About MSDI & Missouri State U.. For twenty years, the Missouri State Debate Institute has offered an excellent educational experience in the middle of the high school topic. MSDI is distinct from other camps in six ways. First, our skills focus assures that a typical 2-week debater gets nearly 80 speeches, including over 20 debates. Second, we emphasize the largest cases on topic, with students getting both aff and neg rounds on each. Third, our senior faculty are comparable with top lab leaders in any camp. Fourth, MSDI students can earn highly transferable college credit in public speaking for a minimal cost. Fifth, we respect variance in home debate circuits – our goal is to improve line by line debating in ways that will help students no matter who judges in their home circuit. Finally, our price is below any comparable camp and far below most camps. Our 2016 information will be available shortly at: http://debate.missouristate.edu/camp.htm.

Missouri State University is a large comprehensive university (enrollment over 24k), with nearly any major you might want. The university has excellent academic scholarship support – most debaters combine academic “entitlement” scholarships (guaranteed based on GPA/test scores) with debate scholarships. The Spicer Debate Forum competes in two year-long policy debate formats: NDT and NFA-LD. We’ve national semis or finals in both in the last decade. Our debaters have an average GPA over 3.5, a 97% graduation rate, and 70% complete law/grad school afterward. Our program is a high-impact academic experience with an exceptional alumni network. Please contact Dr. Eric Morris for more information (EricMorris@MissouriState.edu).

http://debate.missouristate.edu/

http://www.missouristate.edu/FinancialAid/scholarships/

Bulk Data Affirmative

1AC Inherency/SolvencyRecent passage of the USA Freedom Act by the US Congress may have been a step in the right direction, but it did not go nearly far enough in protecting the privacy of United States citizens. It left many programs that sustain bulk data collection untouched, meaning we are still at risk. We should take steps toward real reform.KEVIN GOSZTOLA JUNE 7, 2015 AT 8:00 AM PDT The US Surveillance State Now That USA Freedom Act is Law http://firedoglake.com/2015/06/07/podcast-the-us-surveillance-state-now-that-usa-freedom-act-is-law/

The USA Freedom Act was signed into law this past week. It was viewed as both a victory for those concerned with privacy and restricting the National Security Agency’s mass surveillance and also as a law that did not go far enough in restricting spy agencies. In fact, the USA Freedom Act further codified the post-9/11 legal framework for surveillance and resurrected Patriot Act provisions, which expired for a couple days. The law did do away with the NSA’s control of all Americans’ domestic call records. On the other hand, it left other programs, policies and practices, which NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden revealed to the public, entirely untouched. For example, “backdoor searches” under Section 702 of the FISA Amendments Act can continue, which means the NSA can collect emails, browsing and chat history of US citizens without a warrant.

Strengthening the USA Freedom Act is necessary – including definitions of SST selector and minimization procedures, second hop provisions and other transparency measures. These measures would effectively rein in dragnet surveillance by the NSA.David Greene 2015 David Greene, Senior Staff Attorney and Civil Liberties Director for the Electronic Frontier Foundation. How The Second Circuit’s Decision Affects the Legislative Landscape” - Electronic Frontier Foundation - May 11, 2015 - https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2015/05/aclu-v-clapper-and-congress-how-second-circuits-decision-affects-legislative

Above all, it is clear that Congress must do more to rein in dragnet surveillance by the NSA . Clean Reauthorization First, the Second Circuit’s opinion should stop the idea of a "clean reauthorization" (a reauthorization with no reforms) of Section 215, which is set to expire June 1. Last month, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell and Senate Intelligence Chair Richard Burr introduced S. 1035, a bill that would extend the current language of Section 215 through 2020, thereby continuing the mass spying rubber-stamped by the FISA Court. The morning of the Second Circuit decision, both Senators took to the Senate floor to vehemently defend the bulk collection program and push for a clean reauthorization. But a clean reauthorization is much more complicated now. Congress can’t pretend that the Second Circuit's narrow reading of “relevant to an authorized investigation” doesn’t exist. It’s likely that if Congress merely does a “clean” reauthorization of Section 215, then the district court in ACLU v. Clapper will enjoin the government from using Section 215 as authorization for the call records dragnet, because the district court is bound by the Second Circuit decision. However, if a reauthorization made it clear that Congress intended to reject the Second Circuit’s narrow reading of the law, it could cause further confusion and the government could argue that Congress has fully embraced the dragnet. We’re encouraging people to call Congress and tell their lawmakers to reject Senator McConnell's clean reauthorization in order to avoid the risk that Congress might reject the Second Circuit’s decision The

USA Freedom Act Must Be Strengthened In light of the Second Circuit’s decision, EFF asks Congress to strengthen its proposed reform of Section 215, the USA Freedom Act. Pending those improvements, EFF is withdrawing our support of the bill. We’re urging Congress to roll the draft back to the stronger and meaningful reforms included in the 2013 version of USA Freedom and affirmatively embrace the Second Circuit’s opinion on the limits of Section 215. Most importantly, the Second Circuit’s correct interpretation of the law should be expressly embraced by Congress in order to avoid any confusion going forward about what the key terms in the statute mean, especially the terms “relevant” and “investigation.” This recognition could be in the bill itself or, less preferably, in legislative history. The House Judiciary Committee has already included such language in its report to the full House of Representatives, but now the Senate must include the language in the bill or in its own legislative history. This easy task will make sure that the law is not read as rejecting the Second Circuit’s reading and will help ensure that the USA Freedom Act actually accomplishes its goal of ending bulk collection. The House Report on USA Freedom, issued today, takes a step forward by stating that: Congress’ decision to leave in place the ‘‘relevance’’ standard for Section 501 orders should not be construed as Congress’ intent to ratify the FISA Court’s interpretation of that term. These changes restore meaningful limits to the ‘‘relevance’’ requirement of Section 501, consistent with the opinion of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit in ACLU v. Clapper. Ensuring that the Senate doesn't move away from the legislative history should be a top priority as the bill moves forward. But that’s the bare minimum Congress must do. The Second Circuit, and especially Judge Sack’s concurrence, noted a lack of both transparency and a true adversary in the FISA Court. The 2014 and 2013 USA Freedom Act had stronger FISA Court reforms, particularly around the creation of a special advocate who would argue against the government in the FISA Court. The Second Circuit’s opinion also emphasizes that typical subpoenas seek only records of "suspects under investigation, or of people or businesses that have contact with such subjects." Under the current USA Freedom Act, the government can collect records of a "second hop,"—the numbers, and associated metadata, that have been in contact with the numbers collected initially—without any additional authorization. The bill should be changed so that the government must file another application for any further records it wants to collect. Automatically obtaining a "second hop" is unacceptable because it sweeps in too many people’s records. The current USA Freedom Act is also out-of-sync with the court’s narrow view of permissible collection of records because it lacks a rigorous definition of the "specific selection term" the government can use to identify the records it wants to collect. This can be addressed by two changes: (1) drawing upon last year's definition in the USA Freedom Act; and, (2) closing down potential loopholes like the definition of "address" or the use of a "person" to include a corporate person. Restoring Important Parts of 2013’s USA Freedom Act This is also an opportunity and a new context for Congress to address the shortcomings of the newly introduced USA Freedom Act that we previously wrote about. Congress should put back key provisions that were dropped along the way as well as remove those that were introduced at the behest of the intelligence community. First, the "super minimization" procedures, which were key privacy procedures that mandated the deletion of any information obtained about a person not connected to the investigation, should be reintroduced. Key provisions establishing a higher legal standard and compliance assessment for the use of pen register/trap-and-trace devices, legal standing to sue the government over surveillance practices, and the original transparency provisions allowing government and corporate disclosure of surveillance orders should also be resuscitated.

USA Freedom Act legislation was extremely watered down and it lacks the reform necessary to establish US credibility and leadership on internet freedom. Additional changes are required and will solve.Noel Brinkerhoff “With Support of Obama Administration, House NSA Surveillance Reform Bill Includes Gaping Loopholes” – AllGov – May 26 2014- http://www.allgov.com/news/top-stories/with-support-of-obama-administration-house-nsa-surveillance-reform-bill-includes-gaping-loopholes-140526?news=853242)

Lawmakers in the U.S. House of Representatives claim they have addressed the problems of theNational Security Agency’s (NSA) notorious bulk collection of data, made so famous last year by whistleblower Edward Snowden. But the legislation adopted to end this controversial practice contains huge loopholes that could allow the NSA to keep vacuuming up large amounts of Americans’ communications records, all with the blessing of the Obama administration. Dubbed the USA Freedom Act, the bill overwhelmingly approved by the House (303 to 121) was criticized for not going far enough to keep data out of the hands of government. “This so-called reform bill won’t restore the trust of Internet users in the U.S. and around the world,” Cynthia Wong, senior Internet researcher at Human Rights Watch (HRW), said. “Until Congress passes real reform, U.S. credibility and leadership on Internet freedom will continue to fade.” Julian Sanchez, a researcher at the Cato Institute, a libertarian think tank, warned that the changes could mean the continuation of bulk collection of phone records by another name. “The core problem is that this only ends ‘bulk’ collection in the sense the intelligence community uses that term,” Sanchez told Wired. “As long as there’s some kind of target, they don’t call that bulk collection, even if you’re still collecting millions of records…If they say ‘give us the record of everyone who visited these thousand websites,’ that’s not bulk collection, because they have a list of targets.” HRW says the bill, which now goes to the Senate for consideration, contains ambiguous definitions about what can and cannot be collected by the agency. For instance, an earlier version more clearly defined the scope of what the NSA could grab under Section 215 of the Patriot Act, which has formed the legal basis for gathering the metadata of phone calls. “Under an earlier version of the USA Freedom Act, the government would have been required to base any demand for phone metadata or other records on a “specific selection term” that “uniquely describe[s] a person, entity, or account.” Under the House version, this definition was broadened to mean “a discrete term, such as a term specifically identifying a person, entity, account, address, or device, used by the government to limit the scope” of information sought,” according to Human Rights Watch. “This definition is too open-ended and ambiguous to prevent the sort of creative interpretation by intelligence agencies that has been used to justify overbroad collection practices in the past,” the group claims. The New America Foundation’s Open Technology Institute is similarly disappointed in the final House bill. “Taken together,” the Institute wrote, “the changes to this definition may still allow for massive collection of millions of Americans’ private information based on very broad selection terms such as a zip code, an area code, the physical address of a particular email provider or financial institution, or the IP address of a web hosting service that hosts thousands of web sites.

1AC Plan

The United States federal government should substantially curtail its domestic surveillance by increasing restrictions on bulk collection of domestic phone, internet, email, and-or associated electronic records. This should include, at least, requiring use of a “specific selection term” to satisfy the “reasonable, articulable suspicion standard”, requiring “super minimization” procedures that delete information obtained about a person not connected to the investigation, and requiring meaningful disclosure and limitation of so-called “backdoor” searches currently authorized under Section 702 of the FISA Amendments Act.

1AC Econ AdvantageAdvantage: EconomySluggish economic growth dooms recoveryDonald Lambro, 6-11-2015, "DONALD LAMBRO: Failing U.S. economy," Washingtion Times, http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2015/jun/11/donald-lambro-failing-us-economy/?page=all

All of the euphoric stories you’ve read lately about the surging job market should include one of these cautionary notes: “This report omits all negative data,” or “read down to the very bottom where we’ve buried the bad stuff.” Consider The Washington Post’s front-page headline last week that gushingly characterized the Labor Department’s minimal monthly employment numbers as a “jobs boom.” The Bureau of Labor Statistics says that the economy produced 280,000 new jobs in May. However, this isn’t anywhere near a hiring boom, especially in a country of nearly 160 million workers, many of whom still can’t find a good full-time job. In 1983, after a severe recession when unemployment climbed to more than 10 percent at one point, the Reagan economy created 1.1 million jobs just in September. That’s a jobs boom. But this isn’t — not when “there are still more than 8.6 million workers without jobs who want them,” says the Business Insider. To be fair, The Washington Post admitted that not everything was coming up roses, and that “there is room for improvement” on the jobs front. But it buried those negative figures at the end of a very long story. Among them: “About 2.5 million people have been out of work for six months or longer, while nearly 7 million are in part-time jobs even though they would like [and need] full-time positions .” “You’ve got a lot of people who are trading one struggle, which is unemployment, for another struggle, which is underemployment,” Jason Richardson, research director at the National Community Reinvestment Coalition, told the newspaper. This is still a weak economy that can’t seem to get its economic growth rate above the 2 percent to low-3 percent range — where the really big employment numbers come from. With the Obama economy’s growth rate plunging to minus 0.7 percent in the first quarter, economists aren’t looking for a strong job surge anytime soon. Global forecasters look at President Obama’s dismal record and wonder why the largest economy in the world cannot break out of its economic lethargy. The International Monetary Fund said last week that it doesn’t see the U.S. economy doing any better than, at best, a pathetic 2.5 percent this year. In fact, the IMF’s forecast for the United States was so

dour that it urged the Federal Reserve to delay raising interest rates until mid-2016 because of the economy’s subpar performance. U.S. business executives are just as pessimistic about the economy’s future, according to a survey of 128 CEOs

for the Business Roundtable’s Economic Outlook report. Its findings: The country’s CEOs say they intend to hire and invest at a significantly lower rate over the next six months. Equally worrisome, they’re forecasting that the Obama economy will expand at a tepid

2.5 percent this year. “These results are consistent with an economy that operates below its potential capacity,” said Randall Stephenson, chairman and CEO of AT&T, in a conference call with reporters. “Industrial production is down and we view that as a concern,” he said.

Pervasive surveillance costs the US billions, severely harms competitiveness and has led to a wave of protectionism. Now is the time for reform.DANIEL CASTRO AND ALAN MCQUINN | JUNE 2015 Beyond the USA Freedom Act: How U.S. Surveillance Still Subverts U.S. Competitiveness http://www2.itif.org/2015-beyond-usa-freedom-act.pdf?_ga=1.86597016.1417756247.1435604368

Almost two years ago, ITIF described how revelations about pervasive digital surveillance by the U.S. intelligence community could severely harm the competitiveness of the United States if foreign customers turned away from U.S.-made technology and services.1 Since then, U.S. policymakers have failed to take sufficient action to address these surveillance concerns; in some cases, they have even fanned the flames of discontent by championing weak information security practices. 2 In addition, other countries have used anger over U.S. government surveillance as a cover for implementing a new wave of protectionist policies specifically targeting information technology. The combined result is a set of policies both at home and abroad that sacrifices robust competitiveness of the U.S. tech sector for vague and unconvincing promises of improved national security. ITIF estimated in 2013 that even a modest drop in the expected foreign market share for cloud computing stemming from concerns about U.S. surveillance could cost the United States between $21.5 billion and $35 billion by 2016.3 Since then,

it has become clear that the U.S. tech industry as a whole, not just the cloud computing sector, has underperformed as a result of the Snowden revelations. Therefore, the economic impact of U.S. surveillance practices will likely far exceed ITIF’s initial $35 billion estimate. This report catalogues a wide range of specific examples of the economic harm that has been done to U.S. businesses. In short, foreign customers are shunning U.S. companies. The policy implication of this is clear: Now that Congress has reformed how the National Security Agency (NSA) collects bulk domestic phone records and allowed private firms—rather than the government—to collect and store approved data, it is time to address other controversial digital surveillance activities by the U.S. intelligence community. 4

The damage to our economy will be significant and lasting. Surveillance programs doom the future competitiveness of American technology and other companies.Danielle Kehl, et.al (with Kevin Bankston, Robyn Greene & Robert Morgus) New America’s Open Technology Institute July 2014 Policy Paper Surveillance Costs: The NSA’s Impact on the Economy, Internet Freedom & Cybersecurity

https://www.newamerica.org/downloads/Surveilance_Costs_Final.pdf

It is abundantly clear that the NSA surveillance programs are currently having a serious, negative impact on the U.S. economy and threatening the future competitiveness of American technology companies. Not only are U.S. companies losing overseas sales and getting dropped from contracts with foreign companies and governments—they are also watching their competitive advantage in fast-growing industries like cloud computing and webhosting disappear, opening the door for foreign companies who claim to offer “more secure” alternative products to poach their business. Industry efforts to increase transparency and accountability as well as concrete steps to promote better security by adopting encryption and other best practices are positive signs, but U.S. companies cannot solve this problem alone. “It’s not blowing over,” said Microsoft General Counsel Brad Smith at a recent conference. “In June of 2014, it is clear it is getting worse, not better.”98 Without meaningful government reform and better oversight, concerns about the breadth of NSA surveillance could lead to permanent shifts in the global technology market and do lasting damage to the U.S. economy.

Economic decline leads to global conflict and instabilityAuslin 09 (Michael, Resident Scholar – American Enterprise Institute, and Desmond Lachman – Resident Fellow – American Enterprise Institute, “The Global Economy Unravels”, Forbes, 3-6, http://www.aei.org/article/100187)

What do these trends mean in the short and medium term? The Great Depression showed how social and global chaos followed hard on economic collapse. The mere fact that parliaments across the globe, from America to Japan, are unable to make responsible, economically sound recovery plans suggests that they do not know what to do and are simply hoping for the least disruption. Equally worrisome is the adoption of more statist economic programs around the globe, and the concurrent decline of trust in free-market systems.

The threat of instability is a pressing concern. China, until last year the world's fastest growing economy, just reported that 20

million migrant laborers lost their jobs. Even in the flush times of recent years, China faced upward of 70,000 labor uprisings a year. A sustained downturn poses grave and possibly immediate threats to Chinese internal stability . The regime in Beijing may be faced with a choice of repressing its own people or diverting their energies outward, leading to conflict with China's

neighbors. Russia, an oil state completely dependent on energy sales, has had to put down riots in its Far East as well as in downtown Moscow. Vladimir Putin's rule has been predicated on squeezing civil liberties while providing economic largesse. If that

devil's bargain falls apart, then wide-scale repression inside Russia, along with a continuing threatening posture toward Russia's neighbors, is likely. Even apparently stable societies face increasing risk and the threat of internal or possibly external conflict. As Japan's exports have plummeted by nearly 50%, one-third of the country's prefectures have passed emergency economic stabilization plans. Hundreds of thousands of temporary employees hired during the first part of this decade are being laid off. Spain's unemployment rate is expected to climb to nearly 20% by the end of 2010; Spanish unions are already protesting the lack of jobs, and the specter of violence, as occurred in the 1980s, is haunting the country. Meanwhile, in Greece, workers have already taken to the streets.

Europe as a whole will face dangerously increasing tensions between native citizens and immigrants, largely from poorer Muslim nations, who have increased the labor pool in the past several decades. Spain has absorbed five million immigrants since 1999, while nearly 9% of Germany's residents have foreign citizenship, including almost 2 million Turks. The xenophobic labor strikes in the U.K. do not

bode well for the rest of Europe. A prolonged global downturn, let alone a collapse, would dramatically raise tensions inside these countries. Couple that with possible protectionist legislation in the United States, unresolved ethnic and territorial disputes in all regions of the globe and a loss of confidence that world leaders actually know what

they are doing. The result may be a series of small explosions that coalesce into a big bang.

Protectionism escalates into dangerous confrontations that lead to extinction

Panzer 8 Michael J. Panzner, Faculty – New York Institute of Finance. Specializes in Global Capital Markets. MA Columbia, Financial Armageddon: Protect Your Future from Economic Collapse, Revised and Updated Edition [Paperback], p. 137-138

Continuing calls for curbs on the flow of finance and trade will inspire the United States and other nations to spew forth protectionist legislation like the notorious Smoot-Hawley bill . Introduced at the start of the Great Depression, it triggered a series of

tit-for-tat economic responses , which many commentators believe helped turn a serious economic downturn into a

prolonged and devastating global disaster . But if history is any guide, those lessons will have been long forgotten during the next collapse.

Eventually, fed by a mood of desperation and growing public anger , restrictions on trade, finance,

investment, and immigration will almost certainly intensify . Authorities and ordinary citizens will likely scrutinize the cross-

border movement of Americans and outsiders alike, and lawmakers may even call for a general crackdown on nonessential travel. Meanwhile, many nations will make transporting or sending funds to other countries exceedingly difficult . As desperate officials try to limit the fallout from decades of ill-conceived, corrupt, and reckless policies, they will introduce controls on foreign exchange. Foreign individuals and companies seeking to acquire certain American infrastructure assets, or trying to buy property and other assets on the cheap thanks to a rapidly depreciating dollar, will be stymied by

limits on investment by noncitizens. Those efforts will cause spasms to ripple across economies and markets,

disrupting global payment, settlement, and clearing mechanisms. All of this will, of course, continue to undermine business confidence and consumer spending. In a world of lockouts and lockdowns, any link that transmits systemic financial pressures across markets through arbitrage or portfolio-based risk management, or that allows diseases to be easily spread from one country to the next

by tourists and wildlife, or that otherwise facilitates unwelcome exchanges of any kind will be viewed with suspicion and dealt with accordingly. The rise in

isolationism and protectionism will bring about ever more heated arguments and dangerous

confrontations over shared sources of oil, gas, and other key commodities as well as factors of

production that must, out of necessity, be acquired from less-than-friendly nations. Whether involving raw materials used in

strategic industries or basic necessities such as food, water, and energy, efforts to secure adequate supplies will take increasing precedence in a world where demand seems constantly out of kilter with supply . Disputes over the misuse, overuse,

and pollution of the environment and natural resources will become more commonplace. Around the world, such

tensions will give rise to full-scale military encounters , often with minimal provocation . In some instances,

economic conditions will serve as a convenient pretext for conflicts that stem from cultural and

religious differences . Alternatively, nations may look to divert attention away from domestic problems by

channeling frustration and populist sentiment toward other countries and cultures . Enabled by cheap technology and

the waning threat of American retribution, terrorist groups will likely boost the frequency and scale of their horrifying

attacks , bringing the threat of random violence to a whole new level. Turbulent conditions will encourage aggressive saber

rattling and interdictions by rogue nations running amok. Age-old clashes will also take on a new, more heated sense of

urgency. China will likely assume an increasingly belligerent posture toward Taiwan, while Iran may

embark on overt colonization of its neighbors in the Mideast. Israel, for its part, may look to draw a

dwindling list of allies from around the world into a growing number of conflicts . Some observers, like John Mearsheimer, a political scientist at the University of Chicago, have even speculated that an “intense confrontation” between the United States and China is “inevitable” at some point. More than a few disputes will turn out to be almost wholly ideological. Growing cultural and religious differences will be transformed

from wars of words to battles soaked in blood. Long-simmering resentments could also degenerate quickly , spurring the

basest of human instincts and triggering genocidal acts . Terrorists employing biological or nuclear

weapons will vie with conventional forces using jets, cruise missiles, and bunker-busting bombs to cause

widespread destruction. Many will interpret stepped-up conflicts between Muslims and Western

societies as the beginnings of a new world war.

Economics is the best explanation for the functioning of conflictGartzke 12

Erik Gartzke is Associate Professor of Political Science and Yonatan Lupu is a Ph.D. candidate in political science, both at the University of California, San Diego, International Security, Spring 2012, 36:4, “Trading on Preconceptions”, http://pages.ucsd.edu/~egartzke/publications/gartzke_is_2012.pdf

The most traditional approach to the relationship between economic relations and conflict focuses on explaining how economic ties linking nations change the incentives of actors in the international system. Beginning in the

modern era, scholar-statesmen such as Richard Cobden and Norman Angell argued that interdependence, primarily in the

form of interstate trade, raises the opportunity costs of war, thus making contests less likely. The logic of these arguments is that a war between trading partners would likely disrupt that trade, forcing states to seek other markets. This would require a shift to different, less lucrative, trade partners.3 Others argue that, as trade increases, states can achieve gains more efficiently through economic means than through warfare. In other words, when states can grow their economies through international commerce, there is a decreased incentive to attempt to

do so through territorial conflict.4 Open financial and goods markets may also create similar disincentives for states to fight.5

The notion that international trade is associated with a decreased likelihood of conflict has found significant empirical support. A series of studies using events data found that higher levels of trade interdependence (defined as trade/gross domestic product [GDP]) are associated with lower probabilities of

interstate war.6 Other studies have built on this research to demonstrate that the finding is robust to

alternate specifications of the temporal domain and unit of analysis.7 The relationship between trade and conflict is likely more complex than initially theorized. First, high levels of trade dependence may embolden a state’s opponents.8 Responding to this critique, Patrick McDonald argues that scholars must shift their focus from aggregate trade flows to the extent to which states pursue free trade policies.9 Han Dorussen offers another important theoretical refinement, noting that the opportunity costs of conflict created by different types of trade vary significantly. Two factors he points to that raise the opportunity costs of conflict created by trade are lower factor mobility and higher asset specificity.10 Finally, the effects of trade interdependence may be contingent on the mediating effects of democracy.11

One strain of research focuses on ways that trade may make conflict less likely through mechanisms other than raising the opportunity costs of war. Etel Solingen, for example, argues that trade allows domestic actors to build cross-national coalitions that both promote greater interdependence and cause convergent transformations in state preferences.12 Along related lines, Paul Papayoanou argues that economic relations create strong domestic-level interests that delimit a leader’s ability to credibly counter external threats or challenges. 13 Building on these arguments, several scholars have constructed what is sometimes known as the “commercial peace” or “capitalist peace” view of the relationship between economics and war. They argue that interdependence mollifies the effects of states’ security dilemmas by creating common interests and reducing uncertainty. Although the bulk of the work on interdependence and conflict focuses on trade,14 other forms of transnational economic relations are also crucial. Erik Gartzke, Quan Li, and Charles Boehmer argue that, along with trade, interstate monetary policy cooperation and capital flows reduce the likelihood of conflict by allowing states in crisis situations to send costly signals without needing to resort to violence or crisis escalation that may precipitate violence.15 Building on this, Gartzke argues

that interdependence—defined as including trade, development, open financial markets, and monetary policy coordination

—reduces conflict by (1) aligning states’ interests, which gives them less to fight over; (2) providing a means of peacefully securing resources; and (3) allowing states to foresee the costs of fighting, which facilitates bargaining and compromise.16

Growth solves conflict – best studies proveJedidiah Royal 10, Director of Cooperative Threat Reduction at the U.S. Department of Defense, “Economic Integration, Economic Signalling And The Problem Of Economic Crises”, in Economics of War and Peace: Economic, Legal and Political Perspectives, ed. Goldsmith and Brauer, p. 213-215

Less intuitive is how periods of economic decline may increase the likelihood of external conflict. Political science literature has contributed a moderate degree of attention to the impact of economic decline and the security and defence behaviour of interdependent states. Research in this vein has been considered at systemic, dyadic and national levels. Several notable contributions follow.

