. “We
think of data as being comprised of vectors – a string of numbers and coordinates,” said Jesse Johnson, a mathematician at Oklahoma State
University. But data from Twitter or Facebook, or the trial archives of the Old Bailey, look nothing like that, which means researchers need new
you need a more sophisticated way to
mathematical tools in order to glean useful information from the data sets. “Either
translate it into vectors, or you need to come up with a more generalized way of analyzing it,” Johnson said. Vespignani uses a wide
range of mathematical tools and techniques to make sense of his data, including text recognition. He sifts
through millions of tweets looking for the most relevant words to whatever system he is trying to model. DeDeo adopted a
similar approach for the Old Bailey archives project. His solution was to reduce his initial dataset of 100,000 words by grouping them into 1,000
categories, using key words and their synonyms. “Now you’ve turned the trial into a point in a 1,000-dimensional space that tells you how much
the trial is about friendship, or trust, or clothing,” he explained. Scientists
like DeDeo and Vespignani make good use of this
piecemeal approach to big data analysis, but Yale University mathematician Ronald Coifman says that what is really needed is the
big data equivalent of a Newtonian revolution, on par with the 17th century invention of calculus, which he believes is already underway. It is
not sufficient, he argues, to simply collect and store massive amounts of data; they must be intelligently
curated, and that requires a global framework. “We have all the pieces of the puzzle — now how do we actually assemble
them so we can see the big picture?” he said. “You may have a very simplistic model at the tiny local scale, but calculus lets you take a lot of
simple models and integrate them into one big picture.” Similarly, Coifman believes that modern mathematics — notably geometry — can help
identify the underlying global structure of big datasets. A data set might be organized by geography or climate, for example, each of which will
produce a very differently shaped map.
 FT HUMINT turn

HUMINT can’t fill in – it’s slow, limited to small-ball intelligence and terrorists will
adapt. Big data is vital to mapping the entire network with enough warning to
prevent attacks
Mudd, 13 - Mr. Mudd was deputy director of the CIA Counterterrorist Center, 2003-05, and senior
intelligence adviser at the FBI, 2009-10. He is now director of Global Risk at SouthernSun Asset
Management (Philip, “Mapping Terror Networks: Why Metadata Matters” Wall Street Journal, 12/29,
http://www.wsj.com/articles/SB10001424052702304367204579270472690053740

We met every afternoon in the CIA director's conference room at 5. At the FBI director's conference
room, we met every morning shortly after 7.
At both agencies, the questions were similar: How best can we clarify the blurry picture of an emerging
terror conspiracy overseas or in the United States? How can we identify the key players and the broader
network of fundraisers, radicalizers, travel facilitators and others quickly enough so they can't succeed?
And how do we ensure that we've mapped the network enough to dismantle—and not merely disrupt—it?
The only way to understand why the NSA collects and needs access to vast amounts of telephone
metadata is to keep these questions in mind, especially the last. In ruling on Friday that the data collection
is lawful, U.S. District Court Judge William H. Pauley III expressed it well: "The government needs a
wide net that could find and isolate gossamer contacts among suspected terrorists in an ocean of
seemingly disconnected data."
Mapping a network of people is simple in concept but complex in practice: find the key operators, and
then find the support group. The challenge isn't limited to counterterrorism. Any group—from organized-
crime enterprises to gangs, drug cartels, or human traffickers—consists of a team of people who interact
and are organized for a particular purpose. If an analyst maps that network well enough, then a series of
arrests or lethal operations can destroy it.
Map a network poorly, however, and you may miss peripheral players who will recreate a conspiracy
after the core conspirators are arrested. The goal is to eliminate the entire spiderweb of a conspiracy;
cutting off a piece, like the arm of a starfish, is a poor second choice. The starfish's arm regenerates.
Think of the range of linkages you might find among individuals in these networks. Money, phone calls,
email exchanges, travel, social media, chat rooms—the modes constantly expand. How many linkages
could a security service monitor electronically even two decades ago? Very few: Many of today's means
of communication and interaction didn't exist.
A security service can also use human surveillance teams on the ground to map a network. This is more
familiar and comforting, and it might sound less intrusive than the digital mapping programs run by NSA
computers. But human surveillance operations are slow, inefficient and costly. And they have a higher
risk of missing members of the network. The fastest, most efficient solution to mapping a network of
conspirators lies in following digital connections among people. And as digital trails expand, digital
network mapping will increase in value.
There is a healthy debate about how far U.S. security services should delve into our digital trails, but
emotions too often overcome common sense. Every week I hear someone comment on whether the
government is listening to their conversations—as if there's some huge complex of government
employees in a mythical Area 51, listening to other Americans. The debates about government
intelligence collection should be clearer about distinguishing between what the government collects and
what it does with it. They may be collecting my phone number; what I'd worry more about is what they
do with what they collect.
For an ongoing investigation, the data might seem relatively straightforward: link cellphones, email
contacts, financial transactions, travel and visa information, add in whatever else you can find, and sort
through the data using modern network analysis tools. Bingo! Within a day, you can have the beginnings
of an understanding of a complex network that might take old-school investigators weeks or more to
piece together.
Even so, an analyst has to ask other questions. Where did the conspirators travel a year ago? Five years
ago? Who did they live with? Who did they sit next to on an airplane? Who gave them money? And a
thousand other questions.
Investigators need an historical pool of data, in other words, that they can access only when they have
information that starts with a known or suspected conspirator in the middle of a spiderweb they don't fully
understand. Meanwhile, time pressures lurk: If you're late by a day, you lose.
In the post-9/11 world, the harder debate and more difficult questions center on pre-emptive intelligence
—potentially lethal unknowns. Consider Minnesota, with its significant Somali expatriate population.
Should analysts look for youths who buy one-way cash tickets to a country neighboring Somalia? What if
they've accessed extremist websites? Would that combination of digital signals—none of which is an
illegal act—be sufficient to initiate an investigation? And if there are circumstances that would result in
preventive investigations, how can we conduct them if we don't have access to historical data in real
time?
There are few certainties in this debate. But we do know that our digital trails will grow as more of our
lives appear in bits and bytes, in records held by tomorrow's Amazons and Facebooks. And we know that
to piece together networks, law enforcement and intelligence will use these data streams and need
historical data to do so.
Intelligence analysts will look for more clarity on how policy makers and the public want to balance the
ability to discern troubling patterns in private citizens' data and the national interest in ensuring that
America remains a land of personal freedom where privacy is respected. But given the threats the country
faces, mapping digital interactions among people will become ever more critical to understanding
terrorists, criminals and foreign spies.
These tools and access to historical data are essential to mapping how bad guys operate. The trick won't
be choosing privacy over security but in balancing the two.

Risk-averse politics mean a HUMINT shift won’t solve

Harman, 15 - Director, President and CEO, Wilson Center, member of the Defense Policy Board, the
State Department Foreign Policy Board, and the Homeland Security Advisory Committee. (Jane,
“Disrupting the Intelligence Community” Foreign Affairs, March/April,
https://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/united-states/2015-03-01/disrupting-intelligence-community

Another factor making human intelligence gathering a harder game to play is the broader American
political culture. Developing informants (let alone embedding assets) within terrorist groups is a dicey
proposition. And regardless of their personal courage or willingness to serve, intelligence officers must
now operate in a political climate that discourages risk taking, because the American public reacts so
strongly to U.S. casualties—something the fallout from the 2012 attack on the U.S. compound in
Benghazi, Libya, which killed two Foreign Service officers and two security personnel, made clear. Of
course, such political constraints and risk aversion affect the U.S. military, too. This is partly why many
U.S. policymakers are cool to the idea of putting boots on the ground in the fight against ISIS. The irony
is that an effective air war relies on precise targeting, which requires good intelligence collected on the
ground, which itself exposes U.S. personnel to the sorts of risks an air war is supposed to avoid.

A combined approach to intelligence is best – neglecting any one component

increases the risk of systemwide failure
Sims, 7 - Professorial Lecturer at Johns Hopkins University School of Advanced International Studies;
former intelligence analyst for the State Department and the Defense Intelligence Agency (Jennifer Sims
(2007) Intelligence to counter terror: The importance of all-source fusion, Intelligence and National
Security, 22:1, 38-56, DOI: 10.1080/02684520701200772

Traditionally, US intelligence has used three types of collection to target opponents: technical intelligence
(TECHINT), human intelligence (HUMINT) and open source or unclassified intelligence (OSINT).
Technical intelligence includes the collection of imagery, intercepted communications, electronic signals
emitted by equipment, engineering data from captured electronics or weapons systems, and data from
equipment or materials in the environment that leave signatures of their presence, such as radiation,
effluent plumes and noise, that trained analysts can discern using existing data as reference.8 The
productivity of any of these collectors against a particular target will depend on that collector’s access to
the target’s most vulnerable point. For example, if a network of spies uses wireless radios, picking up
their electronic emissions (TECHINT) will be an effective way to find them; if they use couriers, human
agents secretly opening the letters and packages (HUMINT) is likely to work best; if the adversary
believes he is unobserved, collecting the names of those he visits from a phone book or the sites he visits
while traveling as an ostensible tourist (OSINT) would be useful.
In any case, the best intelligence is obtained when the capabilities of all these collectors are quickly
combined. Just as newspaper editors like to see multiple sources corroborating articles even from their
best reporters, directors of national intelligence have greater confidence in intelligence that comes from
multiple collectors. Better than simply hearing that Osama Bin Laden has been sighted on a road in
Pakistan would be seeing imagery of his convoy and receiving intercepts from his communications that
each independently confirm the initial report.9 As long as an opponent runs reasonably complex
operations, some collectors will work best against certain aspects of those operations, while others will
work best against the rest. Thus ‘all source’ collection can yield many pieces of a puzzle that analysts can
then assemble, jumble up, and reassemble as the adversary moves, reacts to countermoves, and moves
again.
Beyond corroboration, however, is the concept of collection ‘boosting’ in which the productivity of one
collector depends on input from others.10 The most obvious example of boosting within a single
discipline is ‘direction finding’ (DFing), which may involve the use of multiple antennae to triangulate on
a signal so that it can not only be identified, but also geo-located with some degree of precision.11 During
World War II, the SS paired up with the Gestapo and used direction-finding to locate the wireless radios
used by a network of Stalin’s spies in Europe. To their great chagrin, these radios were found in Berlin –
some next to the most sensitive government ministries.12 Of course, boosting also works among
collection disciplines, such as the use of spies (HUMINT) to steal the codes of adversaries so that analysts
working on intercepted communications (TECHINT) can overcome the encryption methods and read the
content of the messages.13 In fact, the more tightly integrated collectors are into the decision-making
process the more likely an adversary’s spoofing of a collector will work to deflect or deceive one’s own
decision-makers. Since securing collectors can be a costly and seemingly never-ending endeavor, one
good way to compensate for inevitable vulnerabilities is to ensure collection is ‘constructively redundant’
– that is, sufficiently all-source that one collector’s vulnerability to spoofing will not lead to
misperception or miscalculation.
This kind of constructively redundant all-source collection was a lynchpin of the allied strategy to defeat
Hitler during World War II; it was employed, for example, to determine whether covert and clandestine
collection operations had been compromised and, specifically, in the running of the famous British
counterintelligence operation known as Double Cross.14 But the history of Double Cross also alerts us to
the inherent dangers of redundant collection systems: since collectors improve the reliability of each
other’s products by offering independent corroboration, they depend on good systemwide
counterintelligence so an adversary cannot defeat or spoof one of them and thus sow ambiguity,
uncertainty and confusion throughout an interlaced collection system. If systemic counterintelligence is
weak, collectors have good reason not to share their ‘take’ lest it become tainted. Poor counterintelligence
can lead to system-wide failure even when the majority of collection endeavors are robust and
productive.15
In some respects, then, the business of all-source data fusion for countering terrorism follows what has
been done in a traditional sense against other intelligence targets. What makes the counterterrorism a
particularly challenging endeavor is the terrorists’ objective of committing stealthy crime – often on the
victim’s home soil. This means that law enforcement information, including information on US residents
or citizens living in close proximity to the terrorists, may be important intelligence information that needs
to be shared with decision-makers at the federal level working to thwart terrorist activities on a
nationwide scale. Law enforcement agents, dedicated to preserving the information for the purposes of
arrest and prosecution, realize the need to pass the information over to these officials but do not always
know the best and most secure ways to do so. At times, in fact, the most important decisions must be
made very quickly by state and local officials if they are to prevent an impending attack. In these cases,
circulating information to Washington for recycling into intelligence products could delay action rather
than assist it. The problem thus becomes the very nontraditional one of fusing all-source intelligence for a
cop on the beat.
 FT Allied cooperation turn

Intelligence cooperation remains high regardless of relations

Butler, 14 - Vice President of Government Strategies, IO, a privately-held data center, builder and
provider. And he's also an Adjunct Fellow at the Center for New America Security, previously the First
Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Cyber Policy at the Pentagon (Bob, “THE INTERNATIONAL
IMPLICATIONS OF THE NATIONAL SECURITY AGENCY LEAKS” 6/4)

MR. BUTLER: Sure. I'm going to talk briefly about defense and then I'm going to spend most of my time,
based on where I sit today, talking about tech; an industry from a global datacenter perspective. Within
defense, though, I think in light of the Snowden revelations I think Cam's explanation of a kind of a
aircraft accident or a car accident, kind of, proceeding slowly, holds true. There is a sense -- there was a
sense of awkwardness, and a lot -- I think a lot of folks just watching to see how the United States was
going to deal with it.
At the same time, in these -- when these unfortunate situations happen, National Security and Defense
dialogue trumps, so with coalition partners close allies, the conversation continues and it continues to
grow. I think the other dimension is, you have two sides of a discussion, is above-the-table political
discussion that’s going on, and then there's a discussion within the defense and intelligence community.
And again, from the substance of national interest, not only U.S. national interest, but foreign national
interest, there is -- you know, we built alliances, coalitions and relationships based on dialogue.