First, on the systemic level, Pollins (2008) advances Modelski and Thompson’s (1996) work on leadership cycle theory, finding that rhythms in the global economy are associated with the rise and fall of pre-eminent power and the often bloody transition from one pre-eminent leader to the next. As such, exogenous shocks such as economic crises could usher in a redistribution of relative power (see also Gilpin, 10981) that leads to uncertainty about power balances, increasing the risk of miscalculation (Fearon, 1995). Alternatively, even a relatively certain redistribution of power could lead to a permissive environment for conflict as a rising power may seek to challenge a declining power (Werner, 1999). Seperately, Polllins (1996) also shows that global economic cycles combined with parallel leadership cycles impact the likelihood of conflict among major, medium, and small powers, although he suggests that the causes and connections between global economic conditions and security conditions remain unknown. Second, on a dyadic level, Copeland’s (1996,2000) theory of trade expectations suggests that ‘future expectation of trade’ is a significant variable in understanding economic conditions and

security behavior of states. He argues that interdependent states are likely to gain pacific benefits from trade so

long as they have an optimistic view of future trade relations. However, if the expectation of future trade decline, particularly for difficult to replace items such as energy resources, the likelihood for conflict increases , as states will be inclined to use force to gain access to those resources. Crises could potentially be the trigger for decreased trade expectations either on its own or because it triggers protectionist moves by interdependent states. Third, others

have considered the link between economic decline and external armed conflict at a national level. Blomberg and Hess (2002) find a strong correlation between internal conflict and external conflict, particularly during periods of economic downturn. They write, The linkages between internal and external conflict and prosperity are strong and mutually reinforcing.

Economic conflict tends to spawn internal conflict, which in turn returns the favour. Moreover, the presence of a recession tends to amplify the extent to which international and external conflicts self-reinforce each other . (Blomberg & Hess, 2002, p.89). Economic decline has also been linked with an increase in the likelihood of terrorism (Blomberg, Hess, & Weerapana, 2004), which has the capacity to spill across borders and lead to external tensions. Furthermore, crises generally reduce the popularity of a sitting

government. ‘Diversionary theory’ suggests that, when facing unpopularity arising from economic decline, sitting governments have increased incentives to create a ‘rally round the flag’ effect. Wang (1996), DeRouen (1995), and Blomberg, Hess and Thacker (2006) find supporting evidence showing that economic decline and use of force are at least indirectly correlated. Gelpi (1997) Miller (1999) and Kisanganie and Pickering (2009) suggest that the tendency towards diversionary tactics are greater for democratic states than autocratic states, due to the fact that democratic leaders are generally more susceptible to being removed from

office due to lack of domestic support. DeRouen (2000) has provided evidence showing that periods of weak economic performance in the United States, and thus weak presidential popularity, are statistically linked to an increase in the use of force.

1AC Internet freedom Advantage Advantage: Internet FreedomFailure to reform NSA bulk data collection undermines US interests in promoting internet freedom; and will bleed over into foreign policy credibility in general. Danielle Kehl, et.al (with Kevin Bankston, Robyn Greene & Robert Morgus) New America’s Open Technology Institute July 2014 Policy Paper Surveillance Costs: The NSA’s Impact on the Economy, Internet Freedom & Cybersecurity

https://www.newamerica.org/downloads/Surveilance_Costs_Final.pdf

Mandatory data localization proposals are just one of a number of ways that foreign governments have reacted to NSA surveillance in a manner that threatens U.S. foreign policy interests, particularly with regard to Internet Freedom. There has been a quiet tension between how the U.S. approaches freedom of expression online in its foreign policy and its domestic laws ever since Secretary of State Hillary Clinton effectively launched the Internet Freedom agenda in January 2010.170 But the NSA disclosures shined a bright spotlight on the contradiction: the U.S. government promotes free expression abroad and aims to prevent repressive governments from monitoring and censoring their citizens while simultaneously supporting domestic laws that authorize surveillance and bulk data collection. As cybersecurity expert and Internet governance scholar Ron Deibert wrote a few days after the first revelations: “There are unintended consequences of the NSA scandal that will undermine U.S. foreign policy interests – in particular, the ‘Internet Freedom’ agenda espoused by the U.S. State Department and its allies.”171 Deibert accurately predicted that the news would trigger reactions from both policymakers and ordinary citizens abroad, who would begin to question their dependence on American technologies and the hidden motivations behind the United States’ promotion of Internet Freedom. In some countries, the scandal would be used as an excuse to revive dormant debates about dropping American companies from official contracts, score political points at the expense of the United States, and even justify local monitoring and surveillance. Deibert’s speculation has so far proven quite prescient. As we will describe in this section, the ongoing revelations have done significant damage to the credibility of the U.S. Internet Freedom agenda and further jeopardized the United States’ position in the global Internet governance debates. Moreover, the repercussions from NSA spying have bled over from the Internet policy realm to impact broader U.S. foreign policy goals and relationships with government officials and a range of other important stakeholders abroad. In an essay entitled, “The End of Hypocrisy: American Foreign Policy in the Age of Leaks,” international relations scholars Henry Farrell and Martha Finnemore argue that a critical, lasting impact of information provided by leakers like Edward Snowden is “the documented confirmation they provide of what the United States is actually doing and why. When these deeds turn out to clash with the government’s public rhetoric, as they so often do, it becomes harder for U.S. allies to overlook Washington’s covert behavior and easier for U.S. adversaries to justify their own.”172 Toward the end of the essay, Farrell and Finnemore suggest, “The U.S. government, its friends, and its foes can no longer plausibly deny the dark side of U.S. foreign policy and will have to address it head-on.” Indeed, the U.S. is currently working to repair damaged bilateral and multilateral relations with countries from Germany and France to Russia and Israel,173 and it is likely that the effects of the NSA disclosures will be felt for years in fields far beyond Internet policy.174

Additionally, failure to reform bulk internet data collection is used as justification by countries, like China, for expansion of internet censorship Danielle Kehl, et.al (with Kevin Bankston, Robyn Greene & Robert Morgus) New America’s Open Technology Institute July 2014 Policy Paper Surveillance Costs: The NSA’s Impact on the Economy, Internet Freedom & Cybersecurity

https://www.newamerica.org/downloads/Surveilance_Costs_Final.pdf

Moreover, revelations of what the NSA has been doing in the past decade are eroding the moral high ground that the United States has often relied upon when putting public pressure on authoritarian countries like China, Russia, and Iran to change their behavior. In 2014, Reporters Without Borders added the United States to its “Enemies of the Internet” list for the first time, explicitly linking the inclusion to NSA surveillance. “The main player in [the United States’] vast surveillance operation is the highly secretive National Security Agency (NSA) which, in the light of Snowden’s revelations, has come to symbolize the abuses by the world’s intelligence agencies,” noted the 2014 report.207 The damaged perception of the United States208 as a leader on Internet Freedom and its diminished ability to legitimately criticize other countries for censorship and surveillance opens the door for foreign leaders to justify—and even expand— their own efforts.209 For example, the Egyptian government recently announced plans to monitor social media for potential terrorist activity, prompting backlash from a number of advocates for free expression and privacy.210 When a spokesman for the Egyptian Interior Ministry, Abdel Fatah Uthman, appeared on television to explain the policy, one justification that he offered in response to privacy concerns was that “the US listens in to phone calls, and supervises anyone who could threaten its national security.”211 This type of rhetoric makes it difficult for the U.S. to effectively criticize such a policy. Similarly, India’s comparatively mild response to allegations of NSA surveillance have been seen by some critics “as a reflection of India’s own aspirations in the world of surveillance,” a further indication that U.S. spying may now make it easier for foreign governments to quietly defend their own behavior.212 It is even more difficult for the United States to credibly indict Chinese hackers for breaking into U.S. government and commercial targets without fear of retribution in light of the NSA revelations.213 These challenges reflect an overall decline in U.S. soft power on free expression issues.

Internet freedom is key to solve all impactsGenachowski and Bollinger 2013 (Julius [Chairman of the FCC] and Lee [President of Columbia U]; The plot to block internet freedom; Apr 16; www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2013/04/16/plot_block_internet_freedom?page=full

The Internet has created an extraordinary new democratic forum for people around the world to express their opinions. It i s revolutionizing global access to information : Today, more than 1 billion people worldwide have access to the Internet, and at

current growth rates, 5 billion people -- about 70 percent of the world's population -- will be connected in five years. But this growth trajectory is not inevitable , and threats are mounting to the global spread of an open and truly "worldwide" web. The expansion of the open Internet must be allowed to continue: The mobile

and social media revolutions are critical not only f or democratic institutions' ability to solve the collective problems of a shrinking world, but also to a dynamic and innovative global economy that depends on financial

transparency and the free flow of information. The threats to the open Internet were on stark display at last December's World Conference on International Telecommunications in Dubai, where the United States fought attempts by a number of countries -- including Russia, China, and Saudi Arabia -- to give a U.N. organization, the International Telecommunication Union (ITU), new regulatory

authority over the Internet. Ultimately, over the objection of the United States and many others, 89 countries voted to approve a treaty that could strengthen the power of governments to control online content and deter broadband deployment. In Dubai, two deeply worrisome trends came to a head. First, we see that the Arab Spring

and similar events have awakened nondemocratic governments to the danger that the Internet poses to their regimes. In Dubai, they pushed for a treaty that would give the ITU's imprimatur to governments' blocking or favoring of online content under the guise of preventing spam and increasing network security. Authoritarian countries' real goal is to legitimize content regulation, opening the door for governments to block any content they do not like, such as political speech. Second, the basic commercial model underlying the open Internet is also under threat. In particular, some proposals, like the one made last year by major European network operators, would change the ground rules for payments for transferring Internet content. One species of these proposals is called "sender pays" or "sending party pays." Since the beginning of the Internet, content creators -- individuals, news outlets, search engines, social media sites -- have been able to make their content available to Internet users without paying a fee to Internet service providers. A sender-pays rule would change that, empowering governments to require Internet content creators to pay a fee to connect with an end user in that country. Sender pays may look merely like a commercial issue, a different way to divide the pie. And proponents of sender pays and similar changes claim they would benefit Internet deployment and Internet users. But the opposite is true: If a country imposed a payment requirement, content creators

would be less likely to serve that country. The loss of content would make the Internet less attractive and would lessen demand for the deployment of Internet infrastructur e in that country. Repeat the process in a few more countries, and the growth of global connectivity -- as well as its attendant benefits for democracy -- would slow dramatically. So too would the benefits accruing to the global economy. Without continuing improvements in transparency and information sharing, the innovation that springs from new commercial ideas and creative breakthroughs is sure to be severely

inhibited. To their credit, American Internet service providers have joined with the broader U.S. technology industry, civil society, and others in opposing these changes. Together, we were able to win the battle in Dubai over sender pays, but we have not yet won the war. Issues affecting global Internet openness, broadband deployment, and free speech will return in upcoming international forums, including an important meeting in Geneva in May, the World Telecommunication/ICT Policy Forum. The massive investment in wired and wireless broadband infrastructure in the United States demonstrates that preserving an open Internet is completely compatible with broadband deployment. According to a recent UBS report, annual wireless capital investment in the United States increased 40 percent from 2009 to 2012, while investment in the rest of the world has barely inched upward. And according to the Information Technology and Innovation Foundation, more fiber-optic cable was laid in the United States in 2011 and 2012 than in any

year since 2000, and 15 percent more than in Europe. All Internet users lose something when some countries are cut off from the World Wide Web. Each person who is unable to connect to the Internet diminishes our own access to information. We become less able to understand the world and formulate policies to respond to our shrinking planet . Conversely, we gain a richer understanding of global events as more people connect around the world, and those societies nurturing nascent democracy movements become more familiar with America's traditions of free speech and pluralism. That's

why we believe that the Internet should remain free of gatekeepers and that no entity -- public or private -- should be able to pick and choose the information web users can receive. That is a principle the United States adopted in the Federal Communications Commission's 2010 Open Internet Order. And it's why we are deeply concerned about arguments by some in the United States that broadband providers should be able to block, edit, or favor Internet traffic that travels over their networks, or adopt economic models similar to

international sender pays. We must preserve the Internet as the most open and robust platform for the free exchange of information ever devised. Keeping the Internet open is perhaps the most important free speech issue of our time.

Otherwise extinction is inevitableEagleman 10 [David Eagleman is a neuroscientist at Baylor College of Medicine, where he directs the Laboratory for Perception and Action and the Initiative on Neuroscience and Law and author of Sum (Canongate). Nov. 9, 2010, “ Six ways the internet will save civilization,” http://www.wired.co.uk/magazine/archive/2010/12/start/apocalypse-no]

Many great civilisations have fallen, leaving nothing but cracked ruins and scattered genetics. Usually this results from: natural disasters, resource depletion, economic meltdown, disease, poor information flow and corruption. But we’re luckier than our predecessors because we command a technology that no one else possessed: a rapid communication network that finds its highest expression in the internet. I propose that there are six ways in which the net has vastly reduced the threat of societal collapse. Epidemics can be deflected by telepresence One of our more dire prospects for collapse is an infectious-disease epidemic. Viral and bacterial epidemics precipitated the fall of t he Golden Age of Athens , the Roman Empire and most of the empires of the Native Americans. The internet can be our key to survival because the ability to work telepresently can inhibit microbial transmission by reducing human-to-human contact. In the face of an otherwise devastating epidemic, businesses can keep supply chains running with the maximum number of employees working from home. This can reduce host density below the tipping point required for an epidemic. If we are well prepared when an epidemic arrives , we can fluidly shift into a self-quarantined society in which microbes fail due to host scarcity. Whatever the social ills of isolation, they are worse for the microbes than for us. The internet will predict natural disasters We are witnessing the downfall of slow central control in the media : news stories are increasingly becoming user-generated nets of up-to-the-minute information. During the recent California wildfires, locals went to the TV stations to learn whether their neighbourhoods were in danger. But the news stations appeared most concerned with the fate of celebrity mansions, so Californians changed their tack: they uploaded geotagged mobile-phone pictures, updated Facebook statuses and tweeted. The balance tipped: the internet carried news about the fire more quickly and accurately than any news station could. In this grass-roots, decentralised scheme, there were embedded reporters on every block, and the news shockwave kept ahead of the fire. This head start could provide the extra hours that save us. If the Pompeiians had had the internet in 79AD, they could have easily marched 10km to safety, well ahead of the pyroclastic flow from Mount Vesuvius. If the Indian Ocean had the Pacific’s networked tsunami-warning system, South-East Asia would look quite different today. Discoveries are retained and shared Historically, critical information has required constant rediscovery. Collections of learning -- from the library at Alexandria to the entire Minoan civilisation -- have fallen to the bonfires of invaders or the wrecking ball of natural disaster. Knowledge is hard won but easily lost. And information that survives often does not spread. Consider smallpox inoculation: this was under way in India, China and Africa centuries before it made its way to Europe. By the time the idea reached North America, native civilisations who needed it had already collapsed. The net solved the problem. New discoveries catch on immediately; information spreads widely. In this way, societies can optimally ratchet up, using the latest bricks of knowledge in their fortification against risk. Tyranny is mitigated Censorship of ideas was a familiar spectre in the last century, with state-approved news outlets ruling the press, airwaves and copying machines in the USSR, Romania, Cuba, China, Iraq and elsewhere. In many cases, such as Lysenko’s agricultural despotism in the USSR, it directly contributed to the collapse of the nation. Historically, a more successful strategy has been to confront free speech with free speech -- and the internet allows this in a natural way. It democratises the flow of information by offering access to the newspapers of the world, the photographers of every nation, the bloggers of every political stripe. Some posts are full of doctoring and dishonesty whereas others strive for independence and impartiality -- but all are available to us to sift through. Given the attempts by some governments to build firewalls, it’s clear that this benefit of the net requires constant vigilance. Human capital is vastly increased Crowdsourcing brings people together to solve problems. Yet far fewer than one per cent of the world’s population is involved. We need expand human capital.

Most of the world not have access to the education afforded a small minority. For every Albert Einstein, Yo-Yo Ma or Barack Obama who has educational opportunities, uncountable others do not. This squandering of talent translates into reduced economic output and a smaller pool of problem solvers. The net opens the gates education to anyone with a computer. A motivated teen anywhere on the planet can walk through the world’s knowledge -- from the webs of Wikipedia to the curriculum of MIT’s OpenCourseWare. The new human capital will serve us well when we confront existential threats

we’ve never imagined before. Energy expenditure is reduced Societal collapse can often be understood in terms of an energy budget: when energy spend outweighs energy return, collapse ensues. This has taken the form of deforestation or soil erosion; currently, the worry involves fossil-fuel depletion. The internet addresses the energy problem with a natural ease. Consider the massive energy savings inherent in the shift from paper to electrons -- as seen in the transition from the post to email. Ecommerce reduces the need to drive long distances to purchase products. Delivery trucks are more eco-friendly than individuals driving around, not least because of tight packaging and optimisation algorithms for driving routes. Of course, there are energy costs to the banks of computers that underpin the internet -- but these costs are less than the wood, coal and oil that would be expended for the same quantity of information flow. The tangle of events that triggers societal collapse can be complex, and there are several threats the net does not address. But vast, networked communication can be an antidote to several of the most deadly diseases threatening civilisation. The next time your coworker laments internet addiction, the banality of tweeting or the decline of face-to-face conversation, you may want to suggest that the net may just be the technology that saves us.

Chinese censorship is unsustainable—will weaken economic growth and soft powerC. Custer, 12-18-2012, Chinese cultural expert, degree in East Asian studies, Tech In Asia, "Web of Failure: How China's Internet Policies Have Doomed Chinese Soft Power," Tech in Asia, https://www.techinasia.com/failure-china-internet-policies-doomed-chinese-soft-power

A Death Blow to Business China: Taking the “inter” out of the internet.What’s effective in fostering stability is, I’ll admit, debatable, but it’s less debatable that China’s internet policies have had a strong negative impact on businesses . If the recent blocking of foreign VPNs proves to be the new normal — and we have every sign that that is the case — I expect numerous foreign businesses to move some or all of their operations out of China. In addition to the fact that many businesses use blocked web services for communication and marketing, VPNs provide a crucial layer of security to corporate communications by encrypting the connection of those using the service. Without that layer of security, companies worried about cyber attacks, IP theft, and corporate espionage are going to be pretty exposed, and some of them will inevitably decide that the advantages of doing business in China are outweighed by the potential costs of having products or plans stolen by competitors.

(True, many businesses use their own VPNs rather than the commercially-available ones that are currently blocked. But the Chinese government has said that all foreign-run VPNs are illegal unless they register with and are approved by MIIT, which none of them have.)But the Great Firewall doesn’t just damage foreign companies in China, it is also crippling to Chinese companies that are looking to expand globally . Without access to social media tools like Facebook and Twitter, Chinese web companies are at a significant disadvantage when it comes to everything from market research to actual marketing. And although companies can establish overseas offices or find other ways to circumvent censorship and access these platforms, with all of them so widely blocked in China, there’s little impetus for Chinese

developers to try to work with them. Chinese startups are focused on developing products that work with Chinese social platforms like Weibo, and that’s great, but it ultimately limits the scalability and global relevance of their products. At present, China’s regulatory environment might encourage the development of some truly remarkable domestic services, but it is difficult to imagine a globally dominant web startup from China because the Chinese internet is so thoroughly walled off from the rest of the world.Soft Power in Chains

Of course, the Great Firewall does more than just prevent Chinese web services from going global; it is also a huge hindrance for Chinese cultural exports . I was reminded of this just recently while writing about the award Korea’s Ministry of Culture gave to Google because Youtube has been such an effective platform to spread Korean culture. In China, the success of Korean pop star PSY’s Gangnam Style video prompted a lot of discussion about whether China could ever produce its own PSY. I’m not sure what the answer to that question is, but it is irrelevant, because even if China could produce its own PSY, it could never export it. PSY’s song exploded in large part because his video went viral on Youtube which — surprise, surprise — is blocked in China.Now granted, even if VPNs were totally blocked, a Chinese PSY could just fly out of China with a USB stick and upload his video to Youtube from abroad. But I highly doubt the global response would be the same, because whether we’re aware of it or not, a big part of enjoying any cultural experience is interaction. Gangnam Style was catchy and weird — certainly China can produce something like that — but it ultimately also got the Western media to interact with Korea and Korean culture, and we all learned a little something about the Gangnam district and Korean satire along the way.That is the part of Gangnam Style that China could never produce, because the government actively discourages that sort of interaction. While it wants to promote Chinese culture, it does not believe that pop music — and certainly not politically satirical pop music — has any place in that promotional effort. Instead, the government pushes Confucius and other valuable-but-unappealing-and-mostly-irrelevant aspects of Chinese culture to Westerners while keeping its citizens and whatever culture they create quiet. Chinese and foreign net users are carefully segregated, and while China is happy to use foreign platforms to promote the party line through official channels like Xinhua, it is unwilling to trust its own people with access to almost any foreign social communication platforms. The problem (for China’s government) is that culture doesn’t work that way. Great cultural works are rarely produced by the state; they are produced by artists, creatives, academics, entrepreneurs and other regular people. Chinese artists have produced many great works, but China’s government is generally not willing to let these people communicate directly with the outside world . In an age where global communication and cultural broadcasting is simpler and more direct than ever before, China has shackled its own soft power by ensuring that its cultural producers have access to almost none of these new platforms.True soft power — in fact, true culture — cannot come without discussion and interchange . When was the last time you saw a really powerful movie or read a really powerful book and then discussed it with no one? Culture is by definition a discussion, an exchange, and a kind of ongoing communication. But China’s government has for the past several years been attempting to shove its own message into the global internet’s cultural exchange while doing what it can to keep the West out of China’s culture and keep Chinese people from easily interacting with the outside world. That is why Xinhua has a Twitter account but the average Zhou cannot. It’s also why Xinhua’s Twitter account isn’t actually following anyone. China is interested in using social media services only to broadcast itself; it has no interest in interacting with the outside world in a meaningful way.No Hope for the Future?

It is a terrible sign that China’s crackdown on VPNs does not seem to have lessened after the conclusion of the 18th Party Congress. And at the same time, despite a couple years of massive expenditures in return for almost nothing in the way of results, China has shown no signs of wanting to adjust its shut-up-and-let-me-talk-dammit approach to soft power.China’s state media frequently complains that the West doesn’t understand China, but China has steadfastly refused to use internet platforms like Twitter and Facebook to attempt to increase that understanding in any meaningful way. And although the government remains dedicated to improving Chinese soft power, I have seen no signs that it is inclined to attempt a shift in strategy anytime soon.In the long term, I suspect the Great Firewall will prove to be domestically unsustainable. But until the wall comes down, China’s attempts at soft power are little more than a pipe dream, and its economic growth, especially in the tech arena, is ultimately going to be limited by the severe barriers it has erected between itself and the world at large.

Chinese soft power solves territorial conflicts that escalateZhang 2012 Wanfa Zhang is assistant professor in the Department of Humanities and Communication at Florida Institute of Technology and previously was a lecturer at China Foreign Affairs University, Asian Perspective, 2012, 36, "Has Beijing Started to Bare Its Teeth? China’s Tapping of Soft Power Revisited", 615-39

All the evidence above supports the thesis that Beijing has not slowed its charm offensive, even while its hard power has been undergoing explosive growth. Nevertheless, whether Beijing should or will continue with the current policy in the future depends on an evaluation of its successes and failures. Evaluation of the Policy’s Efficacy In the past, various scholars used a handful of metrics to assess the efficacy of China’s soft power. These efforts are laudable; however, due to various limitations that Blanchard and Lu point out in their introduction to this special issue, the metrics fail to reflect adequately the efficacy of Beijing’s soft-power enterprise. In China’s case, soft power operates at two levels: high-level strategic goals and low-level tactical objectives. If measured separately, efficacy will rate high at the strategic level but show mixed results at the tactical level. Successes with High-Level Strategic Goals Beijing undoubtedly has achieved success so far if we measure soft-power efficacy against its high-level goals: dissipating the China threat theory and sustaining a peaceful international environment, especially around China’s borders, that can facilitate China’s continuous rise and economic expansion. Beijing’s grip on domestic political power is still secure and unchallenged. Granted that the China threat theme has reared its head occasionally over the past few years, but it has never become sufficiently influential to undercut the peaceful international milieu that China badly covets. Moreover, although China’s military power has grown exponentially since the mid-1990s, other nations, especially China’s neighbors, have not found it necessary to form a straightforward anti-China bloc. Nor have they engaged in a direct arms race with Beijing. All the hot spots around China, notably North Korea and the South China Sea, are under control and mostly stable even though we see occasional tensions, especially since the second half of 2011. The explosive Taiwan issue has been defused due to the victory of the prounification Nationalist Party in Taiwan’s 2008 elections and Beijing’s carefully calibrated policy toward the island. And China’s relations with its northern and western neighbors in Central Asia are especially stable. An immediate national security threat is unlikely in the near future. The world market remains open to Chinese goods. Foreign investments, raw materials, and energy continue to flow into

China. Beijing’s success in presenting itself as a nonthreatening power has made an indispensable contribution to these positive developments.