Mutual self interest means those relationships are resilient

Jones, 14 - Senior Fellow and Director, Project on International Strategy and Order
The Brookings Institution (Bruce, “THE INTERNATIONAL IMPLICATIONS OF THE NATIONAL
SECURITY AGENCY LEAKS” 6/4)

MR. JONES: Well, having been fairly response, let me be slightly more upbeat in this, because if I look
out over several years, I'm -- and even a shorter term that I'm more inclined to -- your last point about,
there's an old news phenomenal now, or at least there can be. It's well-timed, there's about to be Brazilian
elections, and there just been Indian elections, when you look at the swing states and some of the other
actors who are in this, they are not U.S. allies, but they are not adversaries so kind of friend -- neither
friend nor foe country.
I think you’ve seen relatively quickly now, a sense of, look, it's just too costly to sustain tension with the
United States, so let's find ways to move past this. And elections are helpful, either brining in new actors
or by sort of demarcating we can say, well that was that phase, and now we'll move on. Harold talked
about that in the Brazilian context, I think we'll see that in the Indian context, a sense of, okay, that was
that, let's move, let's move onwards.
And I think the kind of, used phrase, mutual self-interests, but when you look at these actors and what
they are looking at in big-picture terms with China, with Russia, with the frame of different regimes, and
they look at the United States, the mutual self-interest is pretty rapidly putting this one back in a box at a
very strategic level at least.

Overall US-EU cooperation is high

Archick, 14 - Specialist in European Affairs at the Congressional Research Service (Kristin, “U.S.-EU
Cooperation Against Terrorism” 12/1, https://www.fas.org/sgp/crs/row/RS22030.pdf

U.S.-EU cooperation against terrorism has led to a new dynamic in U.S.-EU relations by fostering
dialogue on law enforcement and homeland security issues previously reserved for bilateral discussions
with individual EU member states. Despite some frictions, most U.S. policy makers and analysts view the
developing partnership with the EU in these areas as positive. Like its predecessor, the Obama
Administration has supported U.S. cooperation with the EU in the fields of counterterrorism, border
controls, and transport security.
At the November 2009 U.S.-EU Summit in Washington, DC, the two sides reaffirmed their commitment
to work together to combat terrorism and enhance cooperation in the broader JHA field. In June 2010, the
United States and the EU adopted a “Declaration on Counterterrorism” aimed at deepening the already
close U.S.-EU relationship and highlighting the commitment of both sides to combat terrorism within the
rule of law. In June 2011, President Obama’s National Strategy for Counterterrorism asserted that in
addition to working with European allies bilaterally, “the United States will continue to partner with the
European Parliament and European Union to maintain and advance CT efforts that provide mutual
security and protection to citizens of all nations while also upholding individual rights.” The EU has also
been a key U.S. partner in the 30-member Global Counterterrorism Forum, founded in September 2011 as
a multilateral body aimed at mobilizing resources and expertise to counter violent extremism, strengthen
criminal justice and rule of law capacities, and enhance international counterterrorism cooperation.12
Recently, U.S. and EU officials have been discussing ways to combat the foreign fighter phenomenon
given increasing concerns that both European and American Muslims are being recruited to fight with
Islamist groups in Syria and Iraq. U.S. policy makers, including some Members of Congress, have
expressed worries in particular about such foreign fighters in light of short-term visa-free travel
arrangements between the United States and most EU countries. In early July 2014, U.S. Attorney
General Eric Holder asserted, “We have a mutual and compelling interest in developing shared strategies
for confronting the influx of U.S. and European-born violent extremists in Syria. And because our
citizens can freely travel, visa-free ... the problem of fighters in Syria returning to any of our countries is a
problem for all of our countries.”13 In September 2014, the White House noted that U.S. officials from
the Department of Justice and the Department of Homeland Security are “working closely” with EU
counterparts to “address a wide range of measures focused on enhancing counter-radicalization, border
security, aviation security, and information sharing” to address potential threats posed by foreign
fighters.14

Allied cooperation is inevitable – US surveillance diplomacy

Keiber 15 (Jason, PhD in Political Science, subfield of International Relations from Ohio State
University, “Surveillance Hegemony,” http://library.queensu.ca/ojs/index.php/surveillance-and-
society/article/viewFile/snowden_hegemony/snowden_hege, Surveillance and Society, Volume 13,
Number 2, 2015, silbs)
<< Surveillance Hegemony: Power, Norms and Institutions
The extraordinary material surveillance capabilities of the US is perhaps most easily “measured” by its
exorbitant funding. Nearly a third of the US’s $52.6 billion intelligence budget is dedicated to fighting
terrorism (Gellman and Miller 2013). 4 The NSA in particular gets one fifth of the overall budget. This
money sustains a talented workforce and produces cutting edge surveillance techniques. These
capabilities are often put to use covertly and unilaterally. The US, however, can also influence others to
participate in its broader, strategic surveillance efforts. One of the more striking examples of secret
cooperation is the recently disclosed RAMPART-A program in which over a dozen countries allow the
US to install equipment to “congested” cables so that the US can intercept phone and internet traffic
(Gallagher 2014).
With some caveats, both the US and the host country reportedly get access to the fruits of that
surveillance. In general there are 37 states that are “approved SIGINT partners” (Greenwald 2014). This
highlights the fact that other states accept (to varying degrees) core premises of how surveillance should
work on an international scale. This acceptance, in turn, rests on a broader set of norms that emphasize
the threat of terrorism and the necessity of counterterrorism measures. On the normative side of the
ledger, a modicum of international surveillance in the form of information sharing has become not just
tolerated, but held up as a responsibility states owe each other. Finally there is an array of international
institutions that support surveillance activities. The US has been able to use its influential position within
these institutions—the UN in particular—to establish an array of information sharing practices, all of
which benefit US surveillance goals.
Anti-terrorism norms existed prior to 9/11, but the attacks on that day in 2001 vaulted anti-terrorism
business to the top of the agenda. Terrorism moved from a threat to the predominant threat. Pre-9/11
norms began emerging as early as the end of the 19th century as a response to anarchism (Jensen 2013),
but developed more thoroughly in the 1970s (see Rapoport 2002 for more on the international dimensions
of terrorism over time). The general emphasis was that states should refrain from supporting international
terrorism. After 9/11 this changed into a norm urging states to actively intervene to stop international
terrorism. This requires shoring up their own surveillance capacity at home and sharing information with
others abroad. >>

Surveillance diplomacy and assistance to other states proves it’s inevitable

Keiber 15 (Jason, PhD in Political Science, subfield of International Relations from Ohio State
University, “Surveillance Hegemony,” http://library.queensu.ca/ojs/index.php/surveillance-and-
society/article/viewFile/snowden_hegemony/snowden_hege, Surveillance and Society, Volume 13,
Number 2, 2015, silbs)

The hegemonic position of the US is evident in its CT strategies. First, the US offers carrots to “weak”
states, promising to “strengthen the capacity of such War on Terror partners to reclaim full control of
their territory through effective police, border, and other security forces as well as functioning systems of
justice” (The White House 2006: 16). Only a powerful state could offer (and sometimes foist upon other
states) such assistance.
Second, over time the US shifts from unilateral bluster (which is implicitly backed by direct coercion) to
a more international approach (which relies on US diplomatic strengths and advantages in international
fora). In the 2006 CT strategy, the language of “willing and able” states persists, but the stark language
from 2003 is absent. Instead, for those states “reluctant to fulfill their sovereign responsibilities to combat
terrorist-related activities within their borders” the US would lean on diplomacy and the rest of “the
international community to persuade [these] states to meet their obligations to combat terrorism and deny
safe haven under U.N. Security Council Resolution 1373” (The White House 2006: 16). This is the
approach of a hegemon relying on less coercive modes of influence.
There are two watchwords throughout these documents—capacity and partnership. Both reflect US
hegemony, and both find increasing use in the subsequent CT national strategies. State “capacity” is used
twice in 2003, nine times in 2006, and 17 times in 2011 (The White House 2011). References to
“partnerships” occurred 25, 41, and 59 times in the respective years. The US sees its CT relationship with
other “willing” states as that of a partnership. Partnerships with “able” states are exercised through more
joint efforts. In its partnerships with weaker states the US would help build their capacity to fight
terrorism—a capacity that includes surveillance. The expectation is that the US approach to surveillance
would be dominated by cooperative efforts with more capable states and assistance for weaker states to
shore up their domestic surveillance capability.
 FT Going dark / encryption

NSA will circumvent encryption – they’ll use Network Exploitation

Corera July 15th
(Gordon Corera is Security Correspondent for BBC News, major documentaries for the BBC on the NSA,
He is the author of the THE ART OF BETRAYAL: LIFE AND DEATH IN THE BRITISH SECRET
SERVICE and SHOPPING FOR BOMBS: THE RISE AND FALL OF THE AQ KHAN NETWORK. In
2014 he was named Information Security Journalist of the Year at the BT INFORMATION SECURITY
AND JOURNALISM AWARDS, “GCHQ WILL CIRCUMVENT ENCRYPTION NO MATTER
WHAT. HERE'S HOW”, Wired, http://www.wired.co.uk/news/archive/2015-07/15/how-spies-will-
circumvent-encryption-anyway, TMP)
On both sides of the Atlantic the battle over encryption is hotting up, with the FBI continuing to press
its case for access and the British government making noises about its fears of what an encrypted future
might mean. The talk is of how ubiquitous encryption will lead to spies and law enforcement "going
dark". ¶ In recent years, the state could compel national telecoms providers to give them access to data
traffic, which the spies could then read. But those companies are seeing more and more of what passes
through their pipes encrypted by service providers. And since Edward Snowden revealed the extent of
government surveillance, those providers and other tech companies have come to see offering privacy as
a selling point to their customers. But if end-to-end encryption becomes increasingly ubiquitous, is it
the end of the line for the spies? History suggests not. ¶ When encryption first became available to the
public in the 70s, thanks to the development of public key cryptography, one of its inventors Whit Diffie
had a conversation with Arthur Levenson, a senior figure at US spy agency, the NSA. Diffie told
Levenson he thought signals intelligence was finished. Levenson was less sure. "Whit, we've heard these
arguments before," Levenson (whose experience stretched back to Bletchley Park) replied. Forty years
on, as Diffie recalled the conversation with me, he shook his head with a rueful smile. "I was clearly
mistaken," he says. When it comes to signals intelligence, "the sources are fragile, but the phenomenon is
robust" as Diffie remembers one official telling him. ¶ One of the things that became clear to me while
writing a book on the history of computers and spies, is that the talk of going dark is not new and the
smartest spies know they can adapt. Signals intelligence is an inherently insecure business in which
the tiniest change can instantly dry up a valuable stream of intelligence. ¶ When Nazi Germany upgraded
its Enigma machine as the second world war started, the head of the Government Code and Cypher
School (soon to become GCHQ) said it would be "a waste of time and public money" to even try to crack
the new codes. But Alan Turing and others took up the challenge, and proved them wrong. As the Cold
War started, Soviet codes proved near impossible to break. But the spies instead carried out massive
traffic analysis on the externals of communications to extract useful intelligence. By establishing what
normal patterns of Soviet military communications were, GCHQ and NSA would look for any change --
this might be an indicator of troops on the move, and potentially war. This was the real -- and secret --
birth of today's buzz word of "big data". Finally, when fibre-optic cables spread in the 90s, the spies again
thought their satellite-based collection model was over, but they adapted (as Edward Snowden soon
revealed). The point about end-to-end encryption is that there is still an endpoint where the message is
clear and readable. And so the spies at GCHQ and NSA will likely shift towards greater exploiting of
target endpoints by what they call Computer Network Exploitation -- what everyone else calls
hacking. This may also be done on a much larger scale than in the past, with references in some
recent reports to something called "bulk" computer network exploitation. There are indications from the
Snowden leaks that the US may be able to pre-install large numbers of implants in computers, ready to be
activated. Spies will also do what they have done in the past by looking for weaknesses in encryption
protocols (as they discovered with Enigma machines) and for any human failings in implementation.
These may offer the chink in the armour which clever mathematicians and machines can together
work on, as happened again at Bletchley. ¶ Other forms of surveillance may also play a role -- after all, a
covertly placed camera above your PC can catch you type in your password and outwit the very best
forms of encryption. This kind of activity needs to be authorised if the state wants to do it, however, and
new laws planned for the UK are expected to overhaul the entire surveillance system to make it clearer
what can and cannot be done ,and who should sign it off (perhaps soon a judge, rather than a minister). ¶
One of Whit Diffie's reflections about why he was mistaken back in the 70s is that, while much of the
emphasis is on what proportion of traffic the state can read, there is another part of the equation for
signals intelligence. And that is the overall volume of communications that are out there. The trend over
the years has been for almost exponential growth and all the signs are that this will continue as we
connect up more and more internet of things devices. And not everything will be properly encrypted. In
other words, even if a smaller proportion of the communications is readable, there is still more out there
overall.¶ The connected devices in our household, like our fridges and those that we wear and carry, like
our watches, are likely to be potentially highly revealing sources of intelligence. The shift towards
encryption may also increase the pressure to carry out traffic analysis and extract meaning from
metadata rather than the unreadable content. More will also be made of open source forms of intelligence
(information searchable from the web and social media like Twitter which might reveal connections, links
or locations) -- this is already proving increasingly valuable. ¶ The smartest spies know encryption is
coming -- and that they risk being on the wrong side of the argument if they oppose it, as the public
increasingly understands its value in protecting their data from a range of malevolent actors like criminals
and foreign hackers. The spread may mean spies have a lean period as existing intelligence flows do, in
fact, go dark. But history suggests that if they are as smart in the future as they have been in the past, then
they will find new ways to do their job.

We can crack encryptions now, “Going Dark” not an issue – local information,
metadata, and new databases are happening now
Swire July 15th
(Peter Swire is the Huang professor of law and ethics at the Georgia Institute of Technology, senior
counsel with Alston & Bird LLP, and a cyber-fellow with New America, Slate Magazine, “The Golden
Age of Surveillance”,
http://www.slate.com/articles/technology/future_tense/2015/07/encryption_back_doors_aren_t_necessary
_we_re_already_in_a_golden_age_of.html, TMP)
In recent months, law enforcement, led by FBI Director James Comey, has waged war against the “going
dark” problem—criminals using secure communications technologies, particularly encryption, to evade
justice. Its solution to this problem is to encourage or require technology companies to build in back
doors to allow the government to circumvent, say, encryption on your iPhone. But in reality, we are
currently in a golden age of surveillance. The “going dark” argument should not be used as a reason to
support back doors or other special access by law enforcement to encrypted communications.¶ Last
Wednesday I had the privilege of testifying before the Senate Judiciary Committee on the balance
between public safety and encryption. I have been researching and writing on encryption for two decades,
including serving on President Obama’s Review Group on Intelligence and Communications Technology.
My testimony stressed three arguments¶ First, I agree that law there are indeed specific ways that
enforcement and national security agencies lose specific previous capabilities due to changing
encryption technology. These specific losses, however, are more than offset by massive gains,
including: (1) location information; (2) information about contacts and confederates; and (3) an array of
new databases that create digital dossiers about individuals’ lives. ¶ The adoption in the past 20 years of
text messaging, an area highlighted by law enforcement as an example of “going dark,” specifically
shows enormous gains to law enforcement. Although relatively few text messages were sent 20 years ago,
by 2010 the number exceeded 6 trillion texts per year. For the predominant share of those messages, the
content is available from the provider. Even for the subset where the content is encrypted, law
enforcement can gain access to the metadata. ¶ Being able to access texts and other metadata is
enormously helpful in mapping the social graphs of suspects. Before we all communicated online, most
of our social interactions (except our phone calls) left no records, and the content of communications left
no trace unless law enforcement happened to have an active wiretap on a phone call. Today, however,
metadata leaves traces of every electronic communication a suspect has, showing whom they speak
to, how often, how long, and from where. Identifying these other confederates gives law enforcement the
opportunity to use a number of other tools to access encrypted content, ranging from confidential
informants, to surveillance on the co-conspirators, to offering immunity to one participant to gain access
to the content of communications with the others.¶ Law enforcement has expressed particular concern
about encrypted text messaging services, such as WhatsApp. For text messages, it might be tempting to
say that law enforcement could call the glass half empty (some texts are encrypted) or half full (some
texts are in the clear). With more than 6 trillion messages filling the cup, though, it takes chutzpah to say
the glass is empty. Text messages are a prime example of a golden age of surveillance, and not of going
dark.¶ Second, government-mandated vulnerabilities would threaten severe harm to cybersecurity,
privacy, human rights, and U.S. technological leadership while not preventing effective encryption by
adversaries. As occurred in the 1990s, a diverse coalition of cybersecurity experts, technology
companies, privacy experts, human rights activists, and others has expressed vociferous and united
opposition to government-mandated encryption vulnerabilities. These concerns include: ¶ Technology
companies, even before Edward Snowden, had multiple reasons to deploy strong encryption to enhance
cybersecurity and customer trust. The ongoing development of encryption should thus not be seen
primarily as a short-term response to Snowden’s revelations. ¶ Overwhelming technical problems and costs
result from mandates to create vulnerabilities in encryption. ¶ U.S. government support for encryption
vulnerabilities increases cybersecurity problems in the “least trusted countries” and globally, and
undermines U.S. human rights policies. The United States should be a strong example for
cybersecurity and human rights, rather than an excuse used by repressive regimes to surveil U.S.-based
businesses and individuals and clamp down on political dissent. ¶ Mandated vulnerabilities are bad
industrial policy—they threaten U.S. technological leadership without preventing bad actors from using
strong encryption.¶ An impressive new technical study by a group of experts was released on July 6 just
before the hearing, titled “Keys Under Doormats: Mandating Insecurity by Requiring Government Access
to All Data and Communications.” The new study highlights three general problems. Providing mandated
access “would force a U-turn from the best practices now being deployed to make the Internet more
secure.” Furthermore, building in exceptional access would substantially increase system complexity,
“making security testing difficult and less effective.” Finally, exceptional access would create
concentrated targets for bad actors: “Recent attacks on the United States Government Office of Personnel
Management show how much harm can arise when many organizations rely on a single institution that
itself has security vulnerabilities.Ӧ One might perhaps wonder whether the technical experts are stretching
a point by making such definitive statements. Based on my two decades of work on these issues, the
technical experts say the same things in private as are written in blue ribbon reports. The passion that the
most eminent technical experts show here is due to their conviction based on hard-fought experience, and
not a lobbying ploy.¶ Third, the Review Group on Intelligence and Communications Technology report,
released in December 2013, unanimously and clearly recommended that the U.S. government vigorously
encourage the use of strong encryption, stating:¶ We recommend that, regarding encryption, the US
Government should:¶ (1) fully support and not undermine efforts to create encryption standards; ¶ (2) not in
any way subvert, undermine, weaken, or make vulnerable generally available commercial software; and ¶
(3) increase the use of encryption and urge US companies to do so, in order to better protect data in
transit, at rest, in the cloud, and in other storage. ¶ With full awareness of the “going dark” concerns, we
sharply criticized any attempt to introduce vulnerabilities into commercially available products and
services, and found that even temporary vulnerabilities should be authorized only after
administrationwide scrutiny. Based on the top-secret briefings and our experience, we found these
policies would best fight cybercrime, improve cybersecurity, build trust in the global communications
infrastructure, and promote national security. ¶ At heart, providing access exceptions for U.S. law
enforcement and intelligence agencies will be harmful, rather than helpful, to national security. The
inability to directly access the content of a small fraction of these communications does not warrant the
subsequent damage that would result to privacy and to U.S. economic, diplomatic, and security interests.¶
Special thanks to Justin Hemmings for assistance with this project. ¶ This article is part of Future Tense, a
collaboration among Arizona State University, New America, and Slate. Future Tense explores the ways
emerging technologies affect society, policy, and culture. To read more, visit the Future Tense blog and
the Future Tense home page. You can also follow us on Twitter.
 FT false positives (hay stack/puzzle)
False positives are wrong – meta-data eliminates scenarios and increases efficiency
Lewis 14 [James Andrew Lewis, Director and Senior Fellow of the Technology and Public Policy Program at the
CSIS, December 2014, "Underestimating Risk in the Surveillance Debate", Center for Strategic and
International Studies, http://csis.org/files/publication/141209_Lewis_UnderestimatingRisk_Web.pdf, pg 2
jf]
NSA carried out two kinds of signals intelligence programs: bulk surveillance to support counterterrorism and collection to support U.S. national security interests.
The debate over surveillance unhelpfully conflated the two programs. Domestic bulk collection for counterterrorism is politically problematic, but assertions
that a collection program is useless because it has not by itself prevented an attack reflect
unfamiliarity with intelligence. Intelligence does not work as it is portrayed in films—solitary agents do not make startling discoveries that lead to
dramatic, last-minute success. Success is the product of the efforts of teams of dedicated individuals from many agencies,
using many tools and techniques, working together to assemble fragments of data from many sources into a
coherent picture. In practice, analysts must simultaneously explore many possible scenarios. A collection
program contributes by not only what it reveals, but also what it lets us reject as false. The Patriot Act
Section 215 domestic bulk telephony metadata program provided information that allowed analysts to rule out
some scenarios and suspects. The consensus view from interviews with current and former intelligence officials is that while metadata collection is
useful, it is the least useful of the collection programs available to the intelligence community. If there was one surveillance program they had to give up, it would be
215, but this would not come without an increase in risk. Restricting
metadata collection will make it harder to identify
attacks and increase the time it takes to do this. Spying on Allies NSA’s mass surveillance programs for counterterrorism were carried
out in cooperation with more than 30 countries. Unilateral U.S. collection programs focused on national security problems: nonproliferation, counterintelligence
(including Russian covert influence operations in Europe), and arms sales to China. The United States failed to exercise sufficient oversight over intelligence
collection, but the objectives set for NSA reflect real security problems for the United States and its allies. The notion that “friends don’t spy on friends” is naive. The
United States has friends that routinely spy on it and yet are strong security partners. Relations among powerful states are complex and not explained by simple
bromides drawn from personal life. The most startling thing about U.S. espionage against Germany was the absence of a strategic calculation of risk and benefit.
There are grounds for espionage (what other major power has a former leader on Russia’s payroll?), but the benefits were outweighed by the risk to the relationship.
The case for spying on Brazil is even weaker. While Brazil is often antagonistic, it poses no risk to national security. If economic intelligence on Brazil is needed, the
private sector has powerful incentives and legitimate means to obtain information and usually has the best data. Risk Is Not Going Away Broad
surveillance of communications is the least intrusive and most effective method for discovering
terrorist and espionage activity. Many countries have expanded surveillance programs since the 9/11 attacks to detect and prevent terrorist
activity, often in cooperation with other countries, including the United States. Precise metrics on risk and effectiveness do not exist
for surveillance, and we are left with conflicting opinions from intelligence officials and civil libertarians as to what makes counterterrorism successful.
Given resurgent authoritarianism and continuing jihad, the new context for the surveillance debate is that the likelihood of attack is increasing.
Any legislative change should be viewed through this lens.
 FT “New Technology for searches will solve the Terror Disad”

Aff’s call for a new technology is bad – makes counter-terror less effective.
Branda ‘14
(et al; JOYCE R. BRANDA, Acting Assistant Attorney General, BRIEF FOR THE APPELLEES - Amicus Brief for Smith v.
Obama – before the United States Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals. “Amici” means “friend of the court” and – in this context - is
legal reference to the Reporters Committee – October 2 nd - https://www.eff.org/document/governments-smith-answering-brief)

In addition, the declarations in the record establish that a preliminary injunction

against the program, even one limited to telephony
metadata about plaintiff, would be burdensome. It would require the government to develop a new capability to
segregate metadata associated with plaintiff’s call records from the rest of the information, and remove that metadata from each new batch of metadata received on a
daily basis (assuming the government received any in the first place). SER 27. Those
tasks could consume considerable resources,
and any technological solution could degrade the program’s overall effectiveness by eliminating or
cutting off potential call chains that might otherwise reveal connections between individuals
associated with terrorist activity. SER 27. Moreover, requiring the government to refrain from collecting and to destroy records regarding
plaintiff’s calls, as her motion for a preliminary injunction requests, SER 2, would be irreversible, and hence is improper preliminary injunctive relief, because it
would grant plaintiff full relief on the merits prematurely. See Dorfmann v. Boozer, 414 F.2d 1168, 1173 n.13 (D.C. Cir. 1969).
 FT Zero sum
Funding divided between 15+ agencies, not a funding tradeoff
Sahadi 13 (Jeanne Sahadi 13, 6-7-2013, "What the NSA costs taxpayers," CNNMoney,
http://money.cnn.com/2013/06/07/news/economy/nsa-surveillance-cost/ CCC)
As a result, it's impossible to say exactly how much money the NSA is given to conduct its surveillance
efforts -- which Americans learned this week has recently included collecting phone call data and
monitoring online activities. That's because the NSA, a Defense Department agency created in 1952, falls
under the category of a "black" program in the federal budget, a term applied to classified efforts. The
NSA is one of at least 15 intelligence agencies, and combined the total U.S. intelligence budget in 2012
was $75 billion, said Steve Aftergood, director of the government secrecy program at the Federation of
American Scientists, a nonpartisan think tank that analyzes national and international security issues. The
intelligence budget includes funding for both classified and unclassified activities. Funding for classified
programs has tracked the upward trend in defense spending over the past decade, according to an analysis
of fiscal year 2012 Defense Department budget request by Todd Harrison of the Center for Strategic and
Budgetary Assessments. Aftergood estimates about 14% of the country's total intelligence budget -- or
about $10 billion -- goes to the NSA.
 FT Recruitment
NSA recruiting is going extremely well
Libicki et al 14 [Libicki, Martin C., 2014, "Hackers Wanted: An Examination of the Cybersecurity Labor
Market," RAND, http://www.rand.org/pubs/research_reports/RR430.html jf]
The NSA is the country’s largest and leading employer of cybersecurity professionals . In the face of the
current stresses in the market for such professionals, officials there believe they are doing quite well —fewer than 1
percent of their positions are vacant for any significant length of time , and supervisors, queried after their
new hires have been working for six months, report being very happy with the personnel they get . NSA also has a very
low turnover rate (losing no more to voluntary quits than to retirements). One reason is that it pays attention to senior technical development
programs to ensure that employees stay current and engaged.

Yet, to get to that point, our interview indicates that NSA must and does pay a great deal of attention to workforce issues. If not its primary focus,
then it is still very high up on the list. Although only 80 people have recruitment as their full-time occupation, another 300 have recruitment as an
additional duty, and another 1,500 beyond that are involved in the whole recruitment and employment process. All told, that is a great deal of
effort—suggesting, from our perspective, that the
difficulties of finding enough cybersecurity professionals can be
largely met if sufficient energy is devoted to the task. NSA has outreach into many universities , not
simply those designated its Centers of Academic Excellence (CAE),2 although it pays attention to supporting cybersecurity curricula
development in the CAE schools, as noted. In some cases it has people teaching in schools to encourage potential cybersecurity professionals at
the pre-college levels, particularly, for obvious reasons, in the state of Maryland.