These conflicts escalate to extinctionWittner 11 (Lawrence S. Wittner, Emeritus Professor of History at the State University of New York/Albany, Wittner is the author of eight books, the editor or co-editor of another four, and the author of over 250 published articles and book reviews. From 1984 to 1987, he edited Peace & Change, a journal of peace research., 11/28/2011, "Is a Nuclear War With China Possible?", www.huntingtonnews.net/14446)

While nuclear weapons exist, there remains a danger that they will be used. After all, for centuries national conflicts have led to wars, with nations employing their deadliest weapons. The current deterioration of U.S. relations with China might end up providing us with yet another example of this phenomenon. The gathering tension between the United States and China is clear enough. Disturbed by China’s growing economic and military strength, the U.S. government recently challenged China’s claims in the South China Sea, increased the U.S. military presence in Australia, and deepened U.S. military ties with other nations in the Pacific region. According to Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, the United States was “asserting our own position as a Pacific power.” But need this lead to nuclear war? Not necessarily. And yet, there are signs that it could. After all, both the United States and China possess large numbers of nuclear weapons. The U.S. government threatened to attack China with nuclear weapons during the Korean War and, later, during the conflict over the future of China’s offshore islands, Quemoy and Matsu. In the midst of the latter confrontation, President Dwight Eisenhower declared publicly, and chillingly, that U.S. nuclear weapons would “be used just exactly as you would use a bullet or anything else.” Of course, China didn’t have nuclear weapons then. Now that it does, perhaps the behavior of national leaders will be more temperate. But the loose nuclear threats of U.S. and Soviet government officials during the Cold War, when both nations had vast nuclear arsenals, should convince us that, even as the military ante is raised, nuclear saber-rattling persists. Some pundits argue that nuclear weapons prevent wars between nuclear-armed nations; and, admittedly, there haven’t been very many—at least not yet. But the Kargil War of 1999, between nuclear-armed India and nuclear-armed Pakistan, should convince us that such wars can occur. Indeed, in that case, the conflict almost slipped into a nuclear war. Pakistan’s foreign secretary threatened that, if the war escalated, his country felt free to use “any weapon” in its arsenal. During the conflict, Pakistan did move nuclear weapons toward its border, while India, it is claimed, readied its own nuclear missiles for an attack on Pakistan. At the least, though, don’t nuclear weapons deter a nuclear attack? Do they? Obviously, NATO leaders didn’t feel deterred, for, throughout the Cold War, NATO’s strategy was to respond to a Soviet conventional military attack on Western Europe by launching a Western nuclear attack on the nuclear-armed Soviet Union. Furthermore, if U.S. government officials really believed that nuclear deterrence worked, they would not have resorted to championing “Star Wars” and its modern variant, national missile defense. Why are these vastly expensive—and probably unworkable—military defense systems needed if other nuclear powers are deterred from attacking by U.S. nuclear might? Of course, the bottom line for those Americans convinced that nuclear weapons safeguard them from a Chinese nuclear attack might be that the U.S. nuclear arsenal is far greater than its Chinese counterpart. Today, it is estimated that the U.S. government possesses over five thousand nuclear warheads, while the Chinese government has a total

inventory of roughly three hundred. Moreover, only about forty of these Chinese nuclear weapons can reach the United States. Surely the United States would “win” any nuclear war with China. But what would that “victory” entail? A nuclear attack by China would immediately slaughter at least 10 million Americans in a great storm of blast and fire, while leaving many more dying horribly of sickness and radiation poisoning. The Chinese death toll in a nuclear war would be far higher. Both nations would be reduced to smoldering, radioactive wastelands. Also, radioactive debris sent aloft by the nuclear explosions would blot out the sun and bring on a “nuclear winter” around the globe—destroying agriculture, creating worldwide famine, and generating chaos and destruction.

Inherency/Solvency extensionSurveillance state is high now – the USA Freedom Act changed nothing Solomon 6/5 Norman Solomon, Author, 'War Made Easy: How Presidents and Pundits Keep Spinning Us to Death', “The USA Freedom Act Is a Virtual Scam”, Huffington Post, June 5 th, 2015, http://www.huffingtonpost.com/norman-solomon/the-usa-freedom-act-is-a_b_7519046.htmlCR

Some foes of mass surveillance have been celebrating the final passage of the USA Freedom Act , but Thomas Drake sounds decidedly

glum. The new law, he tells me, is "a new spy program." It restarts some of the worst aspects of the Patriot Act and further codifies systematic violations of Fourth Amendment rights. In Oslo as part of a "Stand Up For Truth" tour, Drake warned at a public forum on Wednesday that "national security" has become "the new state religion." Meanwhile, his Twitter messages were calling the USA Freedom Act an "itty-bitty step" -- and a "stop/restart kabuki shell game" that "starts with restarting bulk collection of phone records." That downbeat

appraisal of the USA Freedom Act should give pause to its celebrants. Drake is a former senior executive of the N ational S ecurity A gency -- and a whistleblower who endured prosecution and faced decades in prison for daring to speak truthfully about NSA activities. He ran afoul of vindictive authorities because he refused to go along with the NSA's massive surveillance program after 9/11. Drake

understands how the NSA operates from the highest strategic levels. He notes a telling fact that has gone virtually unacknowledged by anti-surveillance boosters of the USA Freedom Act: "NSA approved." So, of course, did the top purveyor of mendacious claims about the U.S. government's surveillance programs -- President Obama -- who eagerly signed the "USA Freedom" bill into law just hours after the Senate passed it. A comparable guardian of our rights, House Speaker John Boehner, crowed: "This legislation is critical to keeping Americans safe from terrorism and protecting their civil liberties." While some organizations with civil-liberties credentials have responded to the USA Freedom Act by popping open champagne bottles at various decibels, more sober assessments have also been heard. Just after senators approved the bill and sent it to the president, Demand Progress issued a statement pointing out: "The Senate just voted to reinstitute certain lapsed surveillance authorities -- and that means that USA Freedom actually made Americans less free." Another astute assessment came from CREDO, saying that Congress had just

created "sweeping new authorities for the government to conduct unconstitutional mass surveillance of Americans." As it happened, the president signed the USA Freedom Act into law while four U.S. "national security" whistleblowers -- Drake as well

as Coleen Rowley (FBI), Jesselyn Radack (Justice Department) and Daniel Ellsberg (Pentagon Papers) -- were partway through a "Stand Up For Truth" speaking tour from London to Oslo to Stockholm to Berlin. Traveling as part of the tour, I've been struck by the intensity of interest from audiences in the countries we've already visited -- Great Britain, Norway and Sweden -- where governments have moved to worsen repressive policies for mass surveillance. Right now, many people in Europe and elsewhere who care about civil liberties and want true press freedom are looking at the United States: to understand what an aroused citizenry might be able to accomplish, seeking to roll

back a dangerous accumulation of power by an ostensibly democratic government. Let's not unwittingly deceive them -- or

ourselves -- about how much ground the U.S. surveillance state has lost so far.

The USA Freedom Act does not do enough – definitions need to be tighter and backdoor searches must be eliminated.New York Times 2015 “More Excuses on the Patriot Act “ - May 1st - http://www.nytimes.com/2015/05/02/opinion/more-excuses-on-the-patriot-act.html?smid=fb-share&_r=2

Software designers have a term — “minimal viable product” — to describe early versions of things like iPhone apps that they can rush to market. The idea is to get something out and refine it as they go along. That’s the argument being made for a measure in Congress that would modify the Patriot Act to make it somewhat harder for the government to conduct mass surveillance of Americans without regard to whether they committed any misdeeds. Sure, there are compromises, Americans are told, but we should not let the perfect be the enemy of the good. The bill is a “critical first step toward reining in” surveillance by the National Security Agency and is a basis for more reform, said Human Rights Watch. Except the Constitution is not Candy Crush. The same idea — let’s do what we can and improve it later

— was used to shove the original Patriot Act through Congress. It was used to justify the inadequate changes later made to the act, many of which made it more intrusive on Americans’ rights. In 2008, we got a “reform” of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, or FISA, that provided retroactive cover for the illegal surveillance of innocent Americans conducted under President George W. Bush behind the false flag of counterterrorism. The new bill, the USA Freedom Act, was passed by the House Judiciary Committee on Thursday in a 25-to-2 vote and sent to the floor for what seems like near-certain approval. It does contain useful changes to Section 215 of the Patriot Act, which was cynically misinterpreted by the Bush administration to cover the collection of millions of telephone records in the United States and elsewhere. Section 215 will expire on June 1 if Congress does not act, but that is unlikely. The new bill would narrow the kinds of records, including so-called metadata from phone calls, that the intelligence agencies can collect without bothering to obtain a warrant even from the obliging FISA court, which virtually always grants one. It adds transparency measures related to government surveillance programs, and provides for more oversight of those programs. But many of those provisions are weaker than in earlier versions of the bill, and weaker than they need to be. The House committee rejected amendments designed to provide greater safeguards for civil liberties — including one from a Republican that would have required the government to get a warrant before searching collected communications for information about Americans. The bill does not end the bulk collection of surveillance data under Section 215. Rather, it limits those operations, which, in addition to eroding the Bill of Rights, have been shown to be worthless in protecting America. The American Civil Liberties Union believes the bill doesn’t sufficiently tighten the definition of the terms used to justify data collection, or properly limit the retention of information about people who are not suspected of wrongdoing, or require meaningful disclosure of so-called “backdoor” searches of databases by the Federal Bureau of Investigation. It does not appoint an advocate to argue before the FISA court on behalf of civil liberties; instead, it simply appoints a panel of experts to advise the court, where only the government is allowed to present a case, in secret.

USA Freedom Act is not enough to solve the worst instances of NSA abuse. Issues include the definition of the “specific selection term”, data minimization procedures, and the backdoor search loophole of Section 702 of FISA.SAM ADLER-BELL MAY 14, 2015 House Passes USA (Slightly More) Freedom Act

http://www.tcf.org/blog/detail/house-passes-usa-slightly-more-freedom-act

The bad news is, it’s not all clear that the above will substantially limit the government’s ability to collect most of what it wants to. First, the definition of “specific selection term” for “tangible things” other than call detail records is much less specific. In such cases, the term can be “a person, account, address, personal device, or any other specific identifier” provided it is as limited as “reasonably practicable.” That definition does not preclude the government from targeting an IP address serving many people, interpreting person to include a corporate person, or engaging in other hermeneutic wiggliness with the words specific identifier. Moreover, the bill allows the government to collect a “second hop” of call records—metadata on people in contact with those identified under the first selection term—without additional authorization. There is also the question of how the Second Circuit’s ruling impacts the USA Freedom Act. The Second Circuit’s opinion was based in large part on a limited definition of the word

relevant. That is, all the phone records of every American cannot be considered “relevant to to an authorized investigation” simply because—as the FISC had interpreted the statute—they might be at some point later on. In the worst-case scenario, the USA Freedom Act could be interpreted as ratifying the FISC’s definition of relevant rather than upholding the Second Circuit’s. Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF)—who withdrew support for the bill after the Second Circuit rulings—has suggested a simple solution to this problem: include the Second Circuit’s definition of the terms relevant and investigation in the Senate version of the bill or in its legislative history. Another issue is the bill’s “minimization procedures,” which only require the government to destroy call detail records that it determines are not foreign intelligence information. Last year’s Senate iteration of USA Freedom included more stringent procedures, requiring the destruction of data on individuals who are not targets of an investigation, suspected agents of a foreign power, contacts of same, or possessing knowledge of same. Finally, the bill does not close what critics call the “backdoor search loophole” enabled by Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA). Section 702 authorizes the NSA to surveil non-U.S. persons in other countries. In the process of 702 surveillance, however, the agency “incidentally” sweeps up the communications of many Americans. As it stands, the government is not required to get a warrant to perform a search of that incidentally collected data. Most concerning, unlike the domestic phone records program, 702 authorizes the collection of content—actual e-mails, text messages, and phone calls. Last summer, the House passed (293 to 123) an amendment to the Defense Appropriations Bill that would have outlawed warrantless “backdoor” searches of Americans’ communications. Any serious surveillance reform bill should do the same.

The current version of the USA Freedom act is not enough. It was watered down in the political process. The provisions of the original USA Freedom act are necessary to actually solve bulk data collection and restore us credibility and leadership.Brian Ries 2014 “Critics Slam 'Watered-Down' Surveillance Bill That Congress Just Passed” - Mashable - May 22, 2014 – http://mashable.com/2014/05/22/congress-nsa-surveillance-bill/)

As a result, many of its initial supporters pulled their support. “We supported the original USA Freedom act, even though it didn’t do much for non-US persons,” Zeke Johnson, director of Amnesty International's Security & Human Rights Program told Mashable after Thursday's vote. He described the original version as “a good step to end bulk collection.” However, in its current version, it's not even clear that this bill does that at all, Johnson said. He added that Congress left a lot of "wiggle room" in the bill — something he said is a real problem. "Where there is vagueness in a law, you can count on the administration to exploit it," Johnson said. However, Laura W. Murphy, director of the ACLU Washington Legislative Office, took a more positive view of the bill. "While far from perfect, this bill is an unambiguous statement of congressional intent to rein in the out-of-control NSA," she said in a statement. "While we share the concerns of many — including members of both parties who rightly believe the bill does not go far enough — without it we would be left with no reform at all, or worse, a House Intelligence Committee bill that would have cemented bulk collection of Americans’ communications into law." The Electronic Frontier Foundation simply called it "a weak attempt at NSA reform." “The ban on bulk collection was deliberately watered down to be ambiguous and exploitable,” said Center for Democracy and Technology Senior Counsel Harley Geiger. “We withdrew support for USA FREEDOM when the bill morphed into a codification of large-scale, untargeted collection of data

about Americans with no connection to a crime or terrorism.” And Cynthia Wong, senior Internet researcher at Human Rights Watch, said, “This so-called reform bill won’t restore the trust of Internet users in the US and around the world. Until Congress passes real reform, U.S. credibility and leadership on Internet freedom will continue to fade.”

Section 702 is unreasonably broad – is used to justify the collection of communications from over 800,000 non targeted accounts and the information is retained.Jake Laperruque July 2014 https://cdt.org/blog/why-average-internet-users-should-demand-significant-section-702-reform/

While the government has framed Section 702 as a “targeted” program that primarily affects suspected terrorists rather than normal individuals – a sentiment echoed by the Privacy and Civil Liberties Oversight Board in a report which CDT and others roundly criticized – the Washington Post report tells a troublingly different story: Based on a study of the largest sample of Section 702 data analyzed to date, approximately 90% of the text messages, emails, instant messages, and other communications retained by NSA, even after the application of minimization procedures, are to or from accounts who are not surveillance targets. It is not surprising that a large portion of these accounts belong to non-targets; electronic surveillance of a target inevitably collects the communications of people who talk to the target about matters unrelated to the purpose of the surveillance. Considering the large number of individuals one regularly emails, texts, and calls, a 9:1 ratio does not seem that extreme. However, while this inevitable incidental collection might be tolerable in small levels when the surveillance target is suspected of wrongdoing and communications monitoring is approved by a judge, it is difficult to justify when the purpose of the surveillance is as broad as is authorized in Section 702, and the resulting scope is so enormous. Further, because the 9:1 ratio is based on “accounts,” it might significantly underscore the number of non-targeted individuals affected. As 89,138 “persons” were targets last year, the Post concluded communications from over 800,000 non-targeted accounts were retained. The actual number is likely much larger. As Julian Sanchez notes, while there are 89,138 persons targeted, most targeted persons (a term that can include corporations and organizations) have many electronic communications accounts, meaning the number of accounts targeted is likely much higher. This would place the number of non-targeted accounts to or from which communications were retained in the millions.

Original version of the USA Freedom Act prohibited bulk collection of metadata. Version that passed is watered down and not enough.Human Rights Watch, MAY 22, 2014 US Senate: Salvage Surveillance Reform House Bill Flawed http://www.hrw.org/news/2014/05/22/us-senate-salvage-surveillance-reform

It is up to the US Senate to salvage surveillance reform, Human Rights Watch said today. The version of the USA Freedom Act that the US House of Representatives passed on May 22, 2014, could ultimately fail to end mass data collection. The version the House passed is a watered-down version of an earlier bill that was designed to end bulk collection of business records and phone metadata. The practice has been almost universally condemned by all but the US security establishment. “This so-called reform bill won’t restore the trust of Internet users in the US and around the world,” said Cynthia Wong, senior Internet researcher at Human Rights Watch. “Until Congress passes real reform, US credibility and leadership on Internet freedom will continue to fade.” The initial version of the bill aimed to prohibit

bulk collection by the government of business records, including phone metadata. The bill only addressed one component of the surveillance programs revealed by the former National Security Agency contractor Edward Snowden, that of US record collections. However, it had broad support as a first step, including from Human Rights Watch. On May 7, a diluted version of the bill passed unanimously out of the House Judiciary Committee, followed by Intelligence Committee approval on May 8. While better than alternative bills offered, the version the House passed could leave the door wide open to continued indiscriminate data collection practices potentially invading the privacy of millions of people without justification, Human Rights Watch said.

Advantage - Economy

Uniqueness – Econ fragileUS economy is in a fragile recoveryGregg Greenberg 7/3/15, Author for The Street.com, “US Economy picking up steam and will lift stocks”, http://www.thestreet.com/story/13204439/1/us-economy-picking-up-steam-and-will-lift-stocks.html

"The consumer is healing," said Hooper. "We're seeing more jobs, better quality in jobs, and we

should see a resulting pickup in retail spending. And that should really help the economy." Hooper

added that her data-dependent view seems very much in line with Federal Reserve Chair Janet Yellen's outlook. Hooper expects the Fed to start raising rates at its September meeting, yet she does not believe the Fed will go overboard in calendar year 2015. "We could see just one and done for the year or potentially two and done for the year," said Hooper. "This is very much a data-dependent decision-making process, the path not just liftoff, and so our expectation is it's going to be low and long." As a result of the Fed's move toward tightening, Hooper said she expects a step up in volatility, although the choppiness won't hold back stocks from moving higher as a result of the better performing economy.

"We think the stock market will digest it fairly quickly," said Hooper. " We are going to see higher

volatility for a time but likely a bias towards the upside. What we are likely to see is more volatility

and more downside potential in the bond market. That is, after all, what the Fed has manipulated

over the last few years of QE. So our expectation is that's what is going to be more negatively

affected." Although she expects stocks to rise, Hooper does not advocate investors stay concentrated in domestic large-cap names. The market will move too fast for that to work, in her view. "They need to have exposure outside the U.S. and they need to have adequate exposure within the U.S. across styles, across capitalizations because we expect a lot of rotation among these sectors and these market

capitalizations," said Hooper. " This is going to be an environment that's really fast moving. Asset

classes are going to dominate for a time and then, of course, be taken over by other asset classes."

What would throw off her forecast? "If the Fed acts in September, and many investors don't expect it, we could see a disruption in the markets," said Hoooper. "Again, it's likely to impact bonds more than stocks but it could be substantial."

Economy fragileChico Harlan, 5-29-2015, "U.S. economy shrinks in first quarter, raising questions about underlying strength," Washington Post, http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/wonkblog/wp/2015/05/29/analysts-expect-decline-in-u-s-gdp-in-first-quarter/

The U.S. economy shrank at an annualized pace of 0.7 percent in the first three months of the year, according to government data released Friday morning, a tumble for a recovering nation that until recently seemed poised for takeoff. The contraction, the country’s third in the aftermath of the Great Recession, provides a troubling picture of an economy that many figured would get a lift from cheap oil, rapid hiring and growing consumer confidence. Instead, consumers have proved cautious, and oil companies have frozen investment — all while a nasty winter caused havoc for transportation and construction and a strong dollar widened the trade deficit. The numbers released Friday were a revision of earlier figures that had

shown GDP growing in the first quarter at 0.2 percent. Markets had since expected the downward revision, in large part because of recent data showing the trade deficit at a 6½-year high. Though the United States has shaken off nasty quarters in the past, including one year ago, this time the rebound doesn’t appear to be so dramatic. Halfway through the second quarter, economists say growth again appears to be below expectations. Many analysts expect the GDP to expand roughly 2 percent in the second quarter, while the Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta takes an even darker view, predicting an expansion of just 0.8 percent. That would leave the United States with six months of economic standstill. In 2014, the economy contracted 2.1 percent in the first quarter. But growth was rapid for the rest of the year, expanding 4.6 percent in the second quarter and 5 percent in the third. “Really the interesting question is how much of this will bounce back,” said Jeremy Lawson, a chief economist at Standard Life Investments, an asset management firm. “My take is that activity will rebound more slowly than it did last year. Some of these downward pressures are more persistent than in the past.”1

L – Mass surveillance harms tech companies /econLack of true data reform destroys the economy – billions of dollars in economic damage – hurts tech companies, costs jobs and raises the trade deficit. Also reinforces attempts at protectionism.Stuart Lauchlan 2015 ITIF – life after NSA isn’t any easier for cloud firms June 16, 2015 By http://diginomica.com/2015/06/16/itif-life-after-nsa-isnt-any-easier-for-cloud-firms/

Those claims haven’t gone away despite the USA Freedom Act coming in supposedly to reform the NSA’s practices. Two years ago, the industry-funded think tank Information Technology and Innovation Foundation (ITIF) estimated that the NSA surveillance would cost cloud computing companies somewhere around $21.5 billion to $35 billion. But last week it upped that figure to an unspecified amount. Daniel Castro and Alan McQuinn, authors of a new ITIF report, say: Since then, it has become clear that the US tech industry as a whole, not just the cloud computing sector, has under-performed as a result of the Snowden revelations. Therefore, the economic impact of US surveillance practices will likely far exceed ITIF’s initial $35 billion estimate. ITIF hit out at what it sees as a lack of strong enough action by the US government to address the situation the impact of programs such as PRISM: Foreign companies have seized on these controversial policies to convince their customers that keeping data at home is safer than sending it abroad, and foreign governments have pointed to US surveillance as justification for protectionist policies that require data to be kept within their national borders. In the most extreme cases, such as in China, foreign governments are using fear of digital surveillance to force companies to surrender valuable intellectual property, such as source code. In the short term, U.S. companies lose out on contracts, and over the long term, other countries create protectionist policies that lock U.S. businesses out of foreign markets. This not only hurts U.S. technology companies, but costs American jobs and weakens the US trade balance.

The tech industry, especially cloud computing, is being economically devastated by NSA surveillance regime. Many examples prove.Gerry Smith, 1/24/2015. Smith is a tech reporter for Huffington Post and was awarded an honorable mention in the 2013 Barlett and Steele Awards for Investigative Business Journalism. Huffington Post “'Snowden Effect' Threatens U.S. Tech Industry's Global Ambitions” http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/01/24/edward-snowden-tech-industry_n_4596162.html

Election officials in India canceled a deal with Google to improve voter registration. In China, sales of Cisco routers dropped 10 percent in a recent quarter. European regulators threatened to block AT&T's purchase of the wireless provider Vodafone. The tech nology industry is being roiled by the so-called

Snowden Effect, as disclosures by former National Security Agency contractor Edward Snowden about the extent of American spying

worldwide prompt companies to avoid doing business with U.S. firms. The recent setbacks for Google, Cisco and AT&T overseas have been attributed, in part, to the international outcry over the companies' role in the NSA scandal. Fred Cate, a law professor at Indiana University, said criticism over Silicon Valley's involvement in the government surveillance program was initially limited to European politicians "taking advantage of this moment to beat up on the U.S." "But the reports from the

industry are showing that it is more than that," he added. "This is more than just a flash in the pan. This is really starting to hurt." The impact of the Snowden leaks could threaten the future architecture of the modern Internet. In recent years, computing power has shifted from individual PCs to the so-called cloud -- massive servers that allow people to access

their files from anywhere. The Snowden revelations undermined trust in U.S.-based cloud services by revealing how some of the largest American tech companies using cloud computing -- including Google and Yahoo -- had their data accessed by the NSA. About 10 percent of non-U.S. companies have canceled contracts with American cloud providers since the NSA spying program was disclosed, according to a survey by the Cloud Security Alliance, an industry group. U.S. cloud providers could lose as much as $35 billion over the next three years as fears over U.S. government surveillance prompt foreign customers to transfer their data to cloud companies in other countries, according to a study by the

Information Technology and Innovation Foundation, a nonpartisan think tank based in Washington, D.C. "If European cloud customers cannot trust the United States government, then maybe they won't trust U.S. cloud providers either," Neelie Kroes, European commissioner for digital affairs, said last summer after the NSA revelations were made public. "If I am right, there are multibillion-euro consequences for American companies. If I were an American cloud provider, I would be quite frustrated with my government right now." European officials and companies have been especially troubled by the Snowden leaks because European privacy laws are more stringent than those in the United States. After documents from Snowden revealed that the NSA had tapped German Chancellor Angela Merkel’s phone calls, she said Europeans should promote domestic Internet companies over American ones in order to avoid U.S. surveillance. German Interior Minister Hans-Peter Friedrich has suggested that people who are worried about government spying should stop using Google and Facebook altogether. "Whoever fears their communication is being intercepted in any way should use services that don't go through American servers," Friedrich said after Snowden leaked the NSA documents. Chris Lamoureux, the executive vice president of the

company Veriday, told The WorldPost that some of his customers have requested that the company avoid storing their information in U.S.-based data centers, hoping to make it more difficult for the NSA to gain access . "They've said, 'We don't want you to put our data in the U.S. because we're worried about what we're seeing and hearing over there right now,'" said Lamoureux, whose Ottawa-based company develops web applications for banks, governments and retailers. Some argue that President Barack Obama has added to the tech industry's troubles abroad by emphasizing how the NSA surveillance program focused on people outside the United States, where most of Silicon Valley's customers are located. "Those customers, as well as foreign regulatory agencies like those in the European Union, were being led to believe that using US-based services meant giving their data directly to the NSA," journalist

Steven Levy wrote in a recent article in Wired magazine. Hoping to reassure overseas customers, major tech companies (including AOL,

which owns The Huffington Post Media Group) have asked the Obama administration for permission to be more open about how they responded to past requests for data from the U.S. government. They argue the government snooped on their networks without their knowledge. Recent reports based on documents provided by

Snowden revealed that the NSA spied on Google and Yahoo customers, unbeknownst to the companies, by secretly tapping cables that connect data centers around the world. "The impression is that the tech industry is in league with the U.S. government," Cate said. "But the industry would like to give the impression that they're victims of the U.S. government, too." On Wednesday, Microsoft said it would offer customers who are wary about NSA surveillance the ability to store their data outside the United States. Meanwhile, some foreign tech companies are trying to capitalize on the distrust between U.S. tech firms and their customers around the world. Swisscom, a cloud provider in Switzerland, is developing a service that would attract customers looking to store data under the country's strict privacy laws and away "from the prying eyes of foreign intelligence services," Reuters reported. Germany's three largest email providers have also created a new service, called "Email Made in Germany," designed to thwart the NSA by encrypting messages through servers located within the country, The Wall Street Journal reported. But Cate said that any businesses that try to avoid surveillance by boycotting U.S. tech companies are not really protecting their data from the NSA. After all, intelligence agencies in France and Spain also spied on their own citizens, and passed on that information to the NSA, according to documents from Snowden. "It doesn't make a difference what you do with your data -- the NSA is going break into it," Cate said. "But that doesn't mean U.S. industry isn't going to get hurt along the way."