For the most part, our interview suggests that the NSA makes rather than buys cybersecurity professionals , although its
recruitment process is very sensitive to the importance of determining those qualities that predispose people to make good employees. Recruiters
also look hard at schools that have a reputation for educating people that go into the military. Fully 80 percent of their hires are entry level, the
vast majority of whom have bachelor’s degrees. They could conceivably draw deeper by finding particularly talented junior college graduates,
but the latter would have to undergo a much longer training program as a result. Furthermore, they are not inclined to look for the brilliant non-
degreed hacker.3

NSA has a very intensive internal schooling system, lasting as long as three years for some. This too, would be difficult for
other institutions to duplicate. NSA can take advantage not only of its size, but also of its low turnover rate. The latter means that it reaps the
benefits of its investments in people rather than seeing the benefits accrue to other organizations after NSA has paid the costs of the training (not
least of which is the time that such students spend off the job to be trained). Employers with more turnover may logically deem it not worthwhile
investing that much to educate their employees.

In all fairness, only one organization can be the most prestigious place to work, and for this line of work
(and for this size of organization), NSA is hard to beat. It consistently absorbs a third of all Scholarship for Service graduates, as shown
in Figure 3.1,4 in part because it has the most job openings but also because it has a reputation for hiring the best hackers.

Silicon valley jobs are comparatively a much bigger challenge for NSA recruitment
-- the NSA has already had to deal with recruitment issues in the past
Brumfiel, science correspondent for NPR, 3/31/15 (Geoff Brumfiel, NPR, MARCH 31, 2015, “After
Snowden, The NSA Faces Recruitment Challenge”, http://www.npr.org/2015/03/31/395829446/after-
snowden-the-nsa-faces-recruitment-challenge, accessed 7/17/15 JH @ DDI)
But Ziring says there's a much bigger problem: "I was at a Dartmouth career fair a few months ago," he
says, "and our table was right across from Facebook. And we are looking for some of the same things that
they are." Ever since the Snowden leaks, cybersecurity has been hot in Silicon Valley. In part that's
because the industry no longer trusts the government as much as it once did. Companies want to develop
their own security, and they're willing to pay top dollar to get the same people the NSA is trying to
recruit. Students like Swann. Last summer Microsoft paid him $7,000 a month to work as an intern. The
company even rented him a car. "It was actually really nice," Swann says. "It was a Subaru Legacy."
Ziring says the agency can't compete on money, so he tries to sell it in other ways: "You know we have
good health benefits, and we're government, right? So we have a huge scope of insurance to choose
from," he says.
 FT Targeted Surveillance Turn
Metadata is necessary and targeted searches prevent the ability to identify networks
and halt terrorist activities
Posner, 8. [Richard A., Judge, United States Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit; Senior Lecturer in Law, The
University of Chicago. “Privacy, Surveillance, and Law,” 75 University of Chicago Law Review 245,
http://chicagounbound.uchicago.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=2808&context=journal_articles.

What is most notable about the amendments, as indeed of the Terrorist Surveillance Program to which they seem addressed, is
their backing away from reliance on warrants to prevent abuses of electronic surveillance. The warrant is a poorly
designed means for balancing the security and liberty interests involved in counterterrorist surveillance . It
is true that instead of requiring probable cause to believe that the target of an interception is a terrorist,
FISA could be amended to require merely reasonable suspicion. But even that would be too restrictive
from the standpoint of effective counterterrorism ; effective surveillance cannot be confined to suspected
terrorists when the object is to discover who may be engaged in terrorism or ancillary activities . Further
attenuation of FISA's standard for obtaining a warrant might be possible without running afoul of the Fourth Amendment.
Conceivably the issuance of a warrant could be authorized on the basis of a showing that while the target was probably not a
terrorist, national security required making assurance doubly sure by inter- cepting some of his electronic communications. A
model might be the criterion for issuing a search warrant to the Canadian Security Intelligence Service, where a warrant can be
issued on the basis of a factually supported "belief, on reasonable grounds, that [it] ... is required to enable the Service to
investigate a threat to the security of Canada." 9 Such a criterion might pass muster under the Fourth Amendment, which requires
probable cause for the issuance of a warrant but does not state what it is that there must be probable cause to believe. The
Supreme Court has said that there must be probable cause to believe that the search will yield contraband or evidence of crime
when the search is part of a criminal investigation." The Constitution binds the government more tightly when it is exerting its
powers to convict people of crimes than in other areas of government activity. A search intended not to obtain evidence of crime
but to obtain information about terrorism might, as under Canadian law, require only probable cause to believe that the search
would yield such information. The lower the standard for getting a warrant, however, the more porous the filter that the
requirement of a warrant creates, bearing in mind the ex parte character of a warrant proceeding. If all the application need state
is that an interception might yield data having value as intelligence, judges would have no basis for refusing to issue the warrant.
Alternatively, reliance on warrants could invite legislation to expand the reach of the criminal laws relating to terrorism in order
to make it easier to establish probable cause to believe that a search will reveal evidence of a crime. That expansion could raise
issues under the First Amendment, since the natural route for expanding criminal laws against terrorism is to criminalize
extremist speech or even attendance at extremist (though peaceful) speeches and rallies, as activities that may be preparatory to or
encouraging of terrorism. Warrants that satisfy FISA's standard as traditionally understood should continue to be required for all
physical searches, because they are far greater intrusions on privacy than electronic interceptions, and for all electronic
surveillance for which FISA's existing probable cause requirement can reasonably be satisfied (mainly cases in which the
government wanted to intercept communications of a person who they had probable cause to believe was a terrorist). With these
exceptions, civil libertarians' preoccupation with warrants is not only harmful to national security (and possibly to civil liberties if
it induces legislation to expand the reach of the criminal law) but also anachronistic. The government's ready access to the vast
databases that private and public entities compile for purposes unrelated to national security has enabled it to circumvent much of
the protection of privacy that civil libertarians look to warrant requirements to secure. There are a number of possible measures,
apart from requiring warrants, that Congress could adopt in order to minimize abuses of domestic surveillance. If all were
adopted, the risk of such abuses would be slight. The temporary FISA amendments take tiny steps in this direction. Bolder steps
would include the following: 1. Congress could create a steering committee for national security electronic surveillance,
composed of the attorney general, the director of national intelligence, the secretary of homeland security, and a retired federal
judge or justice appointed by the chief justice of the Supreme Court. The committee would monitor all such surveillance to assure
compliance with the Constitution and federal statutes. The requirement in the temporary amendments that the attorney general
and the director of national intelligence devise procedures for a new warrantless surveillance program is one of the tiny steps to
which I referred." The other, and legally dubious one, is requiring submission of the procedures for approval by the Foreign
Intelligence Surveillance Court; that court becomes in effect the steering committee. 2. The NSA could be required to submit to
the steering committee, to departmental inspectors general, to the Privacy and Civil Liberties Oversight Board (a White House
agency created by the Intelligence Reform Act), to the congressional intelligence and judiciary committees, and to an
independent watchdog agency of Congress modeled on the GAO every six months a list of the names and other identifying
information of all persons whose communications had been intercepted in the previous six months without a warrant, with a brief
statement of why these persons had been targeted. 3. The responsible officials of the NSA could be required to certify annually to
the watchdog groups that there had been no violations of the statute during the preceding year. False certification would be
punishable as perjury. But lawsuits challenging the legality of the Terrorist Surveillance Program should be precluded. Such
lawsuits would distract officials from their important duties to no purpose if the kind of statute that I am suggesting were enacted.
The statute should sunset after five years. 4. The use of intercepted information for any purpose other than investigating threats to
national security would be forbidden. Information could not be used as evidence or leads in a prosecution for ordinary crime-this
to alleviate concern that wild talk bound to be picked up by electronic surveillance would lead to criminal investigations
unrelated to national security. Violations of this provision would be made felonies punishable by substantial prison sentences and
heavy fines. But the punishments must not be made too severe lest they cause intelligence officers to steer so far clear of possible
illegality that they fail to conduct effective surveillance. The risk of abuses is not great enough to justify savage penalties in order
to deter them, because intelligence officers have no interest in assisting in the enforcement of criminal laws unrelated to national
security. A neglected point is that violations of privacy and civil liberties tend to emanate from the White House and the top
management level of executive branch agencies rather than from the working or middle-management levels. 5. To limit the scope
of surveillance, "threats to national security" should be narrowly defined as threats involving a potential for mass deaths or
catastrophic damage to property or to the economy. That would exclude, for the time being anyway, ecoterrorism, animal-iights
terrorism, and other political violence that, though criminal, does not threaten catastrophic harm (yet). Congressional action is
also needed to protect the phone companies that cooperated with the NSA's surveillance program from potentially immense
liability for allegedly having violated federal law protecting the privacy of telephone records; a number of suits are pending. The
intelligence system is enormously dependent on informal assistance from private companies in communications, banking, and
other industries. At times such assistance is made a legal duty, as in the federal law requiring banks to report cash transactions of
$10,000 or more; and this is also a feature of the new amendments to FISA. Were it not for the threat of liability, which the
amendments do not address, voluntary assistance would probably as in the past be all the government needed. But if voluntary
assistance-even when tendered in a national emergency, as in the wake of the 9/11 terrorist attacks- places companies in legal
jeopardy, such assistance will dry up. FISA needs to be amended not only to authorize more extensive domestic surveillance than
its anachronistic terms permit but also to insulate from liability conduct that may have violated the Act or some other statute but
that would be permitted under the amended regime. Until the temporary amendments were enacted, the type of approach that I
am advocating (call it the "nonwarrant" approach) for regularizing domestic surveillance was getting little attention from
Congress and the Bush Administration, possibly because the Administration wanted to retain a completely free hand and thought
it could fend off the sort of restrictions that I have sketched. (It is remarkable how tepid the public reaction to the Terrorist
Surveillance Program has been.) A related possibility is that the Administration's aggressive claims of presidential power
prevented it from acknowledging the legitimacy of congressional controls over intelligence and hence of a legislative solution to
the controversy over the program. Still another possibility was (and is) that because no one is in charge of domestic intelligence,
authority over which is divided among the attorney general, the FBI director, the Department of Homeland Security, and the
director of national intelligence (among others), no one is formulating a comprehensive legislative and public relations strategy
for ending the controversy over the role of electronic surveillance in such intelligence. (At this writing, the only confirmed senior
official in the Justice Department is the solicitor general.) And another possibility is the grip of our legalistic culture, which
makes us think that the regulation of national security must be modeled on the regulation of criminal law enforcement. The
temporary amendments suggest, however, that the logjam may be breaking, though one of the reasons, it appears, is that the
Administration's decision to bring the Terrorist Surveillance Program under FISA resulted in a paper jam at the Foreign
Intelligence Surveillance Court as the number of warrant applications soared. We should be playing to our strengths,
and one of the greatest of them is technology. We may not be able to prevail against terrorism with one
hand tied behind our back. Critics of surveillance argue that since our enemies know that we monitor
electronic communications, they will foil us by simply ceasing to use such communications . That is
wrong. We know it is wrong because we do intercept terrorist communications . 24 But if it were true that
our monitoring caused the terrorists to abandon the telephone and the internet, that would be an enor-
mous victory for counterterrorism, as it is extremely difficult to coordinate and execute a major terrorist
attack if all communications among the plotters must be face to face to avoid detection . The greater danger is
that encryption and other relatively cheap and simple countermeasures will defeat our surveillance. Opponents of efforts to
amend FISA point out that the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court has almost never turned down an
application for a warrant. In 2005, for example, although more than 2,000 applications were filed, not a
single one was denied in whole or in part. 5 The inference the critics wish drawn is that FISA is not
inhibiting surveillance. The correct inference is that the Justice Department is too conservative in seeking
warrants. The analogy is to a person who has never missed a plane in his life because he contrives always
to arrive at the airport eight hours before the scheduled departure time. The effect of our legalistic culture
is to cause law enforcement agencies, notably the FBI, to avoid not only violating the law but also
steering so close to the wind that they might be accused , albeit groundlessly, of violating the law or of being
"insensitive" to values that inform the law, even when those values have not been enacted into law.