US Tech companies losing billions after Snowden ScandalSam Gustin 12/10/13, reporter on business, technology, and public policy, Time Magazine, “NSA Spying Scandal could cost Tech Giants Billions”, http://business.time.com/2013/12/10/nsa-spying-scandal-could-cost-u-s-tech-giants-billions/

The National Security Agency spying scandal could cost the top U.S. tech companies billions of

dollars over the next several years , according to industry experts. In addition to consumer Internet

companies, hardware and cloud-storage giants like IBM, Hewlett-Packard, and Oracle could suffer billions of

dollars in losses if international clients take their business elsewhere. Now, the nation’s largest Internet

companies are calling for Congress and President Obama to reform the U.S. government’s secret surveillance programs. Google, Apple, Microsoft, Yahoo, Twitter and Facebook are facing intense scrutiny following revelations from former NSA contractor Edward Snowden, who leaked classified documents about the NSA’s snooping programs. In particular, the tech giants have been stung by disclosures about a classified U.S. intelligence system called PRISM, which the NSA used to examine data — including e-mails, videos and online chats — via requests made

under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA). Snowden’s disclosures stoked privacy concerns about how the

largest U.S. tech companies handle their vast troves of user data. Since then, the companies have strenuously

denied that they give the NSA “direct” or unfettered access to their computer servers, and they’ve waged a public competition to demonstrate their commitment to transparency. But recent reports have described how the NSA taps directly into the networks of the tech giants, a disclosure that prompted outrage from top company executives, most notably Eric Schmidt, Google’s executive chairman. (MORE: AT&T to

Shareholders: No NSA Snooping Data for You) After Snowden’s leak, the Information Technology & Innovation

Foundation (ITIF), a non-partisan, D.C.-based think tank, published a report saying that U.S. cloud computing

providers could lose as much as $35 billion by 2016 because of the NSA revelations . ITIF senior analyst

Daniel Castro, the report’s author, wrote that Snowden’s disclosures “will likely have an immediate and lasting

impact on the competitiveness of the U.S. cloud computing industry if foreign customers decide the

risks of storing data with a U.S. company outweigh the benefits.” Analysts at Forrester, the respected tech industry

research firm, went even further. In a blog post, Forrester analyst James Staten projected a net loss for the Internet service provider industry of as much as $180 billion by 2016, which would amount to a 25% decline in the overall information technology services market. “All from the unveiling of a single kangaroo-court action called PRISM,” Staten wrote. His estimate includes domestic clients, which could bypass U.S. cloud providers for international rivals, as well as non-U.S. cloud providers, which could lose as much as 20% of their business due to foreign governments — like Germany — which have their own secret snooping programs. With numbers at that scale, it’s not hard to understand why the top U.S. Internet companies are vehemently protesting the government’s secret surveillance programs. Silicon Valley executives frequently tout their belief in idealistic principles like free speech, transparency and privacy. But it would be naive to think that they also aren’t deeply concerned about the impact of the NSA revelations on the bottom line. “Businesses increasingly recognize that our government’s out-of-control surveillance hurts their bottom line and costs American jobs,” Rep. Justin Amash, the Michigan Republican and outspoken critic of the NSA’s secret programs, told TIME by email. “It violates the privacy of their customers and it erodes American businesses’ competitive edge.” On Monday, a coalition of the largest U.S. Internet companies launched a campaign to pressure the government to reform its surveillance programs. “People won’t use technology they don’t trust,” said Microsoft general counsel Brad Smith. “Governments have put this trust at risk, and governments need to help restore it.” Several tech CEOs, including Google’s Larry Page, Yahoo’s Marissa Mayer and Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg, are personally throwing their weight behind the effort. (MORE: NSA Scandal: As Tech Giants Fight Back, Phone Firms Stay Mum) It’s the most high-profile effort yet by the tech titans to repair the damage to their corporate reputations caused by the NSA revelations. The coalition is calling for limits on government authority to collect user information; better oversight and accountability; greater transparency about the government’s demands; respect for the free flow of data across borders; and the avoidance of conflict between governments. “Recent revelations about government surveillance activities have shaken the trust of our users, and it is time for the United States government to act to restore the confidence of citizens around the world,” said Mayer, Yahoo’s CEO. Page, Google’s CEO, said: “The security of users’ data is critical, which is why we’ve invested so much in encryption and fight for transparency around government requests for information. This is undermined by the apparent wholesale collection of data, in secret and without independent oversight, by many governments around the world.” Monday’s statement by the leading Internet companies is the most forceful sign yet that they are serious about repairing the damage done to their reputations — and future business prospects — by the NSA revelations. But one group of companies that has also been implicated in the Snowden leaks remains conspicuously absent: The nation’s largest telecom companies. Both AT&T and Verizon have remained stone-cold silent about their role in the NSA’s programs. Last week, AT&T said it planned to ignore a shareholder proposal calling for greater transparency

about government data requests. The United States government is now at a crossroads. America faces difficult

choices about how to balance the vital imperatives of national security and consumer privacy . For years,

civil liberties groups warned that the Internet giants posed the greatest risk to privacy in the digital age. After the Snowden revelations, it’s become clear that the gravest threat to civil liberties comes not from the private sector, but from the U.S. government itself. U.S. policymakers must decide if they wish to continue down the path toward an ever-more intrusive surveillance state — risking billions of dollars in damage to the U.S. economy — or apply real oversight and reform to an intelligence apparatus that has undermined confidence in the government and the nation’s most innovative and profitable businesses.

US Tech industry is set to lose $35 Billion to foreign companies in the next yearAllan Holmes 9/10/13, writer for Bloomberg and analyst of telecommunications, cybersecurity and privacy, “NSA Spying Seen Risking Billions in US Technology Sales”, http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2013-09-10/nsa-spying-seen-risking-billions-in-u-s-technology-sales

Sept. 10 (Bloomberg) -- A congressional committee’s effective blacklisting of Huawei Technologies Co.’s products from the U.S. telecommunications market over allegations they can enable Chinese spying may come back to bite Silicon Valley. Reports that the National Security Agency persuaded some U.S. technology companies to build so-called backdoors into security products, networks and devices to allow easier surveillance are similar to how the House Intelligence Committee described the threat posed by China through Huawei. Just as the Shenzhen, China-based Huawei lost business after the report urged U.S. companies not to use its equipment, the NSA disclosures may reduce U.S. technology sales overseas by as much as $180 billion, or 25 percent of information technology services, by 2016, according to Forrester

Research Inc., a research group in Cambridge, Massachusetts. “ The National Security Agency will kill the U.S.

technology industry singlehandedly,” Rob Enderle, a technology analyst in San Jose, California, said in an interview. “ These

companies may be just dealing with the difficulty in meeting our numbers through the end of the

decade.” Internet companies, network equipment manufacturers and encryption tool makers

receive significant shares of their revenue from overseas companies and governments. Cisco Systems Inc.,

the world’s biggest networking equipment maker, received 42 percent of its $46.1 billion in fiscal 2012 revenue from outside the U.S., according to data compiled by Bloomberg. Symantec Corp., the biggest maker of computer-security software based in Mountain View, California, reported 46 percent of its fiscal 2013 revenue of $6.9 billion from markets other than the U.S., Canada and Latin America. Intel Corp., the world’s largest semiconductor maker, reported 84 percent of its $53.3 billion in fiscal 2012 revenue came from outside the U.S., according to data compiled by Bloomberg. ‘Exact Flipping’ The New York Times, the U.K.’s Guardian and ProPublica reported in early September that NSA has cracked codes protecting e-mail and Web content and convinced some equipment and device makers to build backdoors into products. That followed earlier reports that the NSA was obtaining and analyzing communications records from phone companies and Internet providers.

The revelations have some overseas governments questioning their reliance on U.S. technology.

Germany’s government has called for home-grown Internet and e-mail companies. Brazil is analyzing

whether privacy laws were violated by foreign companies. India may ban e-mail services from

Google Inc. and Yahoo Inc. , the Wall Street Journal reported. In June, China Daily labeled U.S. companies, including Cisco, a

“terrible security threat.” “One year ago we had the same concern about Huawei,” James Staten, an analyst at Forrester, said in an interview. “Now this is the exact flipping of that circumstance.” Tarnished Reputations An Information Technology and Innovation Foundation report in

August found U.S. providers of cloud services -- which manage the networks, storage, applications and computing power for companies

-- stand to lose as much as $35 billion a year as foreign companies, spooked by the NSA’s

surveillance, seek non-U.S. offerings. “Customers buy products and services based on a company’s

reputation, and the NSA has single-handedly tarnished the reputation of the entire U.S. tech

industry,” said Daniel Castro, the report’s author and an analyst with the non-partisan research group in Washington, in an e-mail. “I

suspect many foreign customers are going to be shopping elsewhere for their hardware and software.” Chips, Devices The latest disclosures were based on documents provided by Edward Snowden, the former NSA contractor accused of espionage by the U.S. who’s now in Russia

under temporary asylum. While the NSA mentioned no company by name, agency documents posted on the

New York Times’ website said some companies were persuaded to insert “vulnerabilities into

commercial encryption systems, IT systems, networks and endpoint communications devices used by

targets.” The documents also said the NSA was trying to work with makers of “chips used in Virtual Private Network and Web encryption

devices.” The German magazine Der Spiegel separately reported the NSA cracked encryption codes to listen in on the 1.4 billion smartphones in use worldwide, including Apple Inc.’s iPhone. Google, Facebook Inc. and Yahoo yesterday petitioned the U.S. Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court, which rules on warrants for domestic data, for permission to publish the types of requests they’ve received from the NSA. The three companies were among 22 that sent a letter in July to President Barack Obama and congressional leaders urging that the companies be allowed to say more about their dealings with the agency. Companies’ Defense Cisco said it doesn’t customize equipment to enable surveillance. “Cisco’s product development practices specifically prohibit any intentional behaviors or product features which are designed to allow unauthorized device or network access, exposure of sensitive device information, or a bypass of security features or restrictions,” John Earnhardt, spokesman for the San Jose, California-based company, said in a statement. Symantec said in a statement that it learned of the NSA’s encryption cracking in the media. “We had no prior knowledge about this program,” said Anna Zvagelskaya, of public relations firm Weber Shandwick, which represents Symantec. “We have long held that Intel does not participate in alleged government efforts to decrease security in technology,” Lisa Malloy, an Intel spokeswoman, said in an e-mail. Congress, Huawei While foreign firms may be more suspicious of some U.S.- made technologies, the impact of the disclosures may be limited, said Charles Kolodgy, a security analyst with IDC. “It’s a worldwide market and some companies may try to benefit from not being a U.S.-based company, but the real issue is enterprises are trying to protect themselves in most cases from cyber criminals or malicious insiders or competitors,” he said in an interview. “They’re not so concerned with what a nation-state is doing, The market-leading gear is often market-leading because it’s the best. We’ve gone past being able to source everything within a country.” The NSA revelations also may undermine congressional efforts to block U.S. sales of networking equipment made by Huawei and ZTE Corp., China’s second-largest phone-equipment maker, also based in Shenzhen. A House Intelligence Committee report released in October 2012 said the companies’ close ties to the Chinese government and its ability to build backdoors into U.S. computer networks might allow China to disrupt power grids, financial networks or other critical infrastructure. That suspicion applies to almost every

government and technology company, William Plummer, a Huawei spokesman, said in an e-mail. “Threats to data integrity are

not limited to the acts of certain governments or the equipment or services of companies with select

countries of origin,” he said. Plummer called the U.S. government’s pursuit of Huawei “an innuendo-driven political exercise” and for

“industry and government to leave political games behind and pursue real solutions to more secure networks and data.”

NSA surveillance destroys high tech economic growth – kills cloud computing, sales, webhosting, and jobs.Danielle Kehl, et.al (with Kevin Bankston, Robyn Greene & Robert Morgus) New America’s Open Technology Institute July 2014 Policy Paper Surveillance Costs: The NSA’s Impact on the Economy, Internet Freedom & Cybersecurity

https://www.newamerica.org/downloads/Surveilance_Costs_Final.pdf

“It is becoming clear that the post-9/11 surveillance apparatus may be at cross-purposes with our high-tech economic growth,” declared Third Way’s Mieke Eoyang and Gabriel Horowitz in December 2013. “The economic consequences [of the recent revelations] could be staggering.”25 A TIME magazine headline projected that “NSA Spying Could Cost U.S. Tech Giants Billions,” predicting losses based on the increased scrutiny that economic titans like Google, Microsoft, Facebook, and Yahoo have faced both at home and abroad since last June.26 The NSA’s actions pose a serious threat to the current value and future stability of the information technology industry, which has been a key driver of economic growth and productivity in the United States in the past decade.27 In this section, we examine how emerging evidence about the NSA’s extensive surveillance apparatus has already hurt and will likely continue to hurt the American tech sector in a number of ways, from dwindling U.S. market share in industries like cloud computing and webhosting to dropping tech sales overseas. The impact of individual users turning away from American companies in favor of foreign alternatives is a concern. However, the major losses will likely result from diminishing confidence in U.S. companies as trustworthy choices for foreign government procurement of products and services and changing the business-to-business market.

Government surveillance practices harm the economic bottom line of tech companies and US competitiveness.Computer Business Review, former NSA contractor, 6-10-2015, "US surveillance practices could cost tech firms over $35bn," No Publication, http://www.cbronline.com/news/cybersecurity/data/us-surveillance-practices-could-cost-tech-firms-over-35bn-100615-4597407

The US government's data surveillance practices may hit technology firms harder than expected. In 2013, the Information Technology and Innovation Foundation (ITIF) estimated that the revelations of government surveillance by former NSA contractor Edward Snowden could cost the US tech sector between $21.5bn and $35bn by 2016. In its latest report, the ITIF said the figure will likely far exceed the original estimation due to the government's failure to reform its surveillance practices. The think tank proposed a series of reforms designed to enhance security, protect transparency, and increase cooperation and accountability in the worldwide technology ecosystem. It recommended policymakers to strengthen information security by opposing government efforts to introduce backdoors in software or weaken encryption. They are urged to strengthen US mutual legal assistance treaties and set up international legal standards for government access to information. ITIF vice president and co-author of the report Daniel Castro said: "Foreign customers are increasingly shunning U.S. companies, and governments around the world are using U.S. surveillance as an excuse to enact a new wave of protectionist policies. This is bad for U.S. companies, U.S. workers, and the U.S. economy as a whole. "Now that Congress has passed the USA Freedom Act, it is imperative that it turn its attention to reforming the digital surveillance activities that continue to impact our nation's competitiveness."

Tech companies suffering mass losses because of mass data surveillance – kills the economyCLAIRE CAIN MILLER MARCH 21, 2014 Revelations of N.S.A. Spying Cost U.S. Tech Companies

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/03/22/business/fallout-from-snowden-hurting-bottom-line-of-tech-companies.html

SAN FRANCISCO — Microsoft has lost customers, including the government of Brazil. IBM is spending more than a billion dollars to build data centers overseas to reassure foreign customers that their information is safe from prying eyes in the United States government. And tech companies abroad, from Europe to South America, say they are gaining customers that are shunning United States providers, suspicious because of the revelations by Edward J. Snowden that tied these providers to the National Security Agency’s vast surveillance program. Even as Washington grapples with the diplomatic and political fallout of Mr. Snowden’s leaks, the more urgent issue, companies and analysts say, is economic. Technology executives, including Mark Zuckerberg of Facebook, raised the issue when they went to the White House on Friday for a meeting with President Obama. It is impossible to see now the full economic ramifications of the spying disclosures — in part because most companies are locked in multiyear contracts — but the pieces are beginning to add up as businesses question the trustworthiness of American technology products. The confirmation hearing last week for the new N.S.A. chief, the video appearance of Mr. Snowden at a technology conference in Texas and the drip of new details about government spying have kept attention focused on an issue that many tech

executives hoped would go away. Despite the tech companies’ assertions that they provide information on their customers only when required under law — and not knowingly through a back door — the perception that they enabled the spying program has lingered. “It’s clear to every single tech company that this is affecting their bottom line,” said Daniel Castro, a senior analyst at the Information Technology and Innovation Foundation, who predicted that the United States cloud computing industry could lose $35 billion by 2016. Forrester Research, a technology research firm, said the losses could be as high as $180 billion, or 25 percent of industry revenue, based on the size of the cloud computing, web hosting and outsourcing markets and the worst case for damages. The business effect of the disclosures about the N.S.A. is felt most in the daily conversations between tech companies with products to pitch and their wary customers. The topic of surveillance, which rarely came up before, is now “the new normal” in these conversations, as one tech company executive described it. “We’re hearing from customers, especially global enterprise customers, that they care more than ever about where their content is stored and how it is used and secured,” said John E. Frank, deputy general counsel at Microsoft, which has been publicizing that it allows customers to store their data in Microsoft data centers in certain countries. At the same time, Mr. Castro said, companies say they believe the federal government is only making a bad situation worse. “Most of the companies in this space are very frustrated because there hasn’t been any kind of response that’s made it so they can go back to their customers and say, ‘See, this is what’s different now, you can trust us again,’ ” he said. In some cases, that has meant forgoing potential revenue. Though it is hard to quantify missed opportunities, American businesses are being left off some requests for proposals from foreign customers that previously would have included them, said James Staten, a cloud computing analyst at Forrester who has read clients’ requests for proposals. There are German companies, Mr. Staten said, “explicitly not inviting certain American companies to join.” He added, “It’s like, ‘Well, the very best vendor to do this is IBM, and you didn’t invite them.’ ” The result has been a boon for foreign companies.

NSA is killing Tech IndustriesZack Whittaker, 2015. “It's official: NSA spying is hurting the US tech economy” ZDNet (http://www.zdnet.com/article/another-reason-to-hate-the-nsa-china-is-backing-away-from-us-tech-brands/) China is no longer using high-profile US technology brands for state purchases, amid ongoing revelations about mass surveillance and hacking

by the US government. A new report confirmed key brands, including Cisco, Apple, Intel, and McAfee -- among

others -- have been dropped from the Chinese government's list of authorized brands , a Reuters report said

Wednesday. The number of approved foreign technology brands fell by a third, based on an analysis of the procurement list. Less than half of

those companies with security products remain on the list. Although a number of reasons were cited, domestic companies were said to offer "more product guarantees" than overseas rivals in the wake of the Edward Snowden leaks .

Some reports have attempted to pin a multi-billion dollar figure on the impact of the leaks. In reality, the

figure could be incalculable . The report confirms what many US technology companies have been saying for the past year: the

activities by the NSA are harming their businesses in crucial growth markets, including China. The Chinese

government's procurement list changes coincided with a series of high profile leaks that showed the US government have been on an international mass surveillance spree, as well as hacking expeditions into technology companies, governments, and the personal cellphones of world leaders. Concerned about backdoors implanted by the NSA, those revelations sparked a change in Chinese policy by forcing Western technology companies to hand over their source code for inspection. That led to an outcry in the capital by politicians who in the not-so-distant

past accused Chinese companies of doing exactly the same thing. The fear is that as the China-US cybersecurity standoff

continues , it's come too late for Silicon Valley companies, which are already suffering financially thanks to the NSA's activities.

Microsoft said in January at its fiscal fourth-quarter earnings that China "fell short" of its expectations, which chief executive Satya Nadella described as a "set of geopolitical issues" that the company was working through. He did not elaborate. Most recently, HP said on Tuesday at its fiscal first-quarter earnings call that it had "execution issues" in China thanks to the "tough market" with increasing

competition from the local vendors approved by the Chinese government. But one company stands out: Cisco

probably suffered the worst of all. Earlier this month at its fiscal second-quarter earnings, the

networking giant said it took a 19 percent revenue ding in China, amid claims the NSA was installing

backdoors and implants on its routers in transit . China remains a vital core geography for most US technology giants with a

global reach. But until some middle-ground can be reached between the two governments, expect Silicon Valley's struggles in the country to only get worse.

L – Cloud ComputingBulk internet data collection is uniquely devastating to the cloud computing industry. Several expert surveys indicate huge businesses loss.Danielle Kehl, et.al (with Kevin Bankston, Robyn Greene & Robert Morgus) New America’s Open Technology Institute July 2014 Policy Paper Surveillance Costs: The NSA’s Impact on the Economy, Internet Freedom & Cybersecurity

https://www.newamerica.org/downloads/Surveilance_Costs_Final.pdf

Recent reports suggest that things are, in fact, moving in the direction that analysts like Castro and Staten suggested.50 A survey of 1,000 “[Information and Communications Technology (ICT)] decision-makers” from France, Germany, Hong Kong, the UK, and the USA in February and March 2014 found that the disclosures “have had a direct impact on how companies around the world think about ICT and cloud computing in particular.”51 According to the data from NTT Communications, 88 percent of decision-makers are changing their purchasing behavior when it comes to the cloud, with the vast majority indicating that the location of the data is very important. The results do not bode well for recruitment of new customers, either—62 percent of those currently not storing data in the cloud indicated that the revelations have since prevented them from moving their ICT systems there. And finally, 82 percent suggested that they agree with proposals made by German Chancellor Angela Merkel in February 2014 to have separate data networks for Europe, which will be discussed in further detail in Part III of this report. Providing direct evidence of this trend, Servint, a Virginia-based webhosting company, reported in June 2014 that international clients have declined by as much as half, dropping from approximately 60 percent of its business to 30 percent since the leaks began.52

The tech industry, especially cloud computing, is being economically devastated by NSA surveillance regime. Many examples prove.Gerry Smith, 1/24/2015. Smith is a tech reporter for Huffington Post and was awarded an honorable mention in the 2013 Barlett and Steele Awards for Investigative Business Journalism. Huffington Post “'Snowden Effect' Threatens U.S. Tech Industry's Global Ambitions” http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/01/24/edward-snowden-tech-industry_n_4596162.html

Election officials in India canceled a deal with Google to improve voter registration. In China, sales of Cisco routers dropped 10 percent in a recent quarter. European regulators threatened to block AT&T's purchase of the wireless provider Vodafone. The tech nology industry is being roiled by the so-called

Snowden Effect, as disclosures by former National Security Agency contractor Edward Snowden about the extent of American spying

worldwide prompt companies to avoid doing business with U.S. firms. The recent setbacks for Google, Cisco and AT&T overseas have been attributed, in part, to the international outcry over the companies' role in the NSA scandal. Fred Cate, a law professor at Indiana University, said criticism over Silicon Valley's involvement in the government surveillance program was initially limited to European politicians "taking advantage of this moment to beat up on the U.S." "But the reports from the

industry are showing that it is more than that," he added. "This is more than just a flash in the pan. This is really starting to hurt." The impact of the Snowden leaks could threaten the future architecture of the modern Internet. In recent years, computing power has shifted from individual PCs to the so-called cloud -- massive servers that allow people to access

their files from anywhere. The Snowden revelations undermined trust in U.S.-based cloud services by revealing

how some of the largest American tech companies using cloud computing -- including Google and Yahoo -- had their data accessed by the NSA. About 10 percent of non-U.S. companies have canceled contracts with American cloud providers since the NSA spying program was disclosed, according to a survey by the Cloud Security Alliance, an industry group. U.S. cloud providers could lose as much as $35 billion over the next three years as fears over U.S. government surveillance prompt foreign customers to transfer their data to cloud companies in other countries, according to a study by the

Information Technology and Innovation Foundation, a nonpartisan think tank based in Washington, D.C. "If European cloud customers cannot trust the United States government, then maybe they won't trust U.S. cloud providers either," Neelie Kroes, European commissioner for digital affairs, said last summer after the NSA revelations were made public. "If I am right, there are multibillion-euro consequences for American companies. If I were an American cloud provider, I would be quite frustrated with my government right now." European officials and companies have been especially troubled by the Snowden leaks because European privacy laws are more stringent than those in the United States. After documents from Snowden revealed that the NSA had tapped German Chancellor Angela Merkel’s phone calls, she said Europeans should promote domestic Internet companies over American ones in order to avoid U.S. surveillance. German Interior Minister Hans-Peter Friedrich has suggested that people who are worried about government spying should stop using Google and Facebook altogether. "Whoever fears their communication is being intercepted in any way should use services that don't go through American servers," Friedrich said after Snowden leaked the NSA documents. Chris Lamoureux, the executive vice president of the

company Veriday, told The WorldPost that some of his customers have requested that the company avoid storing their information in U.S.-based data centers, hoping to make it more difficult for the NSA to gain access . "They've said, 'We don't want you to put our data in the U.S. because we're worried about what we're seeing and hearing over there right now,'" said Lamoureux, whose Ottawa-based company develops web applications for banks, governments and retailers. Some argue that President Barack Obama has added to the tech industry's troubles abroad by emphasizing how the NSA surveillance program focused on people outside the United States, where most of Silicon Valley's customers are located. "Those customers, as well as foreign regulatory agencies like those in the European Union, were being led to believe that using US-based services meant giving their data directly to the NSA," journalist

Steven Levy wrote in a recent article in Wired magazine. Hoping to reassure overseas customers, major tech companies (including AOL,

which owns The Huffington Post Media Group) have asked the Obama administration for permission to be more open about how they responded to past requests for data from the U.S. government. They argue the government snooped on their networks without their knowledge. Recent reports based on documents provided by

Snowden revealed that the NSA spied on Google and Yahoo customers, unbeknownst to the companies, by secretly tapping cables that connect data centers around the world. "The impression is that the tech industry is in league with the U.S. government," Cate said. "But the industry would like to give the impression that they're victims of the U.S. government, too." On Wednesday, Microsoft said it would offer customers who are wary about NSA surveillance the ability to store their data outside the United States. Meanwhile, some foreign tech companies are trying to capitalize on the distrust between U.S. tech firms and their customers around the world. Swisscom, a cloud provider in Switzerland, is developing a service that would attract customers looking to store data under the country's strict privacy laws and away "from the prying eyes of foreign intelligence services," Reuters reported. Germany's three largest email providers have also created a new service, called "Email Made in Germany," designed to thwart the NSA by encrypting messages through servers located within the country, The Wall Street Journal reported. But Cate said that any businesses that try to avoid surveillance by boycotting U.S. tech companies are not really protecting their data from the NSA. After all, intelligence agencies in France and Spain also spied on their own citizens, and passed on that information to the NSA, according to documents from Snowden. "It doesn't make a difference what you do with your data -- the NSA is going break into it," Cate said. "But that doesn't mean U.S. industry isn't going to get hurt along the way."

L – Sec 702

Sec 702 program destroys trust in American businesses and competitiveness in the global marketplaceDanielle Kehl, et.al (with Kevin Bankston, Robyn Greene & Robert Morgus) New America’s Open Technology Institute July 2014 Policy Paper Surveillance Costs: The NSA’s Impact on the Economy, Internet Freedom & Cybersecurity

https://www.newamerica.org/downloads/Surveilance_Costs_Final.pdf

Trust in American businesses has taken a significant hit since the initial reports on the PRISM program suggested that the NSA was directly tapping into the servers of nine U.S. companies to obtain customer data for national security investigations.28 The Washington Post’s original story on the program provoked an uproar in the media and prompted the CEOs of several major companies to deny knowledge of or participation in the program.29 The exact nature of the requests made through the PRISM program was later clarified,30 but the public attention on the relationship between American companies and the NSA still created a significant trust gap, especially in industries where users entrust companies to store sensitive personal and commercial data. “Last year’s national security leaks have also had a commercial and financial impact on American technology companies that have provided these records,” noted Representative Bob Goodlatte, a prominent Republican leader and Chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, in May 2014. “They have experienced backlash from both American and foreign consumers and have had their competitive standing in the global marketplace damaged.”31

L - ProtectionismNSA digital surveillance destroys US competitiveness and is used to justify data protectionism and strains relations with ChinaDANIEL CASTRO AND ALAN MCQUINN | JUNE 2015 Beyond the USA Freedom Act: How U.S. Surveillance Still Subverts U.S. Competitiveness http://www2.itif.org/2015-beyond-usa-freedom-act.pdf?_ga=1.86597016.1417756247.1435604368

The ability of companies—both tech and traditional—to easily share data across borders has brought a vast array of benefits to countries, companies, consumers, and economies through increased efficiency, decreased costs, and improved services.26 And yet nations have continued to erect barriers to cloud computing and cross-border data flows, much to their own detriment.27 While some defenders of these policies have asserted that they are designed to increase the privacy or security of their citizens’ data, it is clear that they are also motivated by misguided self-interest. By creating rules that advantage domestic firms over foreign firms, many countries believe they will build a stronger domestic tech industry or gain short-term economic value, such as jobs in domestic data centers. In reality, these policies unwittingly limit the ability of a country’s own firms to innovate by shielding them from international competition.28 These policies not only limit the number of services that a country’s citizens and businesses can enjoy, but also harm that country’s productivity and competitiveness. Some countries used U.S. surveillance laws to justify data protectionism even before Snowden’s NSA revelations. For example, when Rackspace built data centers in Australia in 2012, an Australian competitor stirred up fears that the United States would use the Patriot Act to track Australian citizens as a means to force Rackspace out of Australia.29 In addition, this same Australian company funded a report calling on Australian policymakers to impose additional regulations designed to put foreign cloud computing competitors at a disadvantage.30 However, since the recent NSA revelations, the use of privacy concerns to justify protectionist barriers has grown significantly. Amid growing anti-U.S. sentiment, Europe has seen calls for data localization requirements, procurement preferences for European providers, and even a “Schengen area for data”—a system that keeps as much data in Europe as possible—as ways to promote deployment of cloud services entirely focused on the European market.31 France and Germany have even started to create dedicated national networks: “Schlandnet” for the former and the “Sovereign Cloud” for the latter. 32 The French government has gone so far as to put €150 million ($200 million) into two start-ups, Numergy and Cloudwatt, to create a domestic infrastructure independent of U.S. tech giants.33 Furthermore, some groups have invoked U.S. cyberespionage to argue that European citizens are not adequately protected and are calling for the removal of the “safe harbor” agreement—an agreement that allows Internet companies to store data outside of the European Union. Yet if this were removed it would cut Europeans off from many major Internet services. 34 There is also an increasingly distressing trend of countries, such as Australia, China, Russia, and India, passing laws that prevent their citizens’ personal information from leaving the country’s borders—effectively mandating that cloud computing firms build data centers in those countries or risk losing access to their markets. For example, in 2014 Russian implemented and Indonesia began considering policies that would require Internet-based companies to set up local data centers.35 These policies are often a veiled attempt to spur short term economic activity by creating data-center jobs. However, this benefit is often outweighed by the substantial cost of building unnecessary data centers, a cost that is eventually passed along to the country’s citizens. Several U.S.

tech giants, such Apple and Salesforce, have already started to build their data centers abroad to appease foreign watchdogs and privacy advocates.36 For example, Amazon started running Internet services and holding data in Germany for its European business partners in an effort to downplay threats of online spying.37 Protectionist policies in China have further strained the U.S. tech industry. In January 2015, the Chinese government adopted new regulations that forced companies that sold equipment to Chinese banks to turn over secret source code, submit to aggressive audits, and build encryption keys into their products.38 While ostensibly an attempt to strengthen cybersecurity in critical Chinese industries, many western tech companies saw these policies as a shot across the bow trying to force them out of China’s markets. After all, the Chinese government had already launched a “de-IOE” movement—IOE stands for IBM, Oracle and EMC— to convince its state-owned banks to stop buying from these U.S. tech giants. 39 To be sure, the Chinese government recently halted this policy under U.S. pressure.40 However, the halted policy can be seen as a part of a larger clash between China and the United States over trade and cybersecurity. Indeed, these proposed barriers were in part a quid pro quo from China, after the United States barred Huawei, a major Chinese computer maker, from selling its products in the United States due to the fear that this equipment had “back doors” for the Chinese government.41 Since the Snowden revelations essentially gave them cover, Chinese lawmakers have openly called for the use of domestic tech products over foreign goods both to boost the Chinese economy and in response to U.S. surveillance tactics. This system of retaliation has not only led to a degradation of business interests for U.S. tech companies in China, but also disrupted the dialogue between the U.S. government and China on cybersecurity issues.42

Lack of true data reform destroys the economy – billions of dollars in economic damage – hurts tech companies, costs jobs and raises the trade deficit. Also reinforces attempts at protectionism.Stuart Lauchlan 2015 ITIF – life after NSA isn’t any easier for cloud firms June 16, 2015 By http://diginomica.com/2015/06/16/itif-life-after-nsa-isnt-any-easier-for-cloud-firms/

Those claims haven’t gone away despite the USA Freedom Act coming in supposedly to reform the NSA’s practices. Two years ago, the industry-funded think tank Information Technology and Innovation Foundation (ITIF) estimated that the NSA surveillance would cost cloud computing companies somewhere around $21.5 billion to $35 billion. But last week it upped that figure to an unspecified amount. Daniel Castro and Alan McQuinn, authors of a new ITIF report, say: Since then, it has become clear that the US tech industry as a whole, not just the cloud computing sector, has under-performed as a result of the Snowden revelations. Therefore, the economic impact of US surveillance practices will likely far exceed ITIF’s initial $35 billion estimate. ITIF hit out at what it sees as a lack of strong enough action by the US government to address the situation the impact of programs such as PRISM: Foreign companies have seized on these controversial policies to convince their customers that keeping data at home is safer than sending it abroad, and foreign governments have pointed to US surveillance as justification for protectionist policies that require data to be kept within their national borders. In the most extreme cases, such as in China, foreign governments are using fear of digital surveillance to force companies to surrender valuable intellectual property, such as source code. In the short term, U.S. companies lose out on contracts, and over the long term, other countries create protectionist policies

that lock U.S. businesses out of foreign markets. This not only hurts U.S. technology companies, but costs American jobs and weakens the US trade balance.

A2 USA Freedom Act solvedFailure to meaningfully reform surveillance practices hurts the economy; USA Freedom Act is not sufficient now to mitigate the damage.Rob Lever, 6-9-2015, "Snowden revelations costly for US tech firms, study says," No Publication, http://phys.org/news/2015-06-snowden-revelations-costly-tech-firms.html

US technology companies are getting hit harder than anticipated by revelations about surveillance programs led by the National Security Agency, a study showed Tuesday. The study by the Information Technology and Innovation Foundation, a Washington think tank, said the impact would be greater than its estimate nearly two years ago of losses for the cloud computing sector. In 2013, the think tank estimated that US cloud computing firms could lose between $22 billion and $35 billion in overseas business over three years. It now appears impossible to quantify the economic damage because the entire sector has been tarnished by the scandal from revelations in documents leaked by former NSA contractor Edward Snowden, the report said. "These revelations have fundamentally shaken international trust in US tech companies and hurt US business prospects all over the world," the report said. Study co-author Daniel Castro said the impact is now open-ended, with the NSA scandal having tarnished a wide range of US tech firms. Since 2013, he said, "we haven't turned this around: it's not just cloud companies. It's all tech firms implicated by this," he told AFP . "It doesn't show any signs of stopping. " The National Security Agency headquarters at Fort Meade , Maryland, on January 29, 2010 The National Security Agency headquarters at Fort Meade, Maryland, on January 29, 2010 The report said foreign customers are increasingly shunning US companies, and governments around the world "are using US surveillance as an excuse to enact a new wave of protectionist policies." One survey cited by the researchers found 25 percent of businesses in Britain and Canada planned to pull company data out of the United States as a result of the NSA revelations. Some companies in Europe do not want their data hosted in North America due to these concerns, the researchers said. Meanwhile foreign companies have used the revelations as a marketing opportunity. "There is also an increasingly distressing trend of countries, such as Australia, China, Russia, and India, passing laws that prevent their citizens' personal information from leaving the country's borders—effectively mandating that cloud computing firms build data centers in those countries or risk losing access to their markets ." The report said several US tech firms including Apple and Salesforce have already started to build data centers abroad "to appease foreign watchdogs and privacy advocates." While this "data nationalism" may create some jobs in the short term, Castro said that countries enacting these policies "are hurting themselves in the long term by cutting themselves off from the best technology." New law insufficient Castro said the passage of a reform measure last week called the USA Freedom Act is not sufficient to repair the reputation of US tech firms. The report recommends further reforms including boosting transparency of surveillance practices, opposing government efforts to weaken encryption and strengthening its mutual legal assistance treaties with other nations. "Over the last few years, the US government's failure to meaningfully reform its surveillance practices has taken a serious economic toll on the US tech sector and the total cost continues to grow each day," Castro said . Castro said the USA Freedom Act, which curbs bulk data collection among its reforms, is "good legislation and a step in the right direction. We have ignored the economic impact of US surveillance."

Tech industry is losing massive amounts of money because of concerns over government surveillance; USA Freedom Act was not enough to resolve this – additional reforms are necessary. TheHill, 6-9-2015, "Study: Surveillance will cost US tech sector more than $35B by 2016," http://thehill.com/policy/technology/244403-study-surveillance-will-cost-us-tech-sector-over-35b-by-2016

A new study says that the U.S. tech industry is likely to lose more than $35 billion from foreign customers by 2016 because of concerns over government surveillance. “In short, foreign customers are shunning U.S. companies,” the authors of a new study from the Information Technology and Innovation Foundation write. “The U.S. government’s failure to reform many of the NSA’s surveillance programs has damaged the competitiveness of the U.S. tech sector and cost it a portion of the global market share,” they said. The think tank’s report found that the cost to the tech sector associated with ongoing concerns over surveillance programs run out of the U.S. was likely to “far exceed” $35 billion by 2016, an earlier estimate set by the group. The group said that lawmakers must enact additional reforms to surveillance policy if they wish to help the tech sector regain the trust of foreign customers. That includes opposing “backdoors,” which allow law enforcement to access otherwise encrypted data, and signing off on trade agreements, including the controversial Trans-Pacific Partnership, that “ban digital protectionism.” The study’s authors found that the revelations about broad U.S. surveillance programs acted as a justification for foreign policymakers to enact protectionist policies aimed at aiding their own domestic technology sectors. Foreign companies have also used the information about U.S. surveillance programs to their advantage. “Some European companies have begun to highlight where their digital services are hosted as an alternative to U.S. companies,” the authors write. American companies, they found, have lost contracts to foreign competitors over fears about mass surveillance. Earlier this month, President Obama signed the USA Freedom Act, a bill that reformed the three Patriot Act provisions that authorized the bulk, warrantless collection of Americans’ phone records. The bill was widely supported by technology companies, including giants like Apple and Google.

IL- Spillover Economic impact of NSA spills over into other industriesDanielle Kehl, et.al (with Kevin Bankston, Robyn Greene & Robert Morgus) New America’s Open Technology Institute July 2014 Policy Paper Surveillance Costs: The NSA’s Impact on the Economy, Internet Freedom & Cybersecurity

https://www.newamerica.org/downloads/Surveilance_Costs_Final.pdf

The economic impact of NSA spying does not end with the American cloud computing industry. According to The New York Times, “Even as Washington grapples with the diplomatic and political fallout of Mr. Snowden’s leaks, the more urgent issue, companies and analysts say, is economic.”59 In the past year, a number of American companies have reported declining sales in overseas markets like China (where, it must be noted, suspicion of the American government was already high before the NSA disclosures), loss of customers including foreign governments, and increased competition from non-U.S. services marketing themselves as ‘secure’ alternatives to popular American products. There is already significant linking NSA surveillance to direct harm to U.S. economic interests. In November 2013, Cisco became one of the first companies to publicly discuss the impact of the NSA on its business, reporting that orders from China fell 18 percent and that its worldwide revenue would decline 8 to 10 percent in the fourth quarter, in part because of continued sales weakness in China.60 New orders in the developing world fell 12 percent in the third quarter, with the Brazilian market dropping roughly 25 percent of its Cisco sales.61 Although John Chambers, Cisco’s CEO, was hesitant to blame all losses on the NSA, he acknowledged that it was likely a factor in declining Chinese sales62 and later admitted that he had never seen as fast a decline in an emerging market as the drop in China in late 2013.63 These numbers were also released before documents in May 2014 revealed that the NSA’s Tailored Access Operations unit had intercepted network gear—including Cisco routers—being shipped to target organizations in order to covertly install implant firmware on them before they were delivered.64 In response, Chambers wrote in a letter to the Obama Administration that “if these allegations are true, these actions will undermine confidence in our industry and in the ability of technology companies to deliver products globally.”65

All sectors of the economy suffer from bulk internet data collection by the NSA. Examples like Brazil and Germany – Boeing has lost billion dollar contracts Danielle Kehl, et.al (with Kevin Bankston, Robyn Greene & Robert Morgus) New America’s Open Technology Institute July 2014 Policy Paper Surveillance Costs: The NSA’s Impact on the Economy, Internet Freedom & Cybersecurity

https://www.newamerica.org/downloads/Surveilance_Costs_Final.pdf

American companies are also losing out on business opportunities and contracts with large companies and foreign governments as a result of NSA spying. According to an article in The New York Times, “American businesses are being left off some requests for proposals from foreign customers that previously would have included them.”70 This refers to German companies, for example, that are increasingly uncomfortable giving their business to American firms. Meanwhile, the German

government plans to change its procurement rules to prevent American companies that cooperate with the NSA or other intelligence organizations from being awarded federal IT contracts.71 The government has already announced it intends to end its contract with Verizon, which provides Internet service to a number of government departments.72 “There are indications that Verizon is legally required to provide certain things to the NSA, and that’s one of the reasons the cooperation with Verizon won’t continue,” a spokesman for the German Interior Ministry told the Associated Press in June.73 The NSA disclosures have similarly been blamed for Brazil’s December 2013 decision to award a $4.5 billion contract to Saab over Boeing, an American company that had previously been the frontrunner in a deal to replace Brazil’s fleet of fighter jets.74 Welber Barral, a former Brazilian trade secretary, suggested to Bloomberg News that Boeing would have won the contract a year earlier,75 while a source in the Brazilian government told Reuters that “the NSA problem ruined it for the Americans.”76 As we will discuss in greater depth in the next section, Germany and Brazil are also considering data localization proposals that could harm U.S. business interests and prevent American companies from entering into new markets because of high compliance costs.

Competitiveness key to leadershipCompetitiveness is a prerequisite to foreign policy and US leadershipLiberthal & O’Hanlon, 2012 (Kenneth G. Lieberthal, Director of the China Center and senior fellow in Foreign Policy and Global Economy and Development at Brookings, and Michael E. O'Hanlon, Director of the Foreign Policy program at Brookings, July 10, 2012, “The Real National Security Threat: America's Debt” http://www.brookings.edu/research/opinions/2012/07/10-economy-foreign-policy-lieberthal-ohanlon

Lastly, American economic weakness undercuts U.S. leadership abroad. Other countries sense our weakness and wonder about our purported decline. If this perception becomes more widespread, and the case that we are in decline becomes more persuasive, countries will begin to take actions that reflect their skepticism about America's future. Allies and friends will doubt our commitment and may pursue nuclear weapons for their own security, for example; adversaries will sense opportunity and be less restrained in throwing around their weight in their own neighborhoods. The crucial Persian Gulf and

Western Pacific regions will likely become less stable. Major war will become more likely . When

running for president last time, Obama eloquently articulated big foreign policy visions: healing America's breach with the Muslim world, controlling global climate change, dramatically curbing global poverty through development aid, moving toward a world free of nuclear weapons. These were, and remain, worthy if elusive goals. However, for Obama or his successor, there is now a much more urgent

big-picture issue: restoring U.S. economic strength. Nothing else is really possible if that fundamental

prerequisite to effective foreign policy is not reestablished.

Plan solves growthDecisive policy steps to reform digital surveillance are necessary to re-establish global technology leadership, and restore competitiveness and economic growth.DANIEL CASTRO AND ALAN MCQUINN | JUNE 2015 Beyond the USA Freedom Act: How U.S. Surveillance Still Subverts U.S. Competitiveness http://www2.itif.org/2015-beyond-usa-freedom-act.pdf?_ga=1.86597016.1417756247.1435604368

When historians write about this period in U.S. history it could very well be that one of the themes will be how the United States lost its global technology leadership to other nations. And clearly one of the factors they would point to is the long-standing privileging of U.S. national security interests over U.S. industrial and commercial interests when it comes to U.S. foreign policy. This has occurred over the last few years as the U.S. government has done relatively little to address the rising commercial challenge to U.S. technology companies, all the while putting intelligence gathering first and foremost. Indeed, policy decisions by the U.S. intelligence community have reverberated throughout the global economy. If the U.S. tech industry is to remain the leader in the global marketplace, then the U.S. government will need to set a new course that balances economic interests with national security interests. The cost of inaction is not only short-term economic losses for U.S. companies, but a wave of protectionist policies that will systematically weaken U.S. technology competiveness in years to come, with impacts on economic growth, jobs, trade balance, and national security through a weakened industrial base. Only by taking decisive steps to reform its digital surveillance activities will the U.S. government enable its tech industry to effectively compete in the global market.

A2 Econ resilient No resiliency Nouriel Roubini (professor of economics at New York University's Stern School of Business, is co-founder and chairman of Roubini Global Economics (RGE)) and Michael Moran (RGE's vice president,

executive editor, and chief geostrategy analyst) October 11, 2010 “Avoid the Double Dip” http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2010/10/11/avoid_the_double_dip?page=0,0

Roughly three years since the onset of the financial crisis, the U.S. economy increasingly looks vulnerable to falling back into recession . The United States is flirting with "stall speed," an anemic rate of growth that, if it persists, can lead to collapses in spending, consumer confidence, credit, and other crucial engines of growth. Call it a "double dip" or the Great Recession, Round II: Whatever the term, we're talking about a negative feedback loop that would be devilishly hard to break. If Barack Obama wants a realistic shot at a second term, he'll need to act quickly and decisively to prevent this scenario. Near double-digit unemployment is the root of the problem. Without job creation there's a lack of consumer spending, which represents 40 percent of domestic GDP. To date, the U.S. government has responded creatively and massively to the near collapse of the financial system, using a litany of measures, from the bank bailout to stimulus spending to low interest rates. Together, these policies prevented a reprise of the Great Depression. But they also created fiscal and political dilemmas that limit the usefulness of traditional monetary and fiscal tools that policymakers can turn to in a pinch. With interest rates near zero percent already, the Federal Reserve has few bullets left in its holster to boost growth or fend off another slump. This lack of available good options was patently on display in August when Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke spoke with a tinge of resignation about new "quantitative easing" interventions in the mortgage and bond markets -- a highly technical suggestion that, until the recent crisis, amounted to heresy among Fed policymakers. It certainly hasn't helped that the U.S. federal deficit has reached heights that make additional stimulus spending, of the kind that helped kindle the mini-recovery of early 2010, politically impossible.

No resiliencyRAMPELL ’11 – economics reporter for The New York Times; wrote for the Washington Post editorial pages and financial section (Catherine, “Second Recession in U.S. Could Be Worse Than First”. August 7. http://www.nytimes.com/2011/08/08/business/a-second-recession-could-be-much-worse-than-the-first.html?pagewanted=all)

If the economy falls back into recession , as many economists are now warning, the bloodletting could be a lot

more painful than the last time around .¶ Given the tumult of the Great Recession, this may be hard to believe. But the economy is much weaker than it was at the outset of the last recession in December 2007, with most major measures of economic health — including jobs, incomes, output and industrial production — worse today than they were back then. And growth has been so weak that almost no ground has been recouped, even though a recovery technically started in June 2009.¶ “It would be disastrous if we entered into a recession at this stage, given that we haven’t yet made up for the last recession,” said Conrad DeQuadros, senior economist at RDQ Economics.¶ When the last downturn hit, the credit bubble left Americans with lots of fat to cut, but a new one would force families to cut from the bone. Making things worse, policy makers used most of the economic tools at their disposal to combat the last recession, and have few options available.¶ Anxiety and uncertainty have increased in the last few days after the decision by Standard & Poor’s to downgrade the country’s credit rating and as Europe continues its desperate attempt to stem its debt crisis.¶ President Obama acknowledged the challenge in

his Saturday radio and Internet address, saying the country’s “urgent mission” now was to expand the economy and create jobs. And Treasury Secretary Timothy F. Geithner said in an interview on CNBC on Sunday that the United States had “a lot of work to do” because of its “long-term and unsustainable fiscal position.”¶ But he added, “I have enormous confidence in the basic regenerative capacity of the American

economy and the American people.”¶ Still, the numbers are daunting. In the four years since the recession began, the civilian working-age population has grown by about 3 percent. If the economy were healthy, the number of jobs would have grown at least the same amount.¶ Instead, the number of jobs has shrunk. Today the economy has 5 percent fewer jobs — or 6.8 million — than it had before the last recession began. The unemployment rate was 5 percent then, compared with

9.1 percent today.¶ Even those Americans who are working are generally working less ; the typical private sector worker has a shorter workweek today than four years ago.¶ Employers shed all the extra work shifts and weak or extraneous employees that

they could during the last recession. As shown by unusually strong productivity gains, companies are now squeezing as much work as they can from their newly “ lean and mean” work forces . Should a recession

return, it is not clear how many additional workers businesses could lay off and still manage to function.¶ With fewer jobs and fewer hours logged, there is less income for households to spend, creating a huge obstacle for a consumer- driven economy.¶ Adjusted for inflation, personal income is down 4 percent, not counting payments from the government for things like unemployment benefits. Income levels are low, and moving in the wrong direction: private wage and salary income actually fell in June, the last

month for which data was available.¶ Consumer spending , along with housing, usually drives a recovery . But with incomes so weak, spending is only barely where it was when the recession began. If the economy were healthy, total consumer spending would be higher because of population growth.¶ And with construction nearly nonexistent and home prices down 24 percent since December 2007, the country does not have a buffer in housing to fall back on.¶ Of all the major economic indicators, industrial production — as tracked by the Federal Reserve — is by far the worst off. The Fed’s index of this activity is nearly 8 percent below its level in December 2007.¶ Likewise, and perhaps most worrisome, is the track record for the country’s overall output. According to newly revised data from the Commerce Department, the economy is smaller today than it was when the recession began, despite (or rather, because of) the feeble growth in the last couple of

years.¶ If the economy were healthy, it would be much bigger than it was four years ago. Economists refer to the difference between where the economy is and where it could be if it met its full potential as the “output gap.”

Menzie Chinn , an economics professor at the University of Wisconsin , has estimated that the economy was about 7 percent smaller than its potential at the beginning of this year .¶ Unlike during the first downturn, there would be few policy remedies available if the economy were to revert back into recession.¶ Interest rates cannot be pushed down further — they are already at zero . The Fed has already flooded the financial markets with money by buying billions in mortgage securities and Treasury bonds, and economists do not even agree on whether those purchases substantially helped the economy. So the Fed may not see much upside to going through another politically

controversial round of buying.¶ “There are only so many times the Fed can pull this same rabbit out of its hat,” said Torsten Slok, the chief international economist at Deutsche Bank.¶ Congress had some room — financially and

politically — to engage in fiscal stimulus during the last recession.¶ But at the end of 2007, the federal debt was 64.4 percent of the economy. Today, it is estimated at around 100 percent of gross domestic product, a share not seen since the aftermath of World War II, and there is little chance of lawmakers reaching consensus on additional stimulus that would increase the debt.¶ “There is no approachable precedent, at least in the postwar era, for what happens when an economy with 9

percent unemployment falls back into recession,” said Nigel Gault, chief United States economist at IHS Global Insight. “The one

precedent you might consider is 1937 , when there was also a premature withdrawal of fiscal stimulus, and the economy fell into another recession more painful than the first .” ¶

A2 Decoupling The US is key to the global economy – no decouplingCaploe 2009 David Caploe (the CEO of the Singapore-incorporated American Centre for Applied Liberal Arts and Humanities in Asia) April 2009 “Focus Still on America to Lead Global Recovery” Online

While superficially sensible, this view is deeply problematic. To begin with, it ignores the fact that the global economy has in fact been 'America-centred' for more than 60 years. Countries - China, Japan, Canada, Brazil, Korea, Mexico and so on - either sell to the US or they sell to countries that sell to the US. To put it simply, Mr Obama doesn't seem to understand that there is no other engine for the world economy - and hasn't

been for the last six decades. If the US does not drive global economic growth, growth is not going to happen .