No replacement for Metadata

Sessions 15 [Jeff, U.S. Senator, May 20, “Why Should Terrorists Be Harder to Investigate than Routine
Criminals?”http://www.nationalreview.com/article/418675/why-should-terrorists-be-harder-investigate-routine-criminals-jeff-
sessions]

The 9/11 attacks exposed the dangerous wall separating the intelligence and law-enforcement communities. In response, Congress developed a
number of tools to eliminate those barriers so that critical information could be timely and appropriately shared to address radical Islamic
terrorism. Among them was Section 215 of the USA Patriot Act. In 2006, the National Security Agency transitioned the bulk telephone-
metadata acquisition program authorized under the president’s Terrorist Surveillance Program to the business-records court-order authority of
Section 215. Since shortly after 9/11, this program has been helping to keep Americans safe by acquiring non-content call records, i.e., telephone
numbers and the date, time, and duration of a call. This program has yielded invaluable intelligence that has helped prevent
attacks and uncovered terrorist plots. Nevertheless, the Obama administration has built up unnecessary barriers that sacrifice the
fragile operational efficiency of the program without actually accomplishing anything in terms of data security. Meanwhile, the threat level
has only increased. On the heels of an ISIS-inspired attack in Texas , the administration has greatly increased security at
military bases, airports, railroads, and other potential targets. Just this year, the FBI has so far arrested at least 30 Americans
for planning ISIS-inspired attacks in the U.S. FBI director James Comey recently issued this chilling warning: The siren song
sits in the pockets, on the mobile phones, of the people who are followers [of ISIS] on Twitter . . . It’s almost as if there’s a devil sitting on the
shoulder, saying “Kill! Kill! Kill! Kill!” all day long. Most people would agree it should not be more difficult to investigate a terrorist plot than
check fraud. As the National Academy of Sciences noted in its recent report, Section 215 of the Patriot Act simply “allow[s] the [Foreign
Intelligence Surveillance Court] to require production of documents and other tangible things determined relevant to national security
investigations, much like other courts do in criminal and grand jury investigations.” But unlike in the criminal context, Section 215 is subject to
extraordinary oversight by the Executive and Judicial branches, as well as minimization procedures to protect Americans’ civil liberties.
Moreover, information acquired under Section 215 can be accessed by only a limited number of trained intelligence professionals and only after
the government has demonstrated to the court that there is a reasonable, articulable suspicion that a number or identifier is associated with a
specific foreign-terrorist organization. Compare this with how a local district attorney can obtain the same type of information in a routine
criminal case. He issues a grand-jury subpoena for phone records, which requires only a showing that the records are relevant to an investigation.
The subpoena could require the production of much more detailed information than is acquired under Section 215, such as names and addresses
of the callers. Indeed, the U.S. Drug Enforcement Agency and Internal Revenue Service can obtain telephone call records and bank records with
an administrative subpoena without even a prosecutor’s approval, much less approval by a judge. The Supreme Court has long held this process
constitutional under the Fourth Amendment because such information is already in the hands of a third-party — the phone companies — and
therefore, a customer has no reasonable expectation of privacy in that information. But legislation known as the USA Freedom Act would prevent
our intelligence officers from obtaining information in this manner at all. As former federal judge and attorney general Michael Mukasey said:
The bill’s imposition of the warrant requirement on the NSA would be more burdensome than what any assistant U.S. attorney must do to get
metadata in a routine criminal case, which is simply to aver that the information is needed in connection with a criminal investigation — period.
The bill would also eliminate entirely the database through which the NSA is able to quickly access information to “connect the dots” in order to
prevent terror attacks. This is significant because, as the National Academy of Sciences explained, in contrast to domestic law enforcement . . .
the world of intelligence analysis has many fewer tools available for investigation. In hostile foreign
environments, personal interviews and observations and records review are much more limited . Accordingly,
the role of bulk data as a way to understand the significance of past events is important, and the loss of
this tool becomes more serious. Instead, the USA Freedom Act relies on a nonexistent, untested system and the hope that private
companies will agree to retain records long enough for the NSA to obtain data when it may be critical to preventing an imminent attack. But as
the National Academy of Sciences noted, “there is no technological magic . . . that will fully substitute for
bulk collection” and service providers “have no incentive to cooperate, even if paid; indeed, their customers may object to such
cooperation.” Moreover, requiring the government to obtain a court order every time it seeks to search data held by private companies would
significantly delay investigations, giving terrorists a substantial operational advantage. In short, the USA Freedom Act would make it vastly more
difficult for the NSA to stop a terrorist than it is to stop a tax cheat. Why make it much harder to investigate terrorists than common criminals?
 FT Perception Turn
The plan is perceived as weakness – invites attacks
Daily Mail 15. “Head of CIA warns that US is at risk of lone wolf terror attack after NSA powers to monitor all phone
calls expired – as Isis ‘watch carefully’ for security gaps,” 5-31-2015, http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3105089/Senate-
makes-ditch-bid-extend-NSA-s-bulk-collection-phone-records-Rand-Paul-swears-block-legislation-let-Patriot-Act-expire.html.

The head of the CIA has warned that Americans are now at risk after the Senate was unable to extend
laws giving authorities special powers to fight terrorists .¶ Politicians in the upper house were unable to come to an agreement
to extend key parts of the Patriot Act - that legalize controversial methods of surveillance by the National Security Agency (NSA) - which
expired on Sunday.¶ Attempts were frustrated by Presidential candidate Rand Paul, who has taken a firm stance against the extension of powers
allowing the mass collection of phone records, wire taps and warrants without evidence.¶ But the Head of the CIA John Brennan claims ordinary
Americans, who expect the NSA to do their jobs, have been put at risk by 'political grandstanding and crusading for ideological causes' that
fueled the debate.¶ Speaking on CBS show Face The Nation, he
warned that the US - and Europe - is now in danger from
technologically 'sophisticated' terrorists who are watching developments carefully and 'looking for the
seams to operate' within. ¶ He claimed that the authorities do not abuse the powers, extended in 2011 to
help fight lone wolf terror suspects not connected to a specific group, and that without them, it's difficult
for the NSA to protect America.¶ Mr Brennan said: 'I think terrorist elements have watched very carefully
what has happened here in the United States, whether or not it's disclosures of classified information or
whether it's changes in the law and policies. They are looking for the seams to operate within .¶ 'And this is
something that we can't afford to do right now, because if you look at the horrific terrorist attacks and
violence that is being perpetrated around the globe, we need to keep our country safe . And our oceans are not
keeping us safe the way they did a century ago.'¶ The Patriot Act was passed in 2001 in the wake of the 9/11 terror attacks. Now that the
provisions have expired, government agents will need to subpoena phone companies for the records.¶ The White House previously justified
collecting the records because of the Patriot Act's Section 215, which expired on Sunday.¶ Two
other provisions, added in 2011,
also expired with it. The first is a 'roving wiretap' provision which allows government agencies to keep tracking suspects as they switch
devices.¶ The second is a 'lone wolf' clause which allows warrants to be granted without any evidence
linking a suspect to a foreign power or terrorist group.¶ Political struggles over the NSA and its data collection have become a
national issue since whistleblower Edward Snowden revealed the extent of government programs in 2013. ¶ The senate's efforts to pass a
replacement bill were frustrated by Kentucky's junior senator Rand Paul, who has spoken at length against the NSA's activities, which he has
excoriated as illegal and unconstitutional.¶ Paul, a Republican who is running for president, came up against members of his own party, as well as
the Obama administration.¶ With his presidential campaign waning, he has been accused of irresponsible political opportunism by opponents, by
fighting a bill on ideological grounds that may put ordinary people at risk.¶ He was criticized by the White House Sunday night, which called the
Patriot Act expiration an 'irresponsible lapse'. ¶ While Brennan didn't mention Paul by name, he said on Face The Nation: 'Unfortunately I think
there is a little too much political grandstanding and crusading for ideological causes that have really fuelled the debate on this issue. ¶ He added:
'These are authorities that have been used by the government to make sure that we're able to safeguard Americans. And the sad irony is that most
Americans expect the government to protect them. And so although there's a lot of debate that goes on, on the Congress and the Hill on this issue,
I think, when you go out to Boise or Tampa or Louisville, Americans are expecting their law enforcement and homeland security and intelligence
professionals to do their work. And these authorities are important.' ¶ Paul argued 'there must be another way' but even he agrees that the lapse in
these powers are likely to be temporary as politicians work on the USA Freedom Act, which is expected to pass within the next week. ¶
Republican Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell called a rare Sunday session to try to pass the replacement law, but was unable to push it
through in time.¶ And although the replacement is set to pass this week, Paul said the expiration was 'a victory no matter how you look at it'. ¶ In a
statement, he said: 'It might be short lived, but I hope that it provides a road for a robust debate, which will strengthen our intelligence
community, while also respecting our Constitution. ¶ He added: 'The expiration of the NSA's sweeping, all-encompassing and ineffectual powers
will not relinquish functions necessary for protecting national security. The expiration will instead do what we should have done all along - rely
on the Constitution for these powers.' ¶ According to a top lawmaker, as of 8pm Sunday no NSA employee could access their enormous phone
records database, which holds metadata on millions of phone conversations handed over by telecoms companies like Verizon and AT&T. ¶ Senate
Intelligence Committee chairman Richard Burr said on Sunday: 'There is no way to get any type of agreement tonight -- either an extension or
passage of a bill. So at 8pm tonight, NSA employees can not query the database'. ¶ In a statement issued Sunday night, Obama's press secretary
Josh Earnest, urged action to pass the USA Freedom Act as quickly as possible. ¶ He said: 'The Senate took an important - if late - step forward
tonight. We call on the Senate to ensure this irresponsible lapse in authorities is as short-lived as possible.¶ 'On a matter as critical as our national
security, individual Senators must put aside their partisan motivations and act swiftly. The American people deserve nothing less.' ¶ Some
lawmakers have said the lapse raises alarming questions about how US authorities can keep the homeland safe with a diminished security
toolbox.¶ 'I think it's very very unfortunate that we're in this position,' said Senator Mike Lee, a conservative Republican who supports the reform
bill.¶ 'We've known this date was coming for four years. Four years. And I think it's inexcusable that we adjourned' for a weeklong break last
week without resolving the issue.¶ Lee, too, conceded that the reform bill would most likely pass in the coming week.¶ With
the clock
ticking, CIA chief John Brennan warned Sunday that allowing vital surveillance programs to lapse could
increase terror threats, and argued that the phone metadata dragnet has not abused civil liberties and only
serves to safeguard citizens.¶ 'This is something that we can't afford to do right now,' Brennan said of allowing the counterterrorism
provisions to expire.¶ 'Because if you look at the horrific terrorist attacks and violence being perpetrated around the globe, we need to keep our
country safe, and our oceans are not keeping us safe the way they did century ago,' he said on CBS talk show Face the Nation. ¶ Brennan
added that online threats from groups like Isis would continue to grow over the next five to ten years. ¶ He
said: 'Isis has been very sophisticated and adept at using the Internet to propagate its message and reach
out to individuals. We see what is happening as far as thousands upon thousands of individuals, including
many thousands from the West, that have traveled into Syria and Iraq. And a number of these individuals
are traveling back.¶ 'And what we see, they're also using the Internet as a way to incite and encourage
individuals to carry out acts of violence.¶ 'So as the director of FBI says, you know, this use of these
websites and their Internet capabilities is something of great concern . So yes, I think ISIS is a threat not just in the
Middle East and South Asia and African regions but also to Europe as well as to the United States.'

NSA programs are reasonable, legal, and key to stopping the rising terrorist threat
Bolton 4/28/15 (John R. Bolton, former U.S. permanent representative to the United Nations, “NSA
activities key to terrorism fight”, 4/28/15, http://www.aei.org/publication/nsa-activities-key-to-terrorism-
fight/) -LL
Congress is poised to decide whether to re-authorize programs run by the National Security Agency that
assess patterns of domestic and international telephone calls and emails to uncover linkages with known
terrorists. These NSA activities, initiated after al-Qaeda’s deadly 9/11 attacks, have played a vital role in
protecting America and our citizens around the world from the still-metastasizing terrorist threat. The
NSA programs do not involve listening to or reading conversations, but rather seek to detect
communications networks. If patterns are found, and more detailed investigation seems warranted, then
NSA or other federal authorities, consistent with the Fourth Amendment’s prohibition against
unreasonable searches and seizures, must obtain judicial approval for more specific investigations.
Indeed, even the collection of the so-called metadata is surrounded by procedural protections to prevent
spying on U.S. citizens. Nonetheless, critics from the right and left have attacked the NSA for infringing
on the legitimate expectations of privacy Americans enjoy under our Constitution. Unfortunately, many
of these critics have absolutely no idea what they are talking about; they are engaging in classic
McCarthyite tactics, hoping to score political points with a public justifiably worried about the abuses of
power characteristic of the Obama administration. Other critics, following Vietnam-era antipathies to
America’s intelligence community, have never reconciled themselves to the need for robust clandestine
capabilities. Still others yearn for simpler times, embodying Secretary of State Henry Stimson’s famous
comment that “gentlemen don’t read each others’ mail.” The ill-informed nature of the debate has
facilitated scare-mongering, with one wild accusation about NSA’s activities after another being launched
before the mundane reality catches up. And there is an important asymmetry at work here as well. The
critics can say whatever their imaginations conjure up, but NSA and its defenders are significantly limited
in how they can respond. By definition, the programs’ success rests on the secrecy fundamental to all
intelligence activities. Frequently, therefore, explaining what is not happening could well reveal
information about NSA’s methods and capabilities that terrorists and others, in turn, could use to stymie
future detection efforts. After six years of President Obama, however, trust in government is in short
supply. It is more than a little ironic that Obama finds himself defending the NSA (albeit with obvious
hesitancy and discomfort), since his approach to foreign and defense issues has consistently reflected
near-total indifference, except when he has no alternative to confronting challenges to our security. Yet if
harsh international realities can penetrate even Obama’s White House, that alone is evidence of the
seriousness of the threats America faces. In fact, just in the year since Congress last considered the NSA
programs, the global terrorist threat has dramatically increased. ISIS is carving out an entirely new state
from what used to be Syria and Iraq, which no longer exist within the borders created from the former
Ottoman Empire after World War I. In already-chaotic Libya, ISIS has grown rapidly, eclipsing al-Qaeda
there and across the region as the largest terrorist threat. Boko Haram is expanding beyond Nigeria,
declaring its own caliphate, even while pledging allegiance to ISIS. Yemen has descended into chaos,
following Libya’s pattern, and Iran has expanded support for the terrorist Houthi coalition. Afghanistan is
likely to fall back under Taliban control if, as Obama continually reaffirms, he withdraws all American
troops before the end of 2016. This is not the time to cripple our intelligence-gathering capabilities
against the rising terrorist threat. Congress should unquestionably reauthorize the NSA programs, but
only for three years. That would take us into a new presidency, hopefully one that inspires more
confidence, where a calmer, more sensible debate can take place.