Thus, US policies to deal with the current crisis are critical not just domestically, but also to the entire world. This system has generally been advantageous for all concerned. America gained certain historically unprecedented benefits, but the system also enabled participating countries - first in Western Europe and Japan, and later, many in the Third World - to achieve undreamt-of prosperity. At

the same time, this deep inter-connection between the US and the rest of the world also explains how the collapse of a relatively small sector of the US economy - 'sub-prime' housing, logarithmically exponentialised by Wall

Street's ingenious chicanery - has cascaded into the worst global economic crisis since the Great Depression. To

put it simply, Mr Obama doesn't seem to understand that there is no other engine for the world economy - and hasn't been for the last six decades. If the US does not drive global economic growth, growth is not going to happen. Thus, US policies to deal with the current crisis are critical not just domestically, but also to the entire world. Consequently, it is a matter of global concern that the Obama administration seems to be following Japan's 'model' from the 1990s: allowing major banks to avoid declaring massive losses openly and transparently, and so perpetuating 'zombie' banks - technically alive but in reality dead. As analysts like Nobel laureates Joseph Stiglitz and Paul Krugman have pointed out, the administration's unwillingness to confront US banks is the main reason why they are continuing their increasingly inexplicable credit freeze, thus ravaging the American and global economies. Team Obama seems reluctant to acknowledge the

extent to which its policies at home are failing not just there but around the world as well. Which raises the question: If the US can't or won't or doesn't want to be the global economic engine, which country will? The obvious answer is China. But that is unrealistic for three reasons. First, China's economic health is more tied to America's than practically any other country in the world. Indeed, the reason China has so many dollars to invest everywhere - whether in US

Treasury bonds or in Africa - is precisely that it has structured its own economy to complement America's. The only way China can serve as the engine of the global economy is if the US starts pulling it first. Second, the

US-centred system began at a time when its domestic demand far outstripped that of the rest of the world. The fundamental source of its economic power is its ability to act as the global consumer of last resort. China, however, is a poor country, with low per capita income, even though it will soon pass Japan as the world's second largest economy. There are real possibilities for growth in China's domestic demand. But given its structure as an export-oriented economy, it is doubtful if even a successful Chinese stimulus plan can pull the rest of the world along unless and until China can start selling again to the US on a massive scale . Finally, the key 'system' issue for China - or for the European Union - in thinking about becoming the engine of the world economy - is monetary: What are the implications of having your domestic currency become the global reserve currency? This is an extremely complex issue that the US has struggled with, not always successfully, from 1959 to the present. Without going into detail, it can safely be said that though having the US dollar as the world's medium of exchange has given the US some tremendous advantages, it has also created huge problems, both for America

and the global economic system. The Chinese leadership is certainly familiar with this history. It will try to avoid the yuan becoming an international medium of exchange until it feels much more confident in its ability to handle the manifold

currency problems that the US has grappled with for decades. Given all this, the US will remain the engine of global economic recovery for the foreseeable future, even though other countries must certainly help. This crisis began in the US - and it is going to have to be solved there too.

Econ decline impacts Economic decline causes multiple scenarios for extinctionBurrows and Harris 2009 Mathew J. Burrows counselor in the National Intelligence Council and Jennifer Harris a member of the NIC’s Long Range Analysis Unit “Revisiting the Future: Geopolitical Effects of the Financial Crisis” The Washington Quarterly 32:2 https://csis.org/files/publication/twq09aprilburrowsharris.pdf

Increased Potential for Global Conflict¶ Of course, the report encompasses more than economics and indeed believes the¶ future is likely to be the result of a number of intersecting and interlocking¶ forces. With so many possible permutations of outcomes, each with ample opportunity

for unintended consequences, there is a growing sense of insecurity.¶ Even so, history may be more instructive than ever. While we continue to¶ believe that the Great Depression is not likely to be repeated, the lessons to be¶ drawn from that period include the harmful effects on fledgling democracies and¶ multiethnic societies (think

Central Europe in 1920s and 1930s) and on¶ the sustainability of multilateral institutions (think League of Nations in the¶ same

period). There is no reason to think that this would not be true in the¶ twenty-first as much as in the twentieth century. For that reason, the ways in¶ which the potential for greater conflict could grow would seem to be even more¶ apt in a constantly volatile economic environment as they would be if change¶ would be steadier.¶ In surveying those risks, the report stressed the likelihood that terrorism and¶ nonproliferation will remain priorities even

as resource issues move up on the¶ international agenda. Terrorism’s appeal will decline if economic growth¶ continues in the Middle East and youth unemployment is reduced. For those¶ terrorist groups that remain active in 2025, however, the diffusion of¶ technologies and scientific knowledge will place some of the world’s most¶ dangerous capabilities within their reach. Terrorist groups in 2025 will likely be a¶ combination of descendants of long established groupsinheriting¶ organizational structures, command and control processes, and training¶ procedures necessary to conduct sophisticated attacksand newly emergent¶ collections of the angry and disenfranchised that

become self-radicalized,¶ particularly in the absence of economic outlets that would become narrower¶ in an economic downturn.¶ The most dangerous casualty of any economically-induced drawdown of U.S.¶ military presence would almost certainly be the Middle East. Although Iran’s¶ acquisition of nuclear weapons is not inevitable, worries about a nuclear-armed¶ Iran could lead states in the region to develop new security arrangements with¶ external powers, acquire additional weapons, and consider pursuing their own¶ nuclear ambitions. It is not clear that the type of stable deterrent relationship¶ that existed between the great powers for most of the Cold War would emerge¶ naturally in the

Middle East with a nuclear Iran. Episodes of low intensity¶ conflict and terrorism taking place under a nuclear umbrella could lead to an¶ unintended escalation and broader conflict if clear red lines between those states¶ involved are not well established. The close proximity of potential nuclear rivals¶ combined with underdeveloped surveillance capabilities and mobile¶ dual-capable Iranian missile systems also will produce inherent difficulties in¶ achieving reliable indications and warning of an

impending nuclear attack. The¶ lack of strategic depth in neighboring states like Israel, short warning and missile¶ flight times, and uncertainty of Iranian intentions may place more focus on¶ preemption rather than defense, potentially leading to escalating crises.Types of conflict that the world continues¶ to experience, such as over resources, could¶ reemerge, particularly if protectionism grows and¶ there is a resort to neo-mercantilist practices.¶ Perceptions of renewed energy scarcity will drive¶ countries to take actions to assure their future¶ access to

energy supplies. In the worst case, this¶ could result in interstate conflicts if government¶ leaders deem assured access to energy resources,¶ for example, to be essential for maintaining domestic stability and the survival of¶ their regime. Even actions short of war, however, will have important geopolitical¶ implications. Maritime security concerns are providing a rationale for naval¶ buildups and modernization

efforts, such as China’s and India’s development of¶ blue water naval capabilities. If the fiscal stimulus focus for these countries indeed¶

turns inward, one of the most obvious funding targets may be military. Buildup of¶ regional naval capabilities could lead to increased tensions, rivalries, and¶ counterbalancing moves, but it also will create opportunities for multinational¶ cooperation in protecting critical sea lanes. With water also becoming scarcer in¶ Asia and the Middle East, cooperation to manage changing water resources is¶ likely to be increasingly difficult both within and between states in a more¶ dog-eat-dog world.¶

Econ collapse = extinctionKemp 10 Geoffrey Kemp, Director of Regional Strategic Programs at The Nixon Center, served in the White House under Ronald Reagan, special assistant to the president for national security affairs and senior director for Near East and South Asian affairs on the National Security Council Staff, Former Director, Middle East Arms Control Project at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, 2010, The East Moves West: India, China, and Asia’s Growing Presence in the Middle East, p. 233-4

The second scenario, called Mayhem and Chaos, is the opposite of the first scenario; everything that can go wrong does go wrong. The world economic situation weakens rather than strengthens , and India, China, and Japan suffer a major reduction in their growth rates , further weakening the global economy. As a result, energy demand falls and the price of fossil fuels plummets, leading to a financial crisis for the energy-producing states, which are forced to cut back dramatically on expansion programs and social welfare. That in turn leads to political unrest: and nurtures different radical groups, including, but not limited to, Islamic extremists. The internal stability of some countries is challenged , and there are more “failed states.” Most serious is the collapse of the democratic government in Pakistan and its takeover by Muslim extremists , who then take possession of a large number of nuclear weapons. The danger of war between India and Pakistan increases significantly . Iran, always worried about an extremist Pakistan, expands and weaponizes its nuclear program. That further enhances nuclear proliferation in the Middle East, with Saudi Arabia, Turkey, and Egypt joining Israel and Iran as nuclear states. Under these circumstances, the potential for nuclear terrorism increases, and the possibility of a nuclear terrorist attack in either the Western world or in the oil-producing states may lead to a further devastating collapse of the world economic market, with a tsunami-like impact on stability. In this scenario, major disruptions can be expected, with dire consequences for two-thirds of the planet’s population.

Global economic crisis causes nuclear war Cesare Merlini 11, nonresident senior fellow at the Center on the United States and Europe and chairman of the Board of Trustees of the Italian Institute for International Affairs, May 2011, “A Post-Secular World?”, Survival, Vol. 53, No. 2

Two neatly opposed scenarios for the future of the world order illustrate the range of possibilities, albeit at the risk of oversimplification. The first scenario entails the premature

crumbling of the post-Westphalian system. One or more of the acute tensions apparent today evolves into an open and

traditional conflict between states, perhaps even involving the use of nuclear weapons. The crisis might be

triggered by a collapse of the global economic and financial system , the vulnerability of which we have just experienced, and the prospect of a second Great Depression, with consequences for peace and democracy similar to those of the first. Whatever the trigger, the unlimited exercise of national sovereignty , exclusive self-interest and rejection of outside interference would self-interest and rejection of outside interference would likely be amplified, empty ing ,

perhaps entirely, the half-full glass of multilateralism, including the UN and the European Union. Many of the more likely conflicts, such as between Israel and Iran or India

and Pakistan, have potential religious dimensions. Short of war, tensions such as those related to immigration might become unbearable. Familiar issues of creed and identity could be exacerbated. One way or another, the secular rational approach would be sidestepped by a return to theocratic absolutes, competing or converging with secular absolutes such as unbridled nationalism.

Protectionism impactsProtectionism lowers the threshold for all conflict – makes escalation more likely – causes a laundry list of impacts *card says prevents Iran conflictStewart Patrick (senior fellow and director of the Program on International Institutions and Global Governance at the Council on Foreign Relations) March 2009 “Protecting Free Trade” The National Interest http://nationalinterest.org/article/protecting-free-trade-3060

President Obama and his foreign counterparts should reflect on the lessons of the 1930s-and the insights of Cordell Hull. The longest-serving secretary of state in American history (1933-1944), Hull helped guide the United States through the Depression and World War II. He also understood a fundamental truth: "When goods move, soldiers don't." In the 1930s, global recession had catastrophic political consequences-in part because policymakers took exactly the wrong approach. Starting with America's own Smoot Hawley Tariff of 1930, the world's major trading nations tried to insulate themselves by adopting inward looking protectionist and discriminatory policies. The result was a vicious, self-defeating cycle of tit-for-tat retaliation. As states took refuge in prohibitive tariffs, import quotas, export subsidies and competitive devaluations, international commerce devolved into a desperate competition for dwindling markets. Between 1929 and 1933, the value of world trade plummeted from $50 billion to $15 billion. Global economic activity went into a death spiral, exacerbating the depth and length of the Great Depression. The economic consequences of protectionism were bad enough. The political consequences were worse. As Hull recognized, global economic fragmentation lowered standards of living, drove unemployment higher and increased poverty-accentuating social upheaval and leaving destitute populations "easy prey to dictators and desperadoes." The rise of Nazism in Germany, fascism in Italy and militarism in Japan is impossible to divorce from the economic turmoil, which allowed demagogic leaders to mobilize support among alienated masses nursing nationalist grievances. Open economic warfare poisoned the diplomatic climate and exacerbated great power rivalries, raising, in Hull's view, "constant temptation to use force , or threat of force, to obtain what could have been got through normal processes of trade." Assistant Secretary William Clayton agreed: "Nations which act as enemies in the marketplace cannot long be friends at the council table." This is what makes growing protectionism and discrimination among the world's major trading powers today so alarming. In 2008 world trade declined for the first time since 1982. And despite their pledges, seventeen G-20 members have adopted significant trade restrictions. "Buy American" provisions in the U.S. stimulus package have been matched by similar measures elsewhere, with the EU ambassador to Washington declaring that "Nobody will take this lying down." Brussels has resumed export subsidies to EU dairy farmers and restricted imports from the United States and China. Meanwhile, India is threatening new tariffs on steel imports and cars; Russia has enacted some thirty new tariffs and export subsidies. In a sign of the global mood, WTO antidumping cases are up 40 percent since last year. Even less blatant forms of economic nationalism, such as banks restricting lending to "safer" domestic companies, risk shutting down global capital flows and exacerbating the current crisis. If unchecked, such economic nationalism could raise diplomatic tensions among the world's major powers. At particular risk are U.S. relations with China, Washington's most important bilateral interlocutor in the twenty-first century. China has called the "Buy American" provisions "poison"-not exactly how the Obama administration wants to start off the relationship. U.S. Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner's ill-timed comments about China's currency "manipulation" and his

promise of an "aggressive" U.S. response were not especially helpful either, nor is Congress' preoccupation with "unfair" Chinese trade and currency practices. For its part, Beijing has responded to the global slump by rolling back some of the liberalizing reforms introduced over the past thirty years. Such practices, including state subsidies, collide with the spirit and sometimes the law of open trade. The Obama administration must find common ground with Beijing on a coordinated response, or risk retaliatory protectionism that could severely damage both economies and escalate into political confrontation. A trade war is the last thing the United States needs, given that China holds $1 trillion of our debt and will be critical to solving flashpoints ranging from Iran to North Korea. In the 1930s, authoritarian great-power governments responded to the global downturn by adopting more nationalistic and aggressive policies. Today, the economic crisis may well fuel rising nationalism and regional assertiveness in emerging countries. Russia is a case in point . Although some predict that the economic crisis will temper Moscow's international ambitions, evidence for such geopolitical modesty is slim to date. Neither the collapse of its stock market nor the decline in oil prices has kept Russia from flexing its muscles from Ukraine to Kyrgyzstan. While some expect the economic crisis to challenge Putin's grip on power, there is no guarantee that Washington will find any successor regime less nationalistic and aggressive. Beyond generating great power antagonism, misguided protectionism could also exacerbate political upheaval in the developing world . As Director of National Intelligence Dennis Blair recently testified, the downturn has already aggravated political instability in a quarter of the world's nations. In many emerging countries, including important players like South Africa, Ukraine and Mexico, political stability rests on a precarious balance. Protectionist policies could well push developing economies and emerging market exporters over the edge. In Pakistan, a protracted economic crisis could precipitate the collapse of the regime and fragmentation of the state . No surprise, then, that President Obama is the first U.S. president to receive a daily economic intelligence briefing, distilling the security implications of the global crisis.

Protectionism causes warGerald P. O'Driscoll Jr (senior fellow at the Cato Institute. Sara Fitzgerald is a trade policy analyst at the Heritage Foundation) February 2003 “Trade Brings Security” http://www.cato.org/pub_display.php?pub_id=3006

And, according to research by Edward Mansfield of the University of Pennsylvania and Jon Pevehouse of the University of Wisconsin, that's a recipe for trouble. Mansfield and Pevehouse have demonstrated that trade between nations makes them less likely to wage war on each other -- and keeps internecine spats from spiraling out of control . They also found these trends are more pronounced among democratic countries with a strong tradition of respect for the rule of law. Countries that trade with each other are far less likely to confront each other on the battlefield than are countries with no trade relationship. And the size of the economies involved doesn't affect this relationship, which means small, weak countries can enhance their defense capabilities simply by increasing trade with the world's economic giants. Experts, including Mansfield and Pevehouse, say intensive trade integration , perhaps more than any other factor, has led to an unprecedented five decades of peace in Western Europe.

Advantage – Internet Freedom

L- Mass surveillance harms internet freedomFailure to reform NSA internet data collection undermines US interests in promoting internet freedom; and will bleed over into foreign policy credibility in general. Danielle Kehl, et.al (with Kevin Bankston, Robyn Greene & Robert Morgus) New America’s Open Technology Institute July 2014 Policy Paper Surveillance Costs: The NSA’s Impact on the Economy, Internet Freedom & Cybersecurity

https://www.newamerica.org/downloads/Surveilance_Costs_Final.pdf

Mandatory data localization proposals are just one of a number of ways that foreign governments have reacted to NSA surveillance in a manner that threatens U.S. foreign policy interests, particularly with regard to Internet Freedom. There has been a quiet tension between how the U.S. approaches freedom of expression online in its foreign policy and its domestic laws ever since Secretary of State Hillary Clinton effectively launched the Internet Freedom agenda in January 2010.170 But the NSA disclosures shined a bright spotlight on the contradiction: the U.S. government promotes free expression abroad and aims to prevent repressive governments from monitoring and censoring their citizens while simultaneously supporting domestic laws that authorize surveillance and bulk data collection. As cybersecurity expert and Internet governance scholar Ron Deibert wrote a few days after the first revelations: “There are unintended consequences of the NSA scandal that will undermine U.S. foreign policy interests – in particular, the ‘Internet Freedom’ agenda espoused by the U.S. State Department and its allies.”171 Deibert accurately predicted that the news would trigger reactions from both policymakers and ordinary citizens abroad, who would begin to question their dependence on American technologies and the hidden motivations behind the United States’ promotion of Internet Freedom. In some countries, the scandal would be used as an excuse to revive dormant debates about dropping American companies from official contracts, score political points at the expense of the United States, and even justify local monitoring and surveillance. Deibert’s speculation has so far proven quite prescient. As we will describe in this section, the ongoing revelations have done significant damage to the credibility of the U.S. Internet Freedom agenda and further jeopardized the United States’ position in the global Internet governance debates. Moreover, the repercussions from NSA spying have bled over from the Internet policy realm to impact broader U.S. foreign policy goals and relationships with government officials and a range of other important stakeholders abroad. In an essay entitled, “The End of Hypocrisy: American Foreign Policy in the Age of Leaks,” international relations scholars Henry Farrell and Martha Finnemore argue that a critical, lasting impact of information provided by leakers like Edward Snowden is “the documented confirmation they provide of what the United States is actually doing and why. When these deeds turn out to clash with the government’s public rhetoric, as they so often do, it becomes harder for U.S. allies to overlook Washington’s covert behavior and easier for U.S. adversaries to justify their own.”172 Toward the end of the essay, Farrell and Finnemore suggest, “The U.S. government, its friends, and its foes can no longer plausibly deny the dark side of U.S. foreign policy and will have to address it head-on.” Indeed, the U.S. is currently working to repair damaged bilateral and multilateral relations with countries from Germany and France to Russia and Israel,173 and it is likely that the effects of the NSA disclosures will be felt for years in fields far beyond Internet policy.174

Current NSA bulk internet data collection policies are destroying US legitimacy in promoting free, open global internet.Danielle Kehl, et.al (with Kevin Bankston, Robyn Greene & Robert Morgus) New America’s Open Technology Institute July 2014 Policy Paper Surveillance Costs: The NSA’s Impact on the Economy, Internet Freedom & Cybersecurity

https://www.newamerica.org/downloads/Surveilance_Costs_Final.pdf

Although there were questions from the beginning about whether the United States would hold itself to the same high standards domestically that it holds others to internationally,178 the American government has successfully built up a policy and programming agenda in the past few years based on promoting an open Internet.179 These efforts include raising concerns over Internet repression in bilateral dialogues with countries such as Vietnam and China,180 supporting initiatives including the Freedom Online Coalition, and providing over $120 million in funding for “groups working to advance Internet freedom – supporting counter-censorship and secure communications technology, digital safety training, and policy and research programs for people facing Internet repression.”181 However, the legitimacy of these efforts has been thrown into question since the NSA disclosures began. “Trust has been the principal casualty in this unfortunate affair,” wrote Ben FitzGerald and Richard Butler in December 2013. “The American public, our nation’s allies, leading businesses and Internet users around the world are losing faith in the U.S. government’s role as the leading proponent of a free, open and integrated global Internet.”182

U.S. leadership shapes global internet norms –our rhetoric must be paired with concrete policy changes like the plan.David Gross, 2013 U.S. Coordinator for International Communications and Information Policy at the State Department from 2001-2009. “Walking the Talk: The Role of U.S. Leadership in the Wake of WCIT,” 1-17-13. http://www.bna.com/walking-the-talk-the-role-of-u-s-leadership-in-the-wake-of-wcit-by-david-a-gross/

During the past month, more has been written about December's World Conference on International Telecommunications (WCIT), hosted by the United Nation's International Telecommunication Union (ITU) in Dubai, than about any previous international telecoms treaty conference. And for good reason. Despite the fact that the nominal focus of the conference was to bring up-to-date a 1988 telecommunications treaty regarding traditional international telecoms services, countries such as Russia, Saudi Arabia, China and others sought to use the gathering to establish new international rules through the ITU governing the internet. Although many believe that WCIT failed because 55 countries—including the United States, virtually all of Europe, and other internet-leading countries such as Kenya and India—did not sign the revised treaty, in reality WCIT was an important early chapter in the critical global process of determining the internet's political and policy future—and in turn, its technical and economic future. It is important to recognize that the internet's political and policy future will be shaped by American leadership—not just through traditional U.S. rhetoric about competition, private sector leadership, and “multi-stakeholder” decisionmaking, but by America's ability to “walk the talk” by showing unequivocally that the ideals we preach internationally are fully reflected in what we do at

home. American policymakers recognize that what we do domestically is watched and analyzed with great care by much of the rest of the world. For example, before the WCIT negotiations began in Dubai, Congress unanimously passed resolutions on internet governance that stated that “the United States should continue to preserve and advance the multi-stakeholder governance model under which the Internet has thrived as well as resist the imposition of an International Telecommunication Union (ITU) mandated international settlement regime on the Internet.” Declaring, among other things, that “it is essential that the Internet remain stable, secure, and free from government control.” Congress's Clear Message Was Heard This action was important not only because of the substance of Congress's statements, but also because the world understood just how extraordinary it is for our Congress to act with unanimity, especially in an era when Congress has immense difficulty reaching consensus on almost anything. At the end of WCIT, I heard from many foreign officials that they knew that the United States would not sign the revised treaty with its Internet-related provisions because Congress had sent a clear and unequivocal message that such an agreement was unacceptable to the American people. Looking ahead, we must recognize the obvious—internet policy issues affect virtually everyone in the world, and U.S. leadership depends on the power of its forward looking arguments, not just the historical fact that the United States gave the world a transformational technology. Although establishing global internet policy will be long, complex and challenging, we are fortunate that we have a well-established road map to follow. No Room for Hypocrisy We can continue to lead the world toward greater prosperity and the socially transformational benefits long associated with the internet. But if we fail to match our words with action; if we insist that others avoid an approach that imposes regulations and laws that limit the internet's capacity to advance freedom, openness and creativity, micromanages markets, or limits competition and investment, but do otherwise at home, then the world will quickly recognize our hypocrisy.

Failure to reform the NSA is galvanizing opposition to our Internet Freedom agenda.Danielle Kehl, et.al (with Kevin Bankston, Robyn Greene & Robert Morgus) New America’s Open Technology Institute July 2014 Policy Paper Surveillance Costs: The NSA’s Impact on the Economy, Internet Freedom & Cybersecurity

https://www.newamerica.org/downloads/Surveilance_Costs_Final.pdf

Prior to the NSA revelations, the United States was already facing an increasingly challenging political climate as it promoted the Internet Freedom agenda in global Internet governance conversations. At the 2012 World Conference on International Telecommunications (WCIT), the U.S. and diverse group of other countries refused to sign the updated International Telecommunications Regulations based on concerns that the document pushed for greater governmental control of the Internet and would ultimately harm Internet Freedom.183 Many observers noted that the split hardened the division between two opposing camps in the Internet governance debate: proponents of a status quo multistakeholder Internet governance model, like the United States, who argued that the existing system was the best way to preserve key online freedoms, and those seeking to disrupt or challenge that multistakeholder model for a variety of political and economic reasons, including governments like Russia and China pushing for greater national sovereignty over the Internet.184 Many of the proposals for more governmental control over the network could be understood as attempts by authoritarian countries to more effectively monitor and censor their citizens, which allowed the U.S. to reasonably

maintain some moral high ground as its delegates walked out of the treaty conference.185 Although few stakeholders seemed particularly pleased by the outcome of the WCIT, reports indicate that by the middle of 2013 the tone had shifted in a more collaborative and positive direction following the meetings of the 2013 World Telecommunications/ICT Policy Forum (WTPF) and the World Summit on Information Society + 10 (WSIS+10) review.186 However, the Internet governance conversation took a dramatic turn after the Snowden disclosures. The annual meeting of the Freedom Online Coalition occurred in Tunis in June 2013, just a few weeks after the initial leaks. Unsurprisingly, surveillance dominated the conference even though the agenda covered a wide range of topics from Internet access and affordability to cybersecurity.187 Throughout the two-day event, representatives from civil society used the platform to confront and criticize governments about their monitoring practices.188 NSA surveillance would continue to be the focus of international convenings on Internet Freedom and Internet governance for months to come, making civil society representatives and foreign governments far less willing to embrace the United States’ Internet Freedom agenda or to accept its defense of the multistakeholder model of Internet governance as a anything other than self-serving. “One can come up with all kinds of excuses for why US surveillance is not hypocrisy. For example, one might argue that US policies are more benevolent than those of many other regimes… And one might recognize that in several cases, some branches of government don’t know what other branches are doing… and therefore US policy is not so much hypocritical as it is inadvertently contradictory,” wrote Eli Dourado, a researcher from the Mercatus Center at George Mason University in August 2013. “But the fact is that the NSA is galvanizing opposition to America’s internet freedom agenda.”189 The scandal revived proposals from both Russia and Brazil for global management of technical standards and domain names, whether through the ITU or other avenues. Even developing countries, many of whom have traditionally aligned with the U.S. and prioritize access and affordability as top issues, “don’t want US assistance because they assume the equipment comes with a backdoor for the NSA. They are walking straight into the arms of Russia, China, and the ITU.”190

NSA mass surveillance programs undermine US credibility and soft powerDanielle Kehl, et.al (with Kevin Bankston, Robyn Greene & Robert Morgus) New America’s Open Technology Institute July 2014 Policy Paper Surveillance Costs: The NSA’s Impact on the Economy, Internet Freedom & Cybersecurity

https://www.newamerica.org/downloads/Surveilance_Costs_Final.pdf

Beyond Internet Freedom, the NSA disclosures “have badly undermined U.S. credibility with many of its allies,” Ian Bremmer argued in Foreign Policy in November 2013.214 Similarly, as Georg Mascolo and Ben Scott point out about the post-Snowden world, “the shift from an open secret to a published secret is a game changer… it exposes the gap between what governments will tolerate from one another under cover of darkness and what publics will tolerate from other governments in the light of day.”215 From stifled negotiations with close allies like France and Germany to more tense relations with emerging powers including Brazil and China, the leaks have undoubtedly weakened the American position in international relations, opening up the United States to new criticism and political maneuvering that would have been far less likely a year ago.216 U.S. allies like France, Israel, and Germany are upset by the NSA’s actions, as their reactions to the disclosures make clear.217 Early reports about close allies threatening to walk out of negotiations with the United States—such as calls by the French government

to delay EU-U.S. trade talks in July 2013 until the U.S. government answered European questions about the spying allegations218—appear to be exaggerated, but there has certainly been fallout from the disclosures. For months after the first Snowden leaks, German Chancellor Angela Merkel would not visit the United States until the two countries signed a “no-spy” agreement—a document essentially requiring the NSA to respect German law and rights of German citizens in its activities. When Merkel finally agreed come to Washington, D.C. in May 2014, tensions rose quickly because the two countries were unable to reach an agreement on intelligence sharing, despite the outrage provoked by news that the NSA had monitored Merkel’s own communications.219 Even as Obama and Merkel attempted to present a unified front while they threatened additional sanctions against Russia over the crisis in the Ukraine, it was evident that relations are still strained between the two countries. While President Obama tried to keep up the appearance of cordial relations at a joint press conference, Merkel suggested that it was too soon to return to “business as usual” when tensions still remain over U.S. spying allegations.220 The Guardian called the visit “frosty” and “awkward.”221 The German Parliament has also begun hearings to investigate the revelations and suggested that it is weighing further action against the United States.222 Moreover, the disclosures have weakened the United States’ relationship with emerging powers like Brazil, where the fallout from NSA surveillance threatens to do more lasting damage. Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff has seized on the NSA disclosures as an opportunity to broaden Brazil’s influence not only in the Internet governance field, but also on a broader range of geopolitical issues. Her decision not to attend an October 2013 meeting with President Barack Obama at the White House was a direct response to NSA spying—and a serious, high-profile snub. In addition to cancelling what would have been the first state visit by a Brazilian president to the White House in nearly 20 years, Rousseff’s decision marked the first time a world leader had turned down a state dinner with the President of the United States.223 In his statement on the postponement, President Obama was forced to address the issue of NSA surveillance directly, acknowledging “that he understands and regrets the concerns disclosures of alleged U.S. intelligence activities have generated in Brazil and made clear that he is committed to working together with President Rousseff and her government in diplomatic channels to move beyond this issue as a source of tension in our bilateral relationship.”224 Many observers have noted that the Internet Freedom agenda could be one of the first casualties of the NSA disclosures. The U.S. government is fighting an uphill battle at the moment to regain credibility in international Internet governance debates and to defend its moral high ground as a critic of authoritarian regimes that limit freedom of expression and violate human rights online. Moreover, the fallout from the NSA’s surveillance activities has spilled over into other areas of U.S. foreign policy and currently threatens bilateral relations with a number of key allies. Going forward, it is critical that decisions about U.S. spying are made in consideration of a broader set of interests so that they do not impede—or, in some cases, completely undermine—U.S. foreign policy goals.

Government surveillance is the greatest threat to Internet freedomEmily Taylor 02 Mar 2014, 3-2-2014, "Government control greatest threat to Internet Governance in 2014," Emily Taylor Research, http://www.emilytaylor.eu/government-control-trust-internet-threat/

The greatest threat facing Internet governance is the way too much power afforded to governments to control communication on the network . To me, this is mainly manifested in the increasing actions of online

mass surveillance carried out by some government s and the threats that this poses to privacy ; and the ability of some governments to stop all Internet communication using a “kill switch.” We’ve seen this happen in Egypt during the 18 days that brought Mubarak down, but it’s also still happening on a smaller scale in parts of Egypt (mainly the Sinai), with the government claiming it’s done in the interest of “national security.”¶ Sam Dickinson, writer and and public affairs consultant. www.linguasynaptica.com¶ The greatest threat to Internet governance is external politics. It’s got nothing to do with the Internet itself. It’s developments like the revelations of widespread NSA surveillance and existing tensions between countries with rival political views. Resentment towards the USA means that NSA surveillance is being used as a catch-all argument in Internet governance discussions . Equally, stakeholders from Western developed countries often automatically view with suspicion the different perspectives of those from the Middle East, Russia, and China. The less-than-perfect human rights records of many of these countries is used as unstated justification that their views on non-human rights related are somehow less legitimate than those from more “enlightened” developed countries. Combine these wider political prejudices held by stakeholders with the looming deadline to reframe the WSIS vision for the next decade, and you end up with a significantly reduced chance of real progress in Internet governance.¶ Pam Little, former Senior Director of Compliance at ICANN, Australia¶ Governments. I see governments as a two-way sword in that trust has been breached or eroded, which in turn could undermine the success or full potential of the Internet as an enabler and tool for innovation, e-commerce and the free flow of information. This brings me to a related issue, the U.S. government’s influence over ICANN and control over the domain name system (through the IANA contract). To me, this is no longer appropriate so to the extent that such legacy influence continues, it would continue to plague ICANN and ICANN will continue to suffer a legitimacy problem¶ Fiona Alexander – Associate Administrator for International Affairs NTIA, USA¶ We clearly face challenges to maintain a free and open Internet in the wake of the unauthorized disclosures of U.S. governments surveillance practices. Some countries are using these disclosures as an excuse for cutting off or disrupting the free flow of information. This would cause significant economic damages and could impede technological advancement and innovation, which rely on global cooperation. We cannot let the surveillance issues jeopardize this. Too much is at stake. So, we must work to discourage the building of barriers, and we must work to reduce and eliminate the threat to the existing multistakeholder process of Internet governance.

L – China censorshipStates are continuing to justify internet repression and censorship on the basis of our data collection policies. The dangers are snowballing.Washington Post, 2014 (Citing a Freedom House report. “In the ‘global struggle for Internet freedom,’ the Internet is losing, report finds” 12-4-14. http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/the-switch/wp/2014/12/04/in-the-global-struggle-for-internet-freedom-the-internet-is-losing-report-finds/)

The year 2014 marks the moment that the world turned its attention to writing laws to govern what happens on the Internet. And that has not been a great thing, according to an annual report from the U.S.-based pro-democracy think tank Freedom House.

Traditionally, countries eager to crack down on their online critics largely resorted to blocking Web sites and filtering Internet content, with the occasional offline harassment of dissidents. But that has changed, in part because online activists have gotten better at figuring out ways around those restrictions; Freedom House points to Greatfire, a service that takes content blocked in mainland China and hosts it on big, global platforms, like Amazon's servers, that the Chinese government finds both politically and technologically difficult to block.

In the wake of these tactics, repressive regimes have begun opting for a "technically uncensored Internet," Freedom House finds, but one that is increasingly controlled by national laws about what can and can't be done online. In 36 of the 65 countries surveyed around the world the state of Internet freedom declined in 2014, according to the report.

Russia, for example, passed a law that allows the country's prosecutor general to block "extremist" Web sites without any judicial oversight. Kazakstan passed a similar law. Vietnam passed decrees cracking down on any critiques of the state on social media sites. Nigeria passed a law requiring that Internet cafes keep logs of the customers who come into their shops and use their computers.

There's a bigger worry at work, too, Freedom House says: the potential for a "snowball effect." More and more countries, the thinking goes, will adopt these sorts of restrictive laws. And the more that such laws are put in place, the more they fall within the range of acceptable global norms.

Also shifting those norms? According to Freedom House, "Some states are using the revelations of widespread surveillance by the U.S. National Security Agency (NSA) as an excuse to augment their own monitoring capabilities, frequently with little or no oversight, and often aimed at the political opposition and human rights activists."

Impact ext – China soft power solves global problemsChina soft power solves every scenario for extinctionZhang Weiwei, 9-4-2012, a professor of international relations at Fudan University and a senior research fellow at the Chunqiu Institute, "The rise of China's political soft power," No Publication, http://www.china.org.cn/opinion/2012-09/04/content_26421330.htm jwh

As China plays an increasingly significant role in the world, its soft power must be attractive both domestically as well as internationally. The world faces many difficulties, including widespread poverty, international conflict, the clash of civilizations and environmental protection. Thus far, the Western model has not been able to decisively address these issues; the China model therefore brings hope that we can make progress in conquering these dilemmas. Poverty and development

The Western-dominated global economic order has worsened poverty in developing countries. Per-capita consumption of resources in developed countries is 32 times as large as that in developing countries. Almost half of the population in the world still lives in poverty. Western countries nevertheless still are striving to consolidate their wealth using any and all necessary means. In contrast, China forged a new path of development for its citizens in spite of this unfair international order which enabled it to virtually eliminate extreme poverty at home. This extensive experience would indeed be helpful in the fight against global poverty. War and peace

In the past few years, the American model of "exporting democracy'" has produced a more turbulent world, as the increased risk of terrorism threatens global security. In contrast, China insists that "harmony is most precious". It is more practical, the Chinese system argues, to strengthen international cooperation while addressing both the symptoms and root causes of terrorism .

The clash of civilizations Conflict between Western countries and the Islamic world is intensifying. "In a world, which is diversified and where multiple civilizations coexist, the obligation of Western countries is to protect their own benefits yet promote benefits of other nations," wrote Harvard University professor Samuel P. Huntington in his seminal 1993 essay "The Clash of Civilizations?". China strives for "being harmonious yet remaining different", which means to respect other nations, and learn from each other. This philosophy is, in fact, wiser than that of Huntington, and it's also the reason why few religious conflicts have broken out in China. China's stance in regards to reconciling cultural conflicts, therefore, is more preferable than its "self-centered" Western counterargument.

Environmental protection

Poorer countries and their people are the most obvious victims of global warming, yet they are the least responsible for the emission of greenhouse gases. Although Europeans and Americans have a strong awareness of environmental protection, it is still hard to change their extravagant lifestyles. Chinese environmental protection standards are not yet ideal, but some effective environmental ideas can be extracted from the China model.

Perfecting the China model

The China model is still being perfected, but its unique influence in dealing with the above four issues grows as China becomes stronger. China's experiences in eliminating poverty, prioritizing modernization

while maintaining traditional values, and creating core values for its citizens demonstrate our insight and sense of human consciousness . Indeed, the success of the China model has not only brought about China's rise, but also a new trend that can't be explained by Western theory. In essence, the rise of China is the rise of China's political soft power, which has significantly helped China deal with challenges, assist developing countries in reducing poverty, and manage global issues. As the China model improves, it will continue to surprise the world.

Impact ext – China censorshipCensorship’s net-worse for stabilityC. Custer, 2012, Chinese cultural expert with a degree in East Asia Studies, Tech in Asia, December, 18, 2012, “Web of Failure: How China’s Internet Policies Have Doomed Chinese Soft Power", http://www.techinasia.com/failure-china-internet-policies-doomed-chinese-soft-power/

When it comes to the web, China has continually struggled to choose between its impulse to control things as tightly as possible and its recognition of web platforms as a powerful way to broadcast its propaganda both at home and abroad. In the past few years, its apparent strategy has been to attempt to have its cake and eat it too: to broadcast its own message using all the Western web channels at its disposal while blocking those channels for domestic web users. Unfortunately for the government, having your cake and eating it is impossible, and this policy — if it is continued — will prove to be an

utter failure. Domestic Stability China’s censorship of Western web platforms like Facebook and

Twitter is predicated on the idea that those platforms, because they are uncensored, threaten China’s domestic stability. In the wake of the 2009 Urumqi riots, numerous Western social media sites (including the aforementioned Twitter and Facebook) were blamed for facilitating the organization of protests and the spread of “harmful information,” and were subsequently blocked. Blocking websites does increase stability in the short term, because people with dissenting messages have fewer ways to spread them.

In the long-term , though, this kind of stability is unsustainable . Censorship, after all, does not

eliminate dissent; it merely silences it, or more often pushes it into different channels. And while China’s Great Firewall (GFW) makes organizing dissent more difficult, it also foments dissent by frustrating people who are trying to do normal internet things but can’t because of the blockages. Moreover, it encourages creative ways to circumvent the blocks both technologically and ideologically (China’s net users may be the world’s most creative when it comes to using puns and homophones to discuss sensitive issues without setting off keyword blocks). The Great Firewall also effectively moves many dissenters from foreign sites (where most of the audience can’t understand them) onto domestic services like Sina Weibo. And while Sina Weibo and other Chinese social services are monitored and censored, they’re often not monitored and censored quickly and efficiently enough to stop so-called “harmful information” from spreading. The harder China cracks down on VPNs and other GFW-circumventing technology, the worse this is going to get. If Ai Weiwei and his followers (for example) are prevented from using Twitter, does the government really think they’re just going to stop expressing themselves and give up? No, they will turn to domestic sites, and while domestic censors will block their accounts and delete their messages, some of those messages will get through. And in a country where strident dissent is often illegal, its impact and its spread are intensified. To put it another way, if the Chinese internet was uncensored, the dramatic statements of Ai Weiwei and other dissidents probably wouldn’t be considered remarkable. And if everyone had the freedom to express themselves without fear of censorship and reprisals, Ai Weiwei’s fearlessness wouldn’t be particularly important. Honestly, if the government really wants to effectively silence Ai Weiwei, they should dismantle the Great Firewall tomorrow.

Impact ext – Territorial conflict escalation

Territorial conflicts will escalate

Burnett 14 Alistair Burnett is the editor of The World Tonight, a BBC News program, Real Clear World, February 12, 2014, "Will Asia Repeat Europe's Mistakes?", http://www.realclearworld.com/articles/2014/02/12/will_asia_repeat_europes_mistakes_110290.html

Yet tension in East Asia is rising - especially between China and Japan. Unlike relations between Germany and Britain a hundred years ago, the present-day tension between China and Japan has its roots in past conflicts between the two countries.

Many Chinese do not think the Japanese leadership has fully accepted the country's responsibility for the invasion of China in the 1930s and 1940s. Chinese students learn about the widespread atrocities committed by Japanese forces in gory detail, while Japanese nationalists play down the details and China says many Japanese textbooks whitewash the invasion - all of which means there's been no real reconciliation. China and Japan also have a long-running territorial dispute over control of the Senkaku/Diaoyu islands in the East China Sea arising out of the first Sino-Japanese war of the modern era in the 1890s. The islands were annexed by Japan after that war in 1895, but 50 years later, after the Second World War, unlike other territories conquered by the Japanese, they were not returned to China, but instead occupied by the Americans. By the time the United States decided it didn't need the islands in the early 1970s, China was ruled by the Communist Party and Japan was a US ally, so Washington returned the islands to Japanese control.

Growing more powerful in recent years, China has increased pressure on Japan to acknowledge there is a dispute over the islands. China now regularly sends ships and planes to patrol near the islands, the Japanese respond with patrols of their own, and the likelihood of an accidental clash is increasing.

So even if comparisons with 1914 are off the mark, conflict between China and Japan could still be a possibility.

Abe is a seen as a nationalist who would like Japan to move on from the pacifism imposed on it by the United States after 1945. He may not go as far as changing the pacifist elements of the constitution, but he wants to change Japan's defense posture, so the armed forces take a more assertive role - up to now, Japan has relied heavily on the United States to defend the areas around it - and he justifies this by pointing at China's growing military capabilities and doubts over Beijing's intentions.

In Beijing, Xi is focused on reforming the economy and cleaning up the corruption that's undermining the Communist Party's legitimacy, which would suggest he does not want a war. But for his reforms to succeed, maintaining tension with Tokyo and a sense of threat from abroad is useful as it encourages loyalty to the center. Xi will also need support of the military and security apparatus for his reforms as he takes on vested interests in the party leadership, provincial governments and large state enterprises, and this makes compromise with Japan more difficult. Chinese public opinion is also hostile to Japan, evident in opinion polls, social media and the ease with which anti-Japanese boycotts occur.

So, domestic politics as well as geopolitics are driving both China and Japan to be more assertive, and this worries Washington. When Abe visited the controversial Yasukuni shrine for Japanese war dead at the end of December, it not only stoked tension with China and South Korea which issued strong protests, the United States publicly stated it was "disappointed."

In his comments at Davos, Abe, presumably thinking of the strong trade links between his country and China, said the economic links between Germany and Britain did not prevent war in 1914. Some listening to the Japanese prime minister came away with the impression he thinks pecuniary interests may not be strong enough to deter a military clash.

If a conflict between Beijing and Tokyo were to break out, the US could not bank on its other ally in the region, Seoul, given the tense relations between South Korea and Japan which have their own territorial and historical disputes. So Washington would choose between honoring its defense treaty with Japan and avoiding direct conflict with China. As Washington would stand to lose the trust of many allies in the

region and is not noted for eating humble pie, the odds would suggest support for Japan. So if there is

any parallel with 1914, it could turn out to be in how cascading alliance commitments can cause a wider war.

Territorial conflicts will escalate and cause extinctionRehman 2013 (Iskander, Stanton Nuclear Security Fellow + associate in the Nuclear Policy Program @ the Carnegie Endowment for International Pace and a Stanton Nuclear Security Fellow. His research focuses on security and crisis stability in Asia, specifically the geopolitical ramifications of naval nuclearization in the Indian Ocean, 3/9/13, “Dragon in a Bathtub: Chinese Nuclear Submarines and the South China Sea,” http://carnegieendowment.org/2013/03/09/dragon-in-bathtub-chinese-nuclear-submarines-and-south-china-sea/fpjl)

Despite America’s best efforts to construct stronger ties with China, relations in-between both countries have been repeatedly buffeted by a series of tensions and misunderstandings. Many of these frictions appear to have resulted from a more assertive Chinese posture in the South China Sea. Almost every week, Asian headlines seem to be dominated by reports of jingoistic statements over disputed islets, or of a renewed bout of aggressive maneuvering by boats from one of Beijings numerous maritime agencies. When attempting to explain this upsurge in Chinese pugnacity, analysts have pointed to the rising power's selective interpretation of the law of the sea and growing unwillingness to compromise over what it calls its “blue national soil”, particularly when confronted with an increasingly intransigent domestic populace. Others have pointed to the more immediately tangible benefits to be derived from the presence of numerous offshore oil and gas deposits within contested waters. Strangely enough, however, one of the principal explanations for China’s

increased prickliness towards foreign military presence within its maritime backyard has yet to be clearly articulated. Indeed, not only is the South China Sea one of the world’s busiest trade thoroughfares, it also happens to be the roaming pen of China’s emerging ballistic missile submarine fleet, which is stationed at Sanya, on the tropical Island of Hainan. The United States, with its array of advanced anti-submarine warfare assets and hydrographic research vessels deployed throughout the region,

gives Beijing the unwelcome impression that Uncle Sam can’t stop peering into its nuclear nursery. When Chinese naval strategists discuss their maritime environs, the sentiment they convey is one of perpetual embattlement. Pointing to the US’s

extended network of allies in the Indo-Pacific region, and to their own relative isolation, Chinese strategists fear that Beijing’s growing navy could be ensnared within the first island chain-a region which they describe as stretching from Japan all the way to the Indonesian archipelago . Applying this maritime siege mentality to naval planning; they fret that the US

Navy could locate and neutralize their fledgling undersea deterrent in the very first phases of conflict, before it even manages to slip through the chinks of first island chain. This concern helps explain China's growing intolerance to foreign military activities in the South China Sea. Tellingly, some of the most nerve-wracking standoffs involving US and Chinese forces have unfolded in close proximity to Hainan. The infamous Ep-3 crisis, during which a US spy plane entered into collision with a Chinese fighter jet, occurred while the plane’s crew was attempting to collect intelligence on naval infrastructure development. Similarly, the USNS Impeccable incident, during which a US

hydrographic vessel was dangerously harassed by five Chinese ships, took place approximately seventy miles to the south of Hainan. During the confrontation, Chinese sailors reportedly attempted to unhook the Impeccable’s towed acoustic array sonars. In public, China's protests over foreign military activities are couched in territorial terms. In private, however, Chinese policymakers readily acknowledge the centrality of the nuclear dimension. Thus in the course of a discussion with a former Chinese official, I was told that “even though territorial issues are of importance, our major concern is the sanctity of our future sea-based deterrent.” He then went on to describe, with a flicker of amusement, how fishermen off the coast of Hainan regularly snag US sonars in their nets, and are encouraged to sell them back to the local authorities in exchange for financial compensation. Of course, such cat and mouse games are nothing new-and are perfectly legal- provided they occur within international waters or airspace. During the Cold War, American and Soviet ships would frequently conduct forward intelligence gathering

missions, sometimes in very close proximity to each others’ shores. At the time, American thinkers cautioned that such risky behavior

could potentially lead to misinterpretation and nuclear disaster . Unlike the Soviets, however, who could confine

the movements of their boomers to the frigid, lonely waters of the Barents and Okhotsk seas, the Chinese have chosen to erect their nuclear submarine base smack-bang in the middle of one of the world’s busiest maritime highways.

Needless to say, this location is hardly ideal. When it comes to picking strategic real-estate in their near seas, the Chinese have but a

limited roster of options. After all, their maritime backyard is girded by a sturdy palisade of state s which increasingly view China’s meteoric rise, and attendant truculence at sea, with a mixture of alarm and dismay. Like a dragon caught floundering in a bathtub, China’s naval ambitions are simply too broad and grandiose for its constricted maritime geography. This perceived lack of strategic depth provides a partial explanation to Beijing’s increased obduracy over territorial disputes in the South China Sea. In order to better protect its valuable subsurface assets, China aims to establish a ring of maritime watch towers or bastions around Hainan. Absolute control over the remote Spratly islands, in addition to the more proximate Paracels, would greatly facilitate this concentric defensive configuration. Until not long ago, China’s strategic submarine force wasn’t really taken seriously. Their lone 0-92 Xia class boat was deemed too antiquated-and noisy-to be anything more than a symbol of Beijing’s desire for great power status. Some observers had ventured that China would be content to rely almost exclusively on its rapidly modernizing land-based missile system for its deterrent. Recent developments, however, suggest that this may be about to change. In its latest report to Congress, the US-China Economic and Security Review Commission stated that China could soon equip its new class of Jin submarines with the JL-2 ballistic missile, which has a range of approximately 4 600 miles. This would enable Beijing, the report adds, to establish a “near-continuous at-sea strategic deterrent”. In all

likelihood this force will be berthed at Hainan. The second Obama Administration will therefore have the unenviable task of dealing with tensions in a region which is not only riddled with territorial divisions, but is also rapidly

morphing into one of the world’s most sensitive nuclear hotspots .