Aggressive anti-terrorism creates a new security paradigm – hardens the public to

government intrusions – scaling back surveillance eliminates that paradigm and
creates vulnerability
Givens 13 -- Austen D. Givens is a PhD student in the Department of Political Economy at King’s College London. His forthcoming book with Nathan E.
Busch, The Business of Counterterrorism: Public-Private Partnerships in Homeland Security, will be published by Peter Lang. “The NSA Surveillance
Controversy: How the Ratchet Effect Can Impact Anti-Terrorism Laws ” http://harvardnsj.org/2013/07/the-nsa-surveillance-
controversy-how-the-ratchet-effect-can-impact-anti-terrorism-laws/

The ratchet effect can occur because anti-terrorism laws create a new security paradigm. An
aggressive anti-terrorism law can
fundamentally alter societal approaches to terrorism. Surveillance may increase . Police powers can expand.
Intelligence efforts may grow. Public expectations of privacy can diminish. In the aggregate, these types of changes
can represent a drastic change in a government’s approach to terrorism, and effectively create a “new
normal” level of security. Because this “new normal” is linked to the law itself, reversing the law begins
to dismantle the new security paradigm. From the public’s perspective, this might be an unacceptable option because
it may increase societal vulnerability to terrorism. Government agencies also risk losing resources—personnel,
money, and political support—by returning to the status quo ante.

Violent war on terror is the only way to win – history proves non-violent strategies
fail
Hanson 10 – senior fellow @ Hoover Institute
Victor, “The Tragic Truth of War” [http://www.nationalreview.com/node/229152/print] February 17
//mtc
Victory has usually been defined throughout the ages as forcing the enemy to accept certain political
objectives. “Forcing” usually meant killing, capturing, or wounding men at arms. In today’s polite and
politically correct society we seem to have forgotten that nasty but eternal truth in the confusing struggle
to defeat radical Islamic terrorism.¶ What stopped the imperial German army from absorbing France in
World War I and eventually made the Kaiser abdicate was the destruction of a once magnificent army on
the Western front — superb soldiers and expertise that could not easily be replaced. Saddam Hussein left
Kuwait in 1991 when he realized that the U.S. military was destroying his very army. Even the North
Vietnamese agreed to a peace settlement in 1973, given their past horrific losses on the ground and the
promise that American air power could continue indefinitely inflicting its damage on the North.¶ When an
enemy finally gives up, it is for a combination of reasons — material losses, economic hardship, loss of
territory, erosion of civilian morale, fright, mental exhaustion, internal strife. But we forget that central
to a concession of defeat is often the loss of the nation’s soldiers — or even the threat of such deaths.¶ A
central theme in most of the memoirs of high-ranking officers of the Third Reich is the attrition of their
best warriors. In other words, among all the multifarious reasons why Nazi Germany was defeated,
perhaps the key was that hundreds of thousands of its best aviators, U-boaters, panzers, infantrymen, and
officers, who swept to victory throughout 1939–41, simply perished in the fighting and were no longer
around to stop the allies from doing pretty much what they wanted by 1944–45. ¶ After Stalingrad and
Kursk, there were not enough good German soldiers to stop the Red Army. Even the introduction of jets
could not save Hitler in 1945 — given that British and American airmen had killed thousands of
Luftwaffe pilots between 1939 and 1943.¶ After the near destruction of the Grand Army in Russia in 1812,
even Napoleon’s genius could not restore his European empire. Serial and massive Communist offensives
between November 1950 and April 1951 in Korea cost Red China hundreds of thousands of its crack
infantry — and ensured that, for all its aggressive talk, it would never retake Seoul in 1952–53. ¶ But aren’t
these cherry-picked examples from conventional wars of the past that have no relevance to the present
age of limited conflict, terrorism, and insurgency where ideology reigns? ¶ Not really. We don’t quite
know all the factors that contributed to the amazing success of the American “surge” in Iraq in 2007–08.
Surely a number of considerations played a part: Iraqi anger at the brutish nature of al-Qaeda terrorists in
their midst; increased oil prices that brought massive new revenues into the country; General Petraeus’s
inspired counterinsurgency tactics that helped win over Iraqis to our side by providing them with jobs and
security; much-improved American equipment; and the addition of 30,000 more American troops. ¶ But
what is unspoken is also the sheer cumulative number of al-Qaeda and other Islamic terrorists that
the U.S. military killed or wounded between 2003 and 2008 in firefights from Fallujah to Basra. There
has never been reported an approximate figure of such enemy dead — perhaps wisely, in the post-
Vietnam age of repugnance at “body counts” and the need to create a positive media image. ¶ Nevertheless,
in those combat operations, the marines and army not only proved that to meet them in battle was a near
death sentence, but also killed thousands of low-level terrorists and hundreds of top-ranking operatives
who otherwise would have continued to harm Iraqi civilians and American soldiers. Is Iraq relatively
quiet today because many who made it so violent are no longer around? ¶ Contemporary conventional
wisdom tries to persuade us that there is no such thing as a finite number of the enemy. Instead, killing
them supposedly only incites others to step up from the shadows to take their places. Violence begets
violence. It is counterproductive, and creates an endless succession of the enemy. Or so we are told. ¶ We
may wish that were true. But military history suggests it is not quite accurate. In fact, there was a finite
number of SS diehards and kamikaze suicide bombers even in fanatical Nazi Germany and imperial
Japan. When they were attrited, not only were their acts of terror curtailed, but it turned out that far fewer
than expected wanted to follow the dead to martyrdom.¶ The Israeli war in Gaza is considered by the
global community to be a terrible failure — even though the number of rocket attacks against Israeli
border towns is way down. That reduction may be due to international pressure, diplomacy, and Israeli
goodwill shipments of food and fuel to Gaza — or it may be due to the hundreds of Hamas killers and
rocketeers who died, and the thousands who do not wish to follow them, despite their frequently loud
rhetoric about a desire for martyrdom.¶ Insurgencies, of course, are complex operations, but in general
even they are not immune from eternal rules of war. Winning hearts and minds is essential; providing
security for the populace is crucial; improving the economy is critical to securing the peace. But all that
said, we cannot avoid the pesky truth that in war — any sort of war — killing enemy soldiers stops the
violence.¶ For all the much-celebrated counterinsurgency tactics in Afghanistan, note that we are currently
in an offensive in Helmand province to “secure the area.” That means killing the Taliban and their
supporters, and convincing others that they will meet a violent fate if they continue their opposition. ¶
Perhaps the most politically incorrect and Neanderthal of all thoughts would be that the American
military’s long efforts in both Afghanistan and Iraq to kill or capture radical Islamists has contributed to
the general safety inside the United States. Modern dogma insists that our presence in those two Muslim
countries incited otherwise non-bellicose young Muslims to suddenly prefer violence and leave Saudi
Arabia, Yemen, or Egypt to flock to kill the infidel invader. ¶ A more tragic view would counter that there
was always a large (though largely finite) number of radical jihadists who, even before 9/11, wished to
kill Americans. They went to those two theaters, fought, died, and were therefore not able to conduct as
many terrorist operations as they otherwise would have, and also provided a clear example to would-be
followers not to emulate their various short careers. That may explain why in global polls the popularity
both of bin Laden and of the tactic of suicide bombing plummeted in the Middle Eastern street — at
precisely the time America was being battered in the elite international press for the Iraq War. ¶ Even the
most utopian and idealistic do not escape these tragic eternal laws of war. Barack Obama may think he
can win over the radical Islamic world — or at least convince the more moderate Muslim community to
reject jihadism — by means such as his Cairo speech, closing Guantanamo, trying Khalid Sheikh
Mohammed in New York, or having General McChrystal emphatically assure the world that killing
Taliban and al-Qaeda terrorists will not secure Afghanistan. ¶ Of course, such soft- and smart-power
approaches have utility in a war so laden with symbolism in an age of globalized communications. But
note that Obama has upped the number of combat troops in Afghanistan, and he vastly increased the
frequency of Predator-drone assassination missions on the Pakistani border.¶ Indeed, even as Obama
damns Guantanamo and tribunals, he has massively increased the number of targeted assassinations of
suspected terrorists — the rationale presumably being either that we are safer with fewer jihadists alive,
or that we are warning would-be jihadists that they will end up buried amid the debris of ¶ a mud-brick
compound, or that it is much easier to kill a suspected terrorist abroad than detain, question, and try a
known one in the United States.¶ In any case, the president — immune from criticism from the hard Left,
which is angrier about conservative presidents waterboarding known terrorists than liberal ones executing
suspected ones — has concluded that one way to win in Afghanistan is to kill as many terrorists and
insurgents as possible. And while the global public will praise his kinder, gentler outreach, privately he
evidently thinks that we will be safer the more the U.S. marines shoot Taliban terrorists and the more
Hellfire missiles blow up al-Qaeda planners.
 FT Link Turn – Public/Law Enforcement Cooperation
Poll shows public support PRISM
Logiurato, Business Insider’s politics editor, 6/7/13, (Brett, (Degree in International
Politics), “The NSA’s PRISM Program Is Shockingly Uncontroversial With The
American Public” Business Insider, http://www.businessinsider.com/prism-
surveillance-poll-nsa-obama-approval-2013-6)
President Barack Obama's approval rating is sinking like a stone in a new CNN/ORC poll — but it's not because of
Americans' reactions to the National Security Agency surveillance program known as "PRISM." In fact, the public overwhelmingly
approves of the program. The poll found that 66 percent of Americans say the Obama administration was
right to gather and analyze information from major internet companies to help locate suspected terrorists .
Here's the full wording of the question posed in the poll: [F]or the past few years the Obama administration has reportedly been gathering and
analyzing information from major internet companies about audio and video chats, photographs, e-mails and documents involving people in other
countries in an attempt to locate suspected terrorists. The government reportedly does not target internet usage by U.S. citizens and if such data is
collected, it is kept under strict controls. Do you think the Obama administration was right or wrong in gathering and analyzing that internet data?
Overall, according to the poll, thepublic has exhibited a collective shrug to new revelations detailing the scope of
the NSA's surveillance efforts. On its collection of phone data, the public is less gung-ho about the program, but still supportive —
51 percent say the Obama administration is right, while 48 percent say it's wrong. Incidentally, partisans
on both sides of the aisle are most likely to support the programs. Self-identified Republicans and Democrats
approve of both programs, while Independents are much less enthusiastic. They disapprove of the NSA's phone
surveillance program by a 40-58 split, and their approval of PRISM (58-41) significantly trails both Republicans (67-
31) and Democrats (76-24)

Polls show public supports PRISM’s actions

Moseley, 10/6/13 (Tom, (reporter for the Huffington Post), “Please Spy On Us: Poll
Finds Public Support For “Snooping” Plans Despite NSA Prism Scandal”,
Huffington Post, http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/2013/06/10/poll-finds-public-
support-snooping-plans_n_3415724.html)
A majority of Britons support the government's controversial 'snooping' proposals - despite the growing NSA/Prism data-sharing scandal, an
exclusive poll for The Huffington Post UK reveals. And more than four in 10 people think the security
services should be able to break data laws in order to prevent terrorism . The first major survey carried out since the
leaking of details of the US Prism surveillance programme found that 51% of voters either backed the coalition's
draft Communications Data Bill, or thought it did not go far enough. The Bill would allow the security services access
to mobile phone and internet records. Civil liberties campaigners had hoped the ongoing data-mining revelations involving Google, Apple and
Facebook would serve as a "wake-up call" on the plans. But just 38% of people polled agreed that the Bill "goes too far" and "undermines our
privacy". Meanwhile,42% of people said the police and security agencies should be able to go "beyond the
law" to obtain information if it is necessary to fight serious crime and terrorism , while 45% said they should
"always obey the law". Foreign Secretary William Hague told MPs it was "baseless" to suggest GCHQ could circumvent UK laws by using
personal data gathered by foreign agencies. But 46% would be happy with such a measure, the YouGov poll found. By comparison, 39% said
would be "sorry that the UK agencies might be getting round British law to undermine our right to privacy". YouGov President Peter Kellner
said the "simmering dispute" over the Communications Data Bill had "roared to life" following the leak, by 29-year-old Edward Snowden.
Women were far more likely to back the Bill than men, dividing by almost two to one. However, despite the overall backing for the 'snooping'
measures, support was far smaller than for previous civil liberties battlegrounds, 90-day detention and control orders, Kellner said. "These are
early days in an argument that may well rumble on for months, even years," he said. "Indeed, the trade-off between security-driven rules and
individual liberty will, and should, be something that we never stop debating." Giving a statement to Parliament on Monday afternoon, Hague
said he "deplored" the leaking of US intelligence data that sparked the Prism scandal. And he insisted that any data on British citizens would be
"subject to proper UK statutory controls and safeguards". The Foreign Secretary admitted he could not say "everything is definitely perfect at all
times" in the way the intelligence services operate, but said he only had praise for the way they work. Counter terror activity reached peak during
the 2012 Olympics, he said, and added: "The methods we use to combat these threats have to be secret". Emphasising the importance of the
measures to the struggle against terrorism makes political sense, according to YouGov's Kellner: " One
thing that is likely to sway
public attitudes is evidence that electronic 'snooping' either has, or has not, managed to stop terrorism
and/or serious crime."
 FT Bruce Schneier
Schneier is wrong about mass surveillance — it’s a vital counter-terror tool.
Knee 15 — Jonathan A. Knee, Professor of Professional Practice at Columbia Business School, Senior
Adviser at Evercore Partners—a U.S. investment bank, holds a J.D. from Yale Law School and an
M.B.A. from the Stanford Business School, 2015 (“Looking at the Promise and Perils of the Emerging
Big Data Sector: Book Review of ‘Data and Goliath’ by Bruce Schneier,” Deal Book—a New York Times
blog, March 16th, Available Online at http://www.nytimes.com/2015/03/17/business/dealbook/book-
review-of-data-and-goliath-by-bruce-schneier.html, Accessed 07-12-2015)
When it comes to his specific policy recommendations, however, Mr. Schneier becomes significantly less
compelling. And the underlying philosophy that emerges — once he has dispensed with all pretense of an
evenhanded presentation of the issues — seems actually subversive of the very democratic principles
that he claims animates his mission.
The author is at his most vehement in his opposition of all forms of government mass surveillance. He
claims that data mining of undifferentiated bulk communications sucked up by our national security
apparatus is “an inappropriate tool for finding terrorists.” “Whenever we learn about an N.S.A. success,”
Mr. Schneier informs us, “it invariably comes from targeted surveillance rather than from mass
surveillance.”
Like the claim that waterboarding failed to yield actionable intelligence that thwarted terrorist plots, it is
impossible for a citizen without access to classified information to assess its validity.
Even if Mr. Schneier is correct that “traditional investigative police work” is ultimately responsible for
successfully identifying the truly dangerous, there are still reasons that the public would want our spies to
have access to a ready cache of metadata. As soon as the bad guy is found using old-fashioned methods,
data-mining of previous communications would still presumably allow the speedy identification of known
associates with a potentially lifesaving efficiency.
 FT New America Foundation Report
The NAF report is wrong about the NSA’s role in preventing terrorism.
Wittes 14 — Benjamin Wittes, Senior Fellow in Governance Studies at the Brookings Institution,
Editor in Chief of Lawfare, Member of the Task Force on National Security and Law at the Hoover
Institution, 2014 (“A Critique of the New America Foundation’s Recent NSA Report,” Lawfare—a
national security blog curated by the Brookings Institution, January 23 rd, Available Online at
http://www.lawfareblog.com/2014/01/a-critique-of-the-new-america-foundations-recent-nsa-report/,
Accessed 04-20-2015)
I am a big fan of Peter Bergen. His book, Manhunt, about the search for Osama Bin Laden is one of the
most useful and informative and gripping reads on a counterterrorism matter I have come across in a long
time. So it’s with a bit of a heavy heart that I say that his recent New America Foundation report, entitled
“Do NSA’s Bulk Surveillance Programs Stop Terrorists?” is fatally flawed. Written with David Sterman,
Emily Schneider, and Bailey Cahall, the report has grabbed headlines for its arresting conclusion that “the
government’s claims about the role that NSA ‘bulk’ surveillance of phone and email communications
records has had in keeping the United States safe from terrorism shows that these claims are overblown
and even misleading.” The report examines the cases of 225 individuals and finds that “Section 215 of the
USA PATRIOT Act appears to have played an identifiable role in initiating, at most, 1.8 percent of these
cases” and “Section 702 of the FISA Amendments Act played a role in 4.4. percent of the terrorism cases
we examined.” Other NSA surveillance “played a role in 1.3 percent of the cases we examined.” In total,
“NSA surveillance of any kind, whether bulk or targeted of U.S. persons or foreigners, played an
initiating role in only 7.5 percent of cases.”
There are a number of problems with the New America Foundation report, mostly relating to the
composition of the dataset it examines. That dataset includes 225 individuals but importantly , it includes
many fewer events, since a terrorist plot or fundraising scheme will often involves several different
individuals. The individuals in the dataset include people “in the United States, as well as U.S. persons
abroad, who have been indicted, convicted or killed since the terrorist attacks on September 11, 2001.”
The dataset “seeks to include all American citizens and residents indicted for crimes who were inspired
by or associated with al-Qaeda and its affiliated groups, as well as those citizens and residents who were
killed before they could be indicted, but have been widely reported to have worked with or been inspired
by al-Qaeda and its affiliated groups.”
Here are four problems:
First, if you’re looking for NSA impact, a database of US citizens is the wrong place to look. NSA, after
all, is a foreign intelligence agency that isn’t allowed to operate domestically, as a general matter. The
702 program specifically bars the targeting of US persons, requiring that targets be reasonably believed to
be non-US persons overseas. Yes, the bulk telephony metadata program involves domestic and one-end-
in-US acquisition of metadata, but that is specifically to assess whether domestic plots might have a
foreign nexus and whether foreign plots may have an agent operating in the US. This is not an agency that
investigates US nationals. So looking at a large database of US nationals and finding limited NSA
involvement says very little about the effectiveness of the programs in question.
Second, NSA is not a law enforcement agency, so looking at a group of criminal cases is also the wrong
haystack in which to find the needles at issue here. The perfect NSA operation would be focused on
identifying and disrupting some activity overseas and might never result in an indictment in a US court.
So looking at a bunch of criminals cases and finding a minimal NSA footprint is a little bit like looking at
a bunch of criminal cases and finding that the local fire department has been ineffective because its work
only shows up in a few arson cases. Arson is only one small part of firefighting. And the criminal case is
only one possible disposition for an intelligence agency—and not necessarily the most prized disposition.
This problem is compounded by the fact that NSA material will generally not be admissible evidence
(there are exceptions to that rule, but it’s a good rule of thumb) and the government generally won’t want
to release it in the context of criminal cases (there are exceptions to that rule too, but it’s also a good rule
of thumb), so by the time you have a criminal case developed, the prosecutors will typically be presenting
evidence that the FBI generated. This may follow a tip or lead from NSA, but the those tracks—at least
when all goes well—will tend to be covered.
Third, the New America Foundation report is focused on how a criminal case gets initiated—that is, how
authorities first learn of a particular plot. I’m not sure what the right metric is here, but I’m sure that’s the
wrong one. Information can be critical at many different stages of an investigation—whether a criminal or
a national security investigation. If I were, say, the FBI, and a bomb went off at the Boston Marathon, it
would be very useful and important to me to run the Tsarnaev brothers’ telephone numbers through a
database that could offer a window into whether they were having significant overseas contacts. It would
be important even after I had identified them as the likely perpetrators, because it could provide insight
into whether the bombing was a domestic matter or involved international terrorist groups. It might
address the question of whether the AUMF applied—a deeply important in its own right. It might also
address the question of whether confederates were still active. None of this has anything to do with how
the investigation initiated, but it could be critical important to how it proceeds. Information—both in the
form of evidence in criminal cases and in the form of intelligence in non-criminal investigations—is
cumulative, not binary.
Finally, large numbers of the events in the New America Foundation database predate the authorities
whose impact the group is studying. The list of events, available here, includes 105 separate incidents (as
opposed to individuals). Of these, 24 predate 2006, when the law first enabled the current iteration of the
215 program. And quite a number more predate 2008, when Congress passed the FAA (including Section
702). This is not in and of itself devastating to the report, since metadata collection was taking place prior
to 2006, as was overseas targeting of the communications contents of non-US persons overseas. But it
does indicate a certain carelessness about what cases the database includes and excludes.
To put the matter simply, the New America report is evaluating intelligence programs mostly directed at
non-US persons overseas on the basis of the initiation only of law enforcement cases directed at US
citizens, and it is looking at a body of cases that don’t correspond temporally to the existence of the
programs it seeks to evaluate. As I say, I have a lot of respect for Peter Bergen, but this seems to me a
serious misfire.
 FT White House Panel Report
Their authors misinterpret the report — NSA domestic surveillance is a vital
counter-terrorism tool.
Morell 13 — Michael Morell, Former Acting Director and Deputy Director of the Central Intelligence
Agency, Member of President Obama’s Review Group on Intelligence and Communications
Technologies, 2013 (“Correcting the record on the NSA recommendations,” Washington Post, December
27th, Available Online at http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/michael-morell-correcting-the-record-
on-the-nsa-recommendations/2013/12/27/54846538-6e45-11e3-aecc-85cb037b7236_story.html,
Accessed 07-12-2015)
Another misperception involved the review group’s view of the efficacy of the Section 215 program;
many commentators said it found no value in the program. The report accurately said that the program
has not been “essential to preventing attacks” since its creation. But that is not the same thing as saying
the program is not important to national security, which is why we did not recommend its elimination.
Had the program been in place more than a decade ago, it would likely have prevented 9/11. And it has
the potential to prevent the next 9/11. It needs to be successful only once to be invaluable. It also
provides some confidence that overseas terrorist activity does not have a U.S. nexus. The metadata
program did exactly that during my last days at the CIA this summer, in the midst of significant threat
reports emanating from Yemen. By examining the metadata, we were able to determine that certain
known terrorists were most likely not in phone contact with anyone in the United States during this
specific period of concern.
 FT Glenn Greenwald
Greenwald isn’t even worth responding to.
Wittes 11 — Benjamin Wittes, Senior Fellow in Governance Studies at the Brookings Institution,
Editor in Chief of Lawfare, Member of the Task Force on National Security and Law at the Hoover
Institution, 2011 (“My Non-Response to Glenn Greenwald,” Lawfare—a national security blog curated
by the Brookings Institution, January 14th, Available Online at http://lawfareblog.com/my-non-response-
glenn-greenwald, Accessed 07-12-2015)
Believe it or not, this blog does have a higher purpose than to send Glenn Greenwald into paroxysms of
rage—though I confess that such paroxysms are great fun when we happen to provoke them, and they
seem to be very good for traffic. That said, enraging Greenwald is not why I write the blog, and neither is
engaging him. As Lawfare readers know, I define the universe of people with whom I feel privileged to
argue exceptionally broadly. But Greenwald is not part of the same conversation as I am. His pose of
moral purity has yielded both a committed simple-mindedness with respect to wrenchingly difficult
questions and a very ugly eagerness to attack honorable people in government, in the press, and in
public life more generally who are trying to do their jobs or to express views that differ from his.
Greenwald seems to like to quote the founders, but his style actually reminds me more of their French
contemporaries.
Lawfare readers will thus, I trust, pardon me if I don't treat Greenwald's admittedly amusing howls of
rage as arguments warranting response.
To Greenwald's readers who find themselves on Lawfare for the first time: welcome; stick around; you
might learn something. We have no purity tests here--just a preference for civility and decency.

Greenwald doesn’t deserve a response — he’s not civil.

Wittes 11 — Benjamin Wittes, Senior Fellow in Governance Studies at the Brookings Institution,
Editor in Chief of Lawfare, Member of the Task Force on National Security and Law at the Hoover
Institution, 2011 (“Why I Won't Engage Glenn Greenwald,” Lawfare—a national security blog curated by
the Brookings Institution, January 16th, Available Online at http://lawfareblog.com/why-i-wont-engage-
glenn-greenwald, Accessed 07-12-2015)
A few weeks ago, I received an email from a producer inviting me to participate in a “debate+discussion
with Glenn [Greenwald] about the legality of the Predator strikes.” I responded, “I would be happy to
discuss the subject . . . but I'm afraid I am unwilling to appear alongside Glenn Greenwald on any subject
in any forum. I don't consider us as participating in remotely the same conversation .”
This exchange took place before Greenwald's and my back-and-forth this past week—in which he
attacked me for faux centrism, for being on the take from lavish funders, and for servilely worshiping
power, and in which I somewhat archly refused to engage him and compared him to the Jacobins.
The volume of email I have received following my non-response to Greenwald has been a genuine
testament to the size of his readership. Almost all of the emails have been abusive. On Twitter, too, I am
taking my lumps. The themes are remarkably consistent. I am a coward for ducking an argument.
Greenwald has made a substantive case which I am avoiding with a fake insistence on civility—even as I
defend torturers. My refusal to engage proves the merits of Greenwald's positions.
I have tried to answer each of the emails, some of which have yielded substantive and valuable
exchanges. And while none of this correspondence has convinced me that I should respond to Greenwald,
it has collectively convinced me that I should explain more clearly why I do not do so—a decision that, as
the email above reflects, I made long before his post of this week.
Tellingly, with a single exception, no regular reader of Lawfare has urged me to respond or has written to
question my refusal to do so. People who spend time reading this blog—and it's not a huge group—have
wide-ranging political sensibilities, but they share a tendency to insist on civility and common politeness.
A while back, a human rights activist sent in some very cutting remarks about my views and asked me to
post them. As I was getting ready to do so, he emailed and asked me to change a sentence that, he
worried, could be construed as a personal attack. That's the sensibility of this blog—the idea that one can
criticize ideas, even quite harshly, without questioning people's motives, accusing them of corruption, or
pretending they do not believe what they say.
My problem with Greenwald is not his politics. I engage with people of his politics all the time. It is the
pervasive suggestion in his work of the corruption and ill-motive of his opponents, whom he serially fails
to credit with believing the arguments they are making. His post about me is a case in point. In his first
paragraph, he purports to know my "overarching purpose." He insinuates--all but states, really--that I am
a paid shill of the powerful. And throughout his piece, he casually casts aspersions on my motives and
integrity ("dutifully fulfilling his function," "devote themselves to serving those in power," "That's not
whose interests they're funded to defend," etc.).
This is by no means unusual for him. Consider this attack on Bobby (which begins by asserting falsely
that Bobby had been dispatched by the White House to make the argument Glenn was criticizing) or this
attack on Bob Litt (which actually calls Litt's argument “corrupt” and goes on to imply without quite
saying that Litt was making it in support of intelligence community clients). This is Greenwald's modus
operandi.
I don't see any reason either to engage with someone who begins with the premise that people who
disagree with him are arguing in bad faith, are on the take, or are evil . My life is too short for that. When
people on the right attacked Obama administration lawyers for their former representation in private life
of Guantanamo detainees, I organized a group of centrist and conservative lawyers and policy folks to
take a very strong position against it. My refusal to engage with Greenwald is rooted in the same
sensibility: Civility is important to me in this debate--and no less so when I happen to be the object of the
incivility. If that makes me look like a coward to some of Greenwald's readers, so be it.
One of Greenwald's readers, after hearing me out on this, responded as follows, “I still believe that his
argument is persuasive enough, and based enough on sound reason and fact, that it merits an equally
considered response.” Fair enough. For Greenwald's readers who are genuinely interested in my views, I
have written at great length about both interrogation and, particularly, detention. My views on these
subjects are hardly a secret. Anyone who reads the interrogation chapter of Law and the Long War or the
paper I wrote with Stuart Taylor Jr. in Legislating the War on Terror will not have any trouble figuring
out why I think prosecution is a terrible idea. For those who want a more explicit treatment of the specific
question of prosecution, this oped by Jack speaks for me pretty completely. For those interested in an
introduction to my rather voluminous writings on detention, my new book, Detention and Denial, is brief
and written for the general interest reader. And interested readers should use the search function on
Lawfare or simply browse it; many of the substantive points Greenwald raises we have addressed often.
But don't hold your breath waiting for me to reply to Greenwald. It isn't going to happen.
Crime
 Links
Encryption transforms the internet into an ungovernable space. Law enforcement
would become powerless.
Wittes 15 — Benjamin Wittes, Senior Fellow in Governance Studies at the Brookings Institution,
Editor in Chief of Lawfare, Member of the Task Force on National Security and Law at the Hoover
Institution, 2015 (“Thoughts on Encryption and Going Dark, Part II: The Debate on the Merits,” Lawfare
—a national security blog curated by the Brookings Institution, July 12 th, Available Online at
http://www.lawfareblog.com/thoughts-encryption-and-going-dark-part-ii-debate-merits, Accessed 07-13-
2015)
Consider the conceptual question first. Would it be a good idea to have a world-wide communications
infrastructure that is, as Bruce Schneier has aptly put it, secure from all attackers? That is, if we could
snap our fingers and make all device-to-device communications perfectly secure against interception from
the Chinese, from hackers, from the FSB but also from the FBI even wielding lawful process, would that
be desirable? Or, in the alternative, do we want to create an internet as secure as possible from everyone
except government investigators exercising their legal authorities with the understanding that other
countries may do the same?
Conceptually speaking, I am with Comey on this question—and the matter does not seem to me an
especially close call. The belief in principle in creating a giant world-wide network on which surveillance
is technically impossible is really an argument for the creation of the world's largest ungoverned space.
I understand why techno-anarchists find this idea so appealing. I can't imagine for moment, however, why
anyone else would.
Consider the comparable argument in physical space: the creation of a city in which authorities are
entirely dependent on citizen reporting of bad conduct but have no direct visibility onto what happens on
the streets and no ability to conduct search warrants (even with court orders) or to patrol parks or street
corners. Would you want to live in that city? The idea that ungoverned spaces really suck is not
controversial when you're talking about Yemen or Somalia. I see nothing more attractive about the
creation of a worldwide architecture in which it is technically impossible to intercept and read ISIS
communications with followers or to follow child predators into chatrooms where they go after kids.

Encryption empowers criminals and terrorists — it makes prosecution impossible.

Vance 14 — Cyrus Vance Jr., District Attorney of Manhattan, holds a J.D. from the Georgetown
University Law Center, 2014 (“Apple and Google threaten public safety with default smartphone
encryption,” Washington Post, September 26th, Available Online at
http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/apple-and-google-threaten-public-safety-with-default-
smartphone-encryption/2014/09/25/43af9bf0-44ab-11e4-b437-1a7368204804_story.html, Accessed 07-
05-2015)
Apple and Google, whose operating systems run a combined 96.4 percent of smartphones worldwide,
announced last week that their new operating systems will prevent them from complying with U.S.
judicial warrants ordering them to unlock users’ passcode-protected mobile devices.
Each company tweaked the code of its new and forthcoming mobile operating systems — iOS 8 and
Android “L,” respectively — for this explicit purpose. “Apple cannot bypass your passcode and therefore
cannot access this data. So it’s not technically feasible for us to respond to government warrants for the
extraction of this data from devices in their possession,” reads a new section of Apple’s Web site. “Keys
are not stored off of the device, so they cannot be shared with law enforcement,” a Google spokeswoman
stated.
While these maneuvers may be a welcome change for those who seek greater privacy controls, the
unintended victors will ultimately be criminals, who are now free to hide evidence on their phones
despite valid warrants to search them.
On the losing end are the victims of crimes — from sexual assault to money laundering to robbery,
kidnapping and homicide — many of whom undoubtedly are these companies’ own loyal customers.
When news of these changes was reported, I did a brief survey of my office’s recent cases to see which
defendants Apple and Google would have protected had their passcode-locked smartphones been running
iOS 8 or Android “L” at the time of their arrests. I found:
* Multiple violent gang members who discussed in a smartphone video their plans to shoot a rival. The
video was taken shortly before the members mistakenly shot an innocent bystander. The evidence would
later be used to implicate two dozen of the gang’s members in additional murders and shootings.
* A vile “up-skirter” who was observed by police inside a major subway station walking up and down
stairs behind women wearing skirts, with two iPhones angled upward in his hands. A warrant allowed us
to search the phones, which revealed exactly what you would think, as recorded by the perpetrator at
multiple stations throughout New York.
* An identity thief whose smartphone contained the bank account numbers, blank check images, account
activity screen shots and tax return information of several individuals.
Today, nearly every criminal case has a digital component. Much of the evidence required to identify,
locate and prosecute criminals is stored on smartphones. None of the above cases could be prosecuted as
effectively if the perpetrators had smartphone software incorporating Apple and Google’s privacy
guarantees.
Apple and Google have brought their products to a new level of privacy, and of course privacy is
critically important to our society. But the protection of privacy is found in the Constitution, which
requires warrants issued by neutral, detached judges and supported by probable cause before law
enforcement can obtain information from a mobile device. Absent certain narrow exceptions, my office
cannot search a mobile device without a warrant. Neither can the other thousands of state and local
prosecutors offices throughout the country. The warrant requirement assures that peoples’ possessions
and privacy remain secure in all but exceptional circumstances.
Apple’s and Google’s software updates, however, push mobile devices beyond the reach of warrants
and thus beyond the reach of government law enforcement. This would make mobile devices different
from everything else. Even bank security boxes — the “gold standard” of the pre-digital age — have
always been searchable pursuant to a judicial warrant. That’s because banks keep a key to them.
I am aware of no plausible reason why these companies cannot reverse these dangerous maneuvers in
their next scheduled updates to iOS 8 and Android “L.” Apple’s and Google’s software should not
provide aid and comfort to those who commit crimes. This is not a matter of good or bad corporate
citizenship. It is a matter of national public safety.
When threats to the common public safety arise, we ask Congress to do everything within its
constitutional authority to address them. The provision of cloaking tools to murderers, sex offenders,
identity thieves and terrorists constitutes such a threat.
Absent remedial action by the companies, Congress should act appropriately.

Encryption could get us all killed.

Hosko 14 — Ronald T. Hosko, President of the Law Enforcement Legal Defense Fund, Former
Assistant Director of the Criminal Investigative Division at the Federal Bureau of Investigation, 2014
(“Don’t Create Virtual Sanctuaries for Criminals,” Room for Debate—a New York Times expert blog,
October 1st, Available Online at http://www.nytimes.com/roomfordebate/2014/09/30/apple-vs-the-
law/dont-create-virtual-sanctuaries-for-criminals, Accessed 07-05-2015)
When the director of the F.B.I. recently voiced his concerns about the impact of newly designed
smartphone encryption systems on our security, the unsurprising, reflexive response of many was, “Too
bad, government. We can’t trust you.” But, like most issues that divide our nation, it’s more complicated
than that.
As a former insider, I watched the painful flow of Snowden disclosures with dismay – those leaks, I’m
confident, have weakened our national security. It is no leap to suggest that those who already aim to
harm us are bolstered by the information they have learned from the revelations. Even a moderately savvy
criminal will closely observe the actions taken by law enforcement during their pursuit or conviction,
later using such tactics themselves in future, often more dangerous crimes.
Popular culture has also skewed the public’s view of how law enforcement actually solves crimes. As
happy as we would all be to close complex cases within a 60-minute time slot using cutting-edge
technology, fighting crime nearly always requires exhaustive investigation and not simply the use of
fancy gadgetry. In fact, investigators are limited in their technological capabilities, and I'm concerned that
the gap between public perception and reality could only make matters worse.
The virtual sanctuaries constructed and marketed by certain companies will not only attract ordinary
Americans seeking to protect their private communications, but also criminals and conspirators who wish
to destroy our nation or to do great harm to others. Creating these technological fortresses will have
our intelligence and law enforcement communities scurrying to penetrate them. On occasion, they’ll
succeed. But on others, time or cost will defeat them, and people will be hurt or killed. While we debate
the delicate balance of privacy and the lawful need to intrude, we leave American lives at risk.

Encryption exponentially increases the risk of catastrophic crime and terrorism.

Hosko 14 — Ronald T. Hosko, President of the Law Enforcement Legal Defense Fund, Former
Assistant Director of the Criminal Investigative Division at the Federal Bureau of Investigation, 2014
(“Apple and Google’s new encryption rules will make law enforcement’s job much harder,” Washington
Post, September 23rd, Available Online at
http://www.washingtonpost.com/posteverything/wp/2014/09/23/i-helped-save-a-kidnapped-man-from-
murder-with-apples-new-encryption-rules-we-never-wouldve-found-him/, Accessed 07-05-2015)
Last week, Apple and Google announced that their new operating systems will be encrypted by default.
Encrypting a phone doesn’t make it any harder to tap, or “lawfully intercept” calls. But it does limit law
enforcement’s access to a data, contacts, photos and email stored on the phone itself .
That kind information can help law enforcement officials solve big cases quickly. For example, criminals
sometimes avoid phone interception by communicating plans via Snapchat or video. Their phones contain
contacts, texts, and geo-tagged data that can help police track down accomplices. These new rules will
make it impossible for us to access that information. They will create needless delays that could cost
victims their lives.*
Law enforcement officials rely on all kinds of tools to solve crimes and bring criminals to justice. Most
investigations don’t rely solely on information from one source, even a smartphone. But without each
and every important piece of the investigative puzzle , criminals and those who plan acts destructive to
our national security may walk free.
In my last FBI assignments, I was privy to information that regularly demonstrated how criminal actors
adapted to law enforcement investigative techniques – how drug conspirators routinely “dropped” their
cellphones every 30 days or so, estimating the time it takes agents to identify and develop probable cause
on a new device before seeking interception authority; how child predators migrated to technologies like
the Onion Router to obfuscate who’s posting and viewing online posting and viewing online images and
videos of horrific acts of child abuse.
We shouldn’t give them one more tool.
But the long-used cellular service selling points of clarity and coverage have been overtaken by a new one
– concealment. Capitalizing on post-Snowden disclosures fears, Apple and Android have pitched this as
a move to protect consumers’ privacy. Don’t misunderstand me — I, too, place a great value on personal
privacy. I have little interest in the government collecting and storing all of my texts and e-mails or
logging all of my calls.
But Apple’s and Android’s new protections will protect many thousands of criminals who seek to do us
great harm, physically or financially. They will protect those who desperately need to be stopped from
lawful, authorized, and entirely necessary safety and security efforts. And they will make it impossible
for police to access crucial information, even with a warrant.
As Apple and Android trumpet their victories over law enforcement efforts, our citizenry, our Congress,
and our media ought to start managing expectations about future law enforcement and national security
success. We’ve lived in an era where the term “connecting the dots” is commonly used. If our cutting
edge technologies are designed to keep important dots out of the hands of our government, we all might
start thinking about how safe and secure we will be when the most tech-savvy, dedicated criminals
exponentially increase their own success rates.
* Editors note: This story incorrectly stated that Apple and Google’s new encryption rules would have
hindered law enforcement’s ability to rescue the kidnap victim in Wake Forest, N.C. This is not the case.
The piece has been corrected.
This turns the affirmative case — people will demand backdoors in response to
horrible crimes.
Wittes 15 — Benjamin Wittes, Senior Fellow in Governance Studies at the Brookings Institution,
Editor in Chief of Lawfare, Member of the Task Force on National Security and Law at the Hoover
Institution, 2015 (“Thoughts on Encryption and Going Dark, Part II: The Debate on the Merits,” Lawfare
—a national security blog curated by the Brookings Institution, July 12 th, Available Online at
http://www.lawfareblog.com/thoughts-encryption-and-going-dark-part-ii-debate-merits, Accessed 07-13-
2015)
There's a final, non-legal factor that may push companies to work this problem as energetically as they
are now moving toward end-to-end encryption: politics. We are at very particular moment in the
cryptography debate, a moment in which law enforcement sees a major problem as having arrived but the
tech companies see that problem as part of the solution to the problems the Snowden revelations created
for them. That is, we have an end-to-end encryption issue, in significant part, because companies are
trying to assure customers worldwide that they have their backs privacy-wise and are not simply tools of
NSA. I think those politics are likely to change. If Comey is right and we start seeing law enforcement
and intelligence agencies blind in investigating and preventing horrible crimes and significant threats,
the pressure on the companies is going to shift. And it may shift fast and hard. Whereas the companies
now feel intense pressure to assure customers that their data is safe from NSA, the kidnapped kid with the
encrypted iPhone is going to generate a very different sort of political response. In extraordinary
circumstances, extraordinary access may well seem reasonable. And people will wonder why it doesn't
exist.