Internet freedom key to econOpen internet’s key to economic growth and cloud computingCOMMISSIONER ROBERT M. MCDOWELL FEDERAL COMMUNICATIONS COMMISSION, 5-31-2012, "Comm'r. McDowell's Congressional Testimony 5-31-2012," http://www.fcc.gov/document/commr-mcdowells-congressional-testimony-5-31-2012

Second, it is important to define the challenge before us. The threats are real and not imagined , although they admittedly sound like works of fiction at

times. For many years now, scores of countries led by China, Russia , Iran, Saudi Arabia, and many others, have pushed for, as then-Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin said almost a year ago, “international control of the Interne t” through the ITU.1 I have tried to find a more concise way to express this issue, but I can’t seem to improve upon now-President Putin’s crystallization of the effort that has been afoot for quite some time. More importantly, I think we should take President Putin very seriously. 1 Vladimir Putin, Prime Minister of the Russian Federation, Working Day, GOV’T OF THE RUSSIAN FED’N, http://premier.gov.ru/eng/events/news/15601/ (June 15, 2011) (last visited May 14, 2012). Six months separate us from the renegotiation of the 1988 treaty that led to insulating the Internet

from economic and technical regulation. What proponents of Internet freedom do or don’t do between now and then will

determine the fate of the Net , affect global economic growth and determine whether political liberty

can proliferate During the treaty negotiations, the most lethal threat to Internet freedom may not come from a full frontal assault, but through insidious and seemingly innocuous expansions of intergovernmental powers. This subterranean effort is already under way. While influential ITU Member States have put forth proposals calling for overt legal expansions of United Nations’ or ITU authority over the Net, ITU officials have publicly declared that the ITU does not intend to regulate Internet governance while also saying that any regulations should be of the “light-touch” variety.2 But which is it? It is not possible to insulate the Internet from new rules while also establishing a new “light touch” regulatory regime. Either a new legal paradigm will emerge in December or it won’t. The choice is binary. Additionally, as a threshold matter, it is curious that ITU officials have been opining on the outcome of the treaty negotiation. The ITU’s Member States determine the fate of any new rules, not ITU leadership and staff. I remain hopeful that the diplomatic process will not be subverted in this regard. As a matter of process and substance, patient and persistent incrementalism is the Net’s most dangerous enemy and it is the hallmark of many countries that are pushing the pro- regulation agenda. Specifically, some ITU officials and Member States have been discussing an alleged worldwide phone numbering “crisis.” It seems that the world may be running out of phone numbers, over which the ITU does have some jurisdiction. 2 Speech by ITU Secretary-General Touré, The Challenges of Extending the Benefits of Mobile (May 1, 2012),http://www.itu.int/net/pressoffice/press_releases/index.aspx?lang=en (last visited May 29, 2012). 2 Today, many phone numbers are used for voice over Internet protocol services such as Skype or Google Voice. To function properly, the software supporting these services translate traditional phone numbers into IP addresses. The Russian Federation has proposed that the ITU be given jurisdiction over IP addresses to remedy the phone number shortage.3 What is left unsaid, however, is that potential ITU jurisdiction over IP addresses would enable it to regulate Internet services and devices with abandon. IP addresses are a fundamental and essential component to the inner workings of the Net. Taking their administration away from the bottom- up, non-governmental, multi-stakeholder model and placing it into the hands of international bureaucrats would be a grave mistake. Other efforts to expand the ITU’s reach into the Internet are seemingly small but are tectonic in scope. Take for example the Arab States’ submission from February that would change the rules’ definition of “telecommunications” to include “processing” or computer functions.4 This change would essentially swallow the Internet’s functions with only a tiny edit to existing rules.5 When ITU leadership claims that no Member States have proposed absorbing Internet governance into the ITU or other intergovernmental entities, the Arab States’ submission demonstrates that nothing could be further from the truth. An infinite number of avenues exist to 3 Further Directions for Revision of the ITRs, Russian Federation, CWG-WCIT12 Contribution 40, at 3 (2011), http://www.itu.int/md/T09-CWG.WCIT12-C-0040/en (last visited May 29, 2012) (“To oblige ITU to allocate/distribute some part of IPv6 addresses (as same way/principle as for telephone numbering, simultaneously existing of many operators/numbers distributors inside unified numbers space for both fixed and mobile phone services) and determination of necessary requirements.”). 4 Proposed Revisions, Arab States, CWG-WCIT12 Contribution 67, at 3 (2012), http://www.itu.int/md/T09- CWG.WCIT12-C-0067/en (last visited May 29, 2012). 5 And Iran argues that the current definition already includes the Internet. Contribution from Iran, The Islamic Republic of Iran, CWG-WCIT12 Contribution 48, Attachment 2 (2011), http://www.itu.int/md/T09-CWG.WCIT12- C-0048/en (last visited May 29, 2012). 3 accomplish the same goal and it is camouflaged subterfuge that proponents of Internet freedom should watch for most vigilantly. Other examples come from China. China would like to see the creation of a system whereby Internet users are registered using their IP addresses. In fact, last year, China teamed up with Russia, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan to propose to the UN General Assembly that it create an “International Code of Conduct for Information Security” to mandate “international norms and rules standardizing the behavior of countries concerning information and cyberspace.”6 Does anyone here today believe that these countries’ proposals would encourage the continued proliferation of an open and freedom-enhancing Internet? Or would such constructs make it easier for authoritarian regimes to identify and silence political dissidents? These proposals may not technically be part of the WCIT negotiations, but they give a sense of where some of the ITU’s Member States would like to go. Still other proposals that have been made personally to me by foreign government officials include the creation of an international universal service fund of sorts whereby foreign – usually state-owned – telecom companies would use international mandates to charge certain Web destinations on a “per-click”

basis to fund the build-out of broadband infrastructure across the globe. Google, iTunes, Facebook and Netflix are mentioned most often as prime sources of funding. In short, the U.S.

and like-minded proponents of Internet freedom and prosperity across the globe should resist efforts to expand the powers of intergovernmental bodies over the Internet 6 Letter dated 12 September 2011 from the Permanent Representatives of China, the Russian Federation, Tajikistan, and Uzbekistan to the United Nations addressed to the Secretary-General, Item 93 of the provisional agenda - Developments in the field of information and telecommunications in the context of international security, 66th Session of the United Nations General Assembly, Annex (Sep. 14, 2011), http://www.cs.brown.edu/courses/csci1800/sources/2012_UN_Russia_and_China_Code_o_Conduct.pdf (last visited May 29, 2012). 4 5 even in the smallest of ways. As my supplemental

statement and analysis explains in more detail below, such a scenario would be devastating to global economic activity , but it

would hurt the developing world the most . Thank you for the opportunity to appear before you today and I look forward to your questions. * * * FCC Commissioner Robert M. McDowell Supplemental Statement and Analysis May 31, 2012 Thank you, Chairman Walden and Ranking Member Eshoo, for holding this hearing. Its topic is among the most important public policy issues affecting global commerce and political freedom: namely, whether the International Telecommunication Union (ITU), or any other intergovernmental body, should be allowed to expand its jurisdiction into the operational and economic affairs of the Internet. As we head toward the treaty negotiations at the World Conference on International Telecommunications (WCIT) in Dubai in December, I urge governments around the world to avoid the temptation to tamper with the Internet. Since its privatization in the early 1990s, the Internet has flourished across the world under the current deregulatory framework. In fact, the long-standing international consensus has been to keep governments from regulating core functions of the Internet’s ecosystem. Yet, some nations, such as China, Russia, India, Iran and Saudi Arabia, have been pushing to reverse this course by giving the ITU or the United Nations itself, regulatory jurisdiction over Internet governance. The ITU is a treaty-based organization under the auspices of the United Nations.1 Don’t take my word for it, however. As Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin said almost one year ago, the goal of this well-organized and energetic effort is to establish “international control over the Internet using the monitoring and supervisory capabilities of the [ITU].” 2 Motivations of some ITU Member states vary. Some of the arguments in support of such actions may stem from frustrations with the operations of Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN). Any concerns regarding ICANN, however, should not be used as a pretext to end the multi-stakeholder model that has served all nations – especially the developing world – so well. Any reforms to ICANN should take place through the bottom-up multi-stakeholder process and should not arise through the WCIT’s examination of the International Telecommunication Regulations (ITR)s. Constructive reform of the ITRs may be needed. If so, the scope of any review should be limited to traditional telecommunications services and not expanded to include information services or any form of Internet services. Modification of the current multi- stakeholder Internet governance model may

be necessary as well, but we should all work together to ensure no intergovernmental regulatory overlays are placed into this sphere. Not only would nations surrender some of their national sovereignty in such a pursuit, but they would suffocate their own economies as well, while politically paralyzing engineering and business decisions within a global regulatory body. 1 History, ITU, http://www.itu.int/en/about/Pages/history.aspx (last visited May 14, 2012). 2 Vladimir Putin, Prime Minister of the Russian Federation, Working Day, GOV’T OF THE RUSSIAN FED’N, http://premier.gov.ru/eng/events/news/15601/ (June 15, 2011) (last visited May 14, 2012). Every day headlines tell us about industrialized and developing nations alike that are awash in debt,

facing flat growth curves, or worse, shrinking GDPs. Not only must governments, including our own, tighten their fiscal belts, but they must also spur economic expansion. An unfettered Internet offers the brightest ray of hope for growth during this dark time of economic uncertainty , not more regulation. Indeed, we are at a crossroads for the Internet’s future. One path holds great promise, while the other path is fraught with peril. The promise , of

course, lies with keeping what works, namely maintaining a freedom-enhancing and open Internet while insulating it from legacy regulations. The peril lies with changes that would ultimately sweep up Internet services into decades-old ITU paradigms. If successful,

these efforts would merely imprison the future in the regulatory dungeon of the past. The future of global growth and political freedom lies

with an unfettered Internet . Shortly after the Internet was privatized in 1995, a mere 16 million people were online worldwide.3 As of early 2012, approximately 2.3

billion people were using the Net.4 Internet connectivity quickly evolved from being a novelty in industrialized countries to becoming an essential tool for commerce – and sometimes even basic survival – in all nations, but especially in the developing world. Such explosive growth was helped, not hindered, by a deregulatory construct. Developing nations stand to gain the most from the rapid pace of deployment and adoption of Internet technologies brought forth by an Internet free from intergovernmental regulation. By way of illustration, a McKinsey report re leased in January examined the Net’s effect on the developing world, or “aspiring countries.”5 In 30 specific aspiring countries studied, including Malaysia, Mexico, Morocco, Nigeria, Turkey and Vietnam,6 Internet penetration has grown 25 percent per year for the past five years, compared to only five percent per year in developed nations.7 Obviously, broadband penetration is lower in aspiring countries than in the developed world, but that is quickly changing thanks to mobile Internet access technologies. Mobile subscriptions in developing countries have risen from 53 percent of the global market in 2005 to 73 percent in 2010.8 3 Internet Growth Statistics, INTERNET WORLD STATS, http://www.internetworldstats.com/emarketing.htm (last visited Feb. 21, 2012). 4 Id. 5 See McKinsey High Tech Practice, Online and upcoming: The Internet’s impact on aspiring countries , MCK INSEY & CO. (Jan. 2012) (“McKinsey Aspiring Countries Report ”), http://www.mckinsey.com/Client_Service/High_Tech/Latest_thinking/Impact_of_the_internet_on_aspiring _countries (last visited May 24, 2012). 6 Id. at 22 (categorizing the following as aspiring countries: Algeria, Argentina, Brazil, Chile, China, Colombia, Czech Republic, Egypt, Hungary, India, Indonesia, Iran, Kazakhstan, Malaysia, Mexico, Morocco, Nigeria, Pakistan, the Philippines, Poland, Romania, the Russian Federation, Saudi Arabia, South Africa, Taiwan, Thailand, Turkey, Ukraine, Venezuela, and Vietnam). 7 Id. at 1, 3-4, 23. 8 Id. at 1. 2 In fact, Cisco estimates that the number of mobile-connected devices will exceed the world’s population sometime this year.9 Increasingly, Internet users in these countries use only mobile devices for their Internet access. 10 This trend has resulted in developing countries growing their global share of Internet users from 33 percent in 2005, to 52 percent in 2010, with a projected 61 percent

share by 2015.11 The 30 aspiring countries discussed earlier are home to one billion Internet users, half of al global Internet us 12 l ers. The effect that rapidly growing

Internet connectivity is having on aspiring countries’ economies is tremendous . The Net is an economic

growth accelerator . It contributed an average 1.9 percent of GDP growth in aspiring countries for an estimated total of $366 billion in 2010. 13 In some developing

economies, Internet connectivity has contributed up to 13 percent of GDP growth over the past five years.14 In six aspiring countries alone, 1.9 million jobs were associated with the Internet.15 And in other countries, the Internet creates 2.6 new jobs for each job it disrupts.16 I expect that we would all agree that these positive trends must continue. The best path forward is the one that has served the global economy so well, that of a multi-stakeholder governed Internet. One potential outcome that could develop if pro-regulation nations are successful in granting the ITU authority over Internet governance would be a partitioned Internet. In particular, fault lines could be drawn between countries that will choose to continue to live under the

current successful model and those Member States who decide to opt out to place themselves under an intergovernmental regulatory regime. A balkanized Internet would not promote global free trade or increase living standards . At a minimum, it would create extreme uncertainty and raise costs for all users across the globe by rendering an engineering, operational and financial morass. For instance, Harvard and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) recently announced placing many of their courses online for free – for anyone to

use. The uncertainty and economic and engineering chaos associated with a newly politicized 9 Cisco Visual Networking Index: Global M obile Data Traffic Forecast Update, 2011-201 6 , CISCO, at 3 (Feb. 14, 2012), http://www.cisco.com/en/US/solutions/collateral/ns341/ns525/ns537/ns705/ns827/white_paper_c11- 520862.pdf (last visited May 24, 2012). 10 McKinsey Aspiring Countries Report at 1. 11 Id. at 3-4, 23. 12 Id. at iv, 4, 23. And 73 percent of Internet users do not speak English as a first language. Id. at iv. 13 Id. at 2, 8-9, 26-27. 14 Id. at 2. 15 Id. at v. 16 McKinsey Global Institute, Internet Matters: The Nets Sweeping Impact on Growth, Jobs, and Prosperity , MCK INSEY & CO., at 3, 21 (May 2011),

http://www.mckinsey.com/Insights/MGI/Research/Technology_and_Innovation/Internet_matters (last visited May 24, 2012). 3 intergovernmental legal regime would inevitably drive up costs as cross border traffic and cloud computing become more complicated and vulnerable to regulatory arbitrage. Such costs are always passed on to the end user consumers and

may very well negate the ability of content and application providers such as Harvard and MIT to offer first-rate educational content for free. Nations that value freedom and prosperity should draw a line in the sand against new regulations while welcoming reform that could include a non-regulatory role for the ITU. Venturing into the uncertainty of a new regulatory quagmire will only undermine developing nations the most.

US leadership key to prevent global internet fragmentation – kills the economyMark Weinstein, Mark has served as a Steering Committee Member of National Strategy for Trusted Identities in Cyberspace (NSTIC), Huffington Post, November 12, 2014, “Obama Heroically Wages

Internet War, But Misses World Wide Web Target”, http://www.huffingtonpost.com/mark-weinstein/obama-heroically-wages-in_b_6137324.html

I have a greater fear -- a rudderless World Wide Web and captain-less ICANN. That's why eight months ago I preached for Net Neutrality and for the United States to push such an agenda through as stewards of ICANN. I was overjoyed on Monday to see Obama support half of my wish list when he released an emphatic video statement throwing his administration's full support behind Net Neutrality and asking the FCC to implement strict rules to give weight to such an agenda. Way to go, Mr. President!

Yet there's more to do here. What's interesting about Monday's statement is for all its good, it turns the discussion away from a global perspective to a domestic one. Obama's speech focuses on a free and open Internet within our borders that doesn't speed up or slow down content delivery based on the whims of broadband companies. Take that Netflix with your big ideas of Internet favoritism. At the same time, is this a first step of a philosophy or a final one? I hope the former but fear the latter.

Imagine for a second if every country had its own Internet. The World Wide Web would become

anything but, leading to an economic and individual rights disaster that would complicate commerce

and freedom around the world.

In 1997, Bill Clinton helped create ICANN within his Green Paper proposal for privatizing the domain name system (DNS). In that regard, our impartiality and creation of checks and balances built into the system have led to a rather impressive run , one that has averted partisan politics and lobbyists and helped keep the Internet as a free platform.

I think that our losing such a leadership role is a mistake for the U nited S tates and the principles of Net Neutrality. Yet in the spirit of compromise, I commend Obama for taking a stand within our borders. Now he needs to take the next step.

The hope I have is that whatever new governance structure emerges for ICANN in 2015 turns into a United Nations of Internet protection where the entire world has access to a free Internet . However, if the new structure cannot guarantee Net Neutrality, then I believe the U.S. government should revoke its decision to relinquish leadership. The risk is too great and the ramifications too frightening to idly

stand by and allow any other conclusion.

Internet freedom key to democracyUS support for internet freedom is essential to our continued ability to promote democracyRichard Fontaine and Will Rogers Center for a New American Security “Internet Freedom A Foreign Policy Imperative in the Digital Age” – June, 2011 - http://www.cnas.org/files/documents/publications/CNAS_InternetFreedom_FontaineRogers_0.pdf

The United States has a long history of providing diplomatic and financial support for the promotion of human rights abroad, including the right to free expression. While each presidential administration emphasizes human rights to differing degrees, during recent decades they have all consistently held that human rights are a key U.S. interest. Promoting freedom of the Internet expands human rights support into cyberspace, an environment in which an ever-greater proportion of human activity takes place. The United States advocates for freedom of the Internet because it accords not only with American values, but also with rights America believes are intrinsic to all humanity. For years, the U.S. government has programmatically and rhetorically supported democracy promotion abroad. The State Department routinely disburses millions of dollars in funding for democracy-building programs around the world, many of which are aimed explicitly at expanding free expression. Presidential and other speeches regularly refer to the American belief in the universality of this right; to cite but one example, a March 2011 White House statement on Syria noted that, “The United States stands for a set of universal rights, including the freedom of expression and peaceful assembly.”8 The Obama administration’s 2010 National Security Strategy specifically called for marshaling the Internet and other information technologies to support freedom of expression abroad,9 and the Bush administration adopted a policy of maximizing access to information and ideas over the Internet.10 America’s interest in promoting freedom via the Internet comes from the same fundamental belief in democratic values and human rights. Despite inevitable inconsistencies and difficult tradeoffs, the United States continues to support democracy. The Bush administration’s 2006 National Security Strategy committed to support democratic institutions abroad through transformational diplomacy.11 President Obama, after entering office with an evident desire to move away from the sweeping tone of his predecessor’s “freedom agenda,” nevertheless told the U.N. General Assembly in 2009 that “there are basic principles that are universal; there are certain truths which are self-evident – and the United States of America will never waver in our efforts to stand up for the right of people everywhere to determine their own destiny.”12 To the extent that supporting Internet freedom advances America’s democracy-promotion agenda, the rationale for promoting online freedom is clear. However, cause and effect are not perfectly clear and the United States must choose its policies under conditions of uncertainty. Both the Bush and Obama administrations have wagered that by promoting global Internet freedom the United States will not only operate according to universal values but will promote tools that may, on balance, benefit societies over the autocrats that oppress them. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton urged countries to “join us in the bet we have made, a bet that an open Internet will lead to stronger, more prosperous countries.”13 Given the evidence we discuss throughout this report, this bet is one worth making.

2AC

A2 Terror DANSA bulk internet data collection techniques impeded our ability to fight the war on terror – 4 key reasons.Danielle Kehl, et.al (with Kevin Bankston, Robyn Greene & Robert Morgus) New America’s Open Technology Institute July 2014 Policy Paper Surveillance Costs: The NSA’s Impact on the Economy, Internet Freedom & Cybersecurity

https://www.newamerica.org/downloads/Surveilance_Costs_Final.pdf

Given the amount of information the NSA is collecting, it is not surprising that the agency would also take aggressive steps to improve its ability to read that information. According to the “black budget” released by The Washington Post in August 2013, 21 percent of the intelligence budget (roughly $11 billion) goes toward the Consolidated Cryptologic Program, with a staff of 35,000 in the NSA and the armed forces’ surveillance and code breaking units.237 “The resources devoted to signals intercepts are extraordinary,” wrote Barton Gellman and Greg Miller.238 However, the agency has employed a variety of methods to achieve this goal far beyond simple code-breaking—methods that directly undermine U.S. cybersecurity, not just against the NSA, but also against foreign governments, organized crime, and other malicious actors. In this section, we consider four different ways that the NSA has damaged cybersecurity in pursuit of its signals intelligence goals: (1) by deliberately engineering weaknesses into widely-used encryption standards; (2) by inserting surveillance backdoors in widely-used software and hardware products; (3) by stockpiling information about security vulnerabilities for its own use rather than disclosing those vulnerabilities so that they can be remedied; and (4) by engaging in a wide variety of offensive hacking techniques to compromise the integrity of computer systems and networks around the world, including impersonating the web sites of major American companies like Facebook and LinkedIn.

NSA bulk internet data collection doesn’t help find real terrorists – they use other less obvious mechanisms to transfer informationGEOFFREY INGERSOLL Jun. 25, 2013, 5:44 PM The NSA's PRISM Surveillance Program Only Gathers Info On Stupid Terrorists Read more: http://www.businessinsider.com/the-nsa-prism-is-aimed-at-terrorisms-idiots-2013-6#ixzz3efOp11ct

It doesn't really matter if the NSA gathers all the information from the big tech giants, because real terrorists, smart terrorists, the guys in management, they don't use those platforms. Only terrorism's idiots do. Leonid Bershidsky of Bloomberg writes: The infrastructure set up by the National Security Agency, however, may only be good for gathering information on the stupidest, lowest-ranking of terrorists. The Prism surveillance program focuses on access to the servers of America’s largest Internet companies, which support such popular services as Skype, Gmail and iCloud. These are not the services that truly dangerous elements typically use. A few weeks ago, National Security Agency whistleblower Edward Snowden leaked documents diagramming the existence of a program called PRISM. Supposedly this program enabled the NSA to tap into the content of communications from the major tech giants — but only specific information and only if they had a court order, NSA officials later claimed. Later, when Congress pressed for information and justification for such a program, NSA director Keith Alexander

claimed they had stopped 50 terrorist acts, 10 of which were aimed at the U.S. Former vice president Dick Cheney raised the stakes, asserting PRISM could have stopped 9/11. Dubious claims at best. There are multiple platforms and methods to avoid the higher, more visible side of the Internet. Even Bin Laden was smart enough to use a courier and hand written notes to give orders. The real terrorist planners prefer to "remain in the undernet," writes Bershidsky. From Bloomberg: In 2012, a French court found nuclear physicist Adlene Hicheur guilty of, among other things, conspiring to commit an act of terror for distributing and using software called Asrar al-Mujahideen, or Mujahideen Secrets. The program employed various cutting-edge encryption methods, including variable stealth ciphers and RSA 2,048-bit keys. A mathmetician found out when he hacked into Google last year that they were only using 512 bit keys for their email communications. Likely they've upgraded, but the anecdote goes to show just how sophisticated terrorist planners can get. Earlier this year we covered an element of the undernet called "Tor." Certainly the paranoid upper echelons of Al Qaeda would use this side-road rather than the general Internet super highway. Those aren't the only options either when it comes to avoding PRISM. "At best," writes Bershidsky, "the recent revelations concerning Prism and telephone surveillance might deter potential recruits to terrorist causes from using the most visible parts of the Internet."

Claims that NSA bulk data surveillance, including Section 702 surveillance, prevents terrorism are hyped and misleading – a very low percentage of terrorism cases even have anything to do with it.Bailey Cahall, et.al. (David Sterman, Emily Schneider Peter Bergen) POLICY PAPER | JANUARY 13, 2014 https://www.newamerica.org/international-security/do-nsas-bulk-surveillance-programs-stop-terrorists/

However, our review of 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. An in-depth analysis of 225 individuals recruited by al-Qaeda or a like-minded group or inspired by al-Qaeda’s ideology, and charged in the United States with an act of terrorism since 9/11, demonstrates that traditional investigative methods, such as the use of informants, tips from local communities, and targeted intelligence operations, provided the initial impetus for investigations in the majority of cases, while the contribution of NSA’s bulk surveillance programs to these cases was minimal. Indeed, the controversial bulk collection of American telephone metadata, which includes the telephone numbers that originate and receive calls, as well as the time and date of those calls but not their content, under Section 215 of the USA PATRIOT Act, appears to have played an identifiable role in initiating, at most, 1.8 percent of these cases. NSA programs involving the surveillance of non-U.S. persons outside of the United States under Section 702 of the FISA Amendments Act played a role in 4.4 percent of the terrorism cases we examined, and NSA surveillance under an unidentified authority played a role in 1.3 percent of the cases we examined.

NSA exaggerates the role of its programs in protecting us from terrorism. We don’t need more information, the problem is we don’t understand or share the information we possess.Bailey Cahall, et.al. (David Sterman, Emily Schneider Peter Bergen) POLICY PAPER | JANUARY 13, 2014 https://www.newamerica.org/international-security/do-nsas-bulk-surveillance-programs-stop-terrorists/

Additionally, a careful review of three of the key terrorism cases the government has cited to defend NSA bulk surveillance programs reveals that government officials have exaggerated the role of the NSA in the cases against David Coleman Headley and Najibullah Zazi, and the significance of the threat posed by a notional plot to bomb the New York Stock Exchange. In 28 percent of the cases we reviewed, court records and public reporting do not identify which specific methods initiated the investigation. These cases, involving 62 individuals, may have been initiated by an undercover informant, an undercover officer, a family member tip, other traditional law enforcement methods, CIA- or FBI-generated intelligence, NSA surveillance of some kind, or any number of other methods. In 23 of these 62 cases (37 percent), an informant was used. However, we were unable to determine whether the informant initiated the investigation or was used after the investigation was initiated as a result of the use of some other investigative means. Some of these cases may also be too recent to have developed a public record large enough to identify which investigative tools were used. We have also identified three additional plots that the government has not publicly claimed as NSA successes, but in which court records and public reporting suggest the NSA had a role. However, it is not clear whether any of those three cases involved bulk surveillance programs. Finally, the overall problem for U.S. counterterrorism officials is not that they need vaster amounts of information from the bulk surveillance programs, but that they don’t sufficiently understand or widely share the information they already possess that was derived from conventional law enforcement and intelligence techniques. This was true for two of the 9/11 hijackers who were known to be in the United States before the attacks on New York and Washington, as well as with the case of Chicago resident David Coleman Headley, who helped plan the 2008 terrorist attacks in Mumbai, and it is the unfortunate pattern we have also seen in several other significant terrorism cases.

Minimization requirements are key to making data collecting effective enough to stop terror attacks Baker, 13 (Stewart Baker, Foreign Policy, June 2013, Why the NSA Needs Your Phone Calls..., www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2013/06/06/why_the_nsa_needs_your_phone_calls)

But why, you ask, would the government collect all these records, even subject to minimization, especially when Wyden

was kicking up such a fuss about it? And, really, what's the justification for turning the data over to the government, no matter how

strong the post-collection rules are? To understand why that might seem necessary, consider this entirely hypothetical example.

Imagine that the United States is intercepting al Qaeda communications in Yemen. Its leader there calls his weapons expert and says, "Our agent in the U.S. needs technical assistance constructing a weapon for an imminent operation. I've told him to use a throwaway cell phone to call you tomorrow at 11 a.m. on

your throwaway phone. When you answer, he'll give you nothing other than the number of a second phone. You will

buy another phone in the bazaar and call him back on the second number at 2 p.m." Now, this is pretty good improvised tradecraft, and

it would leave the government with no idea where or who the U.S.-based operative was or what phone numbers to monitor. It doesn't have probable cause to investigate any particular American. But it surely does have probable cause to investigate any American who makes a call to Yemen at 11 a.m., Sanaa time, hangs up after a few seconds, and then gets a call from a different

Yemeni number three hours later. Finding that person, however, wouldn't be easy, because the government could only identify the suspect by his calling patterns, not by name. So how would the NSA go about finding the one person in the United States whose calling pattern matched the terrorists' plan? Well, it could ask every carrier to develop the capability to store all calls and search them for patterns like this one. But that would be very expensive, and its

effectiveness would really only be as good as the weakest, least cooperative carrier. And even then it wouldn't work without massive, real-time information sharing -- any reasonably intelligent U.S.-based terrorist would just buy his first

throwaway phone from one carrier and his second phone from a different carrier. The only way to make the system work , and the only way to identify and monitor the one American who was plotting with al Qaeda's operatives in Yemen, would be to pool all the carriers' data on U.S. calls to and from Yemen and to search it all together -- and for the costs to be borne by all of us, not by the carriers. In short, the government would have to do it. To repeat, this really is hypothetical; while I've had clearances both as the NSA's top lawyer and in the top policy job at the Department of Homeland Security, I have not been briefed on this

program. (If I had, I wouldn't be writing about it.) But the example shows that it's not that hard to imagine circumstances in which the government needs to obtain massive amounts of information about Americans yet also needs to remain bound by the general rule that it may only monitors those whom it legitimately suspects of being terrorists or spies. The technique that squares that circle is minimization. As long as the minimization rules require that all searches of the collected data must be justified in advance by probable cause, Americans are protected from arbitrary searches. In the standard law enforcement model that we're all familiar with, privacy is protected because the government doesn't get access to the information until it presents evidence to the court sufficient to identify the suspects. In the alternative model, the government gets possession of the data but is prohibited by the court and the minimization rules from searching it until it has enough evidence to identify terror suspects based on their patterns of behavior. That's a real

difference. Plenty of people will say that they don't trust the government with such a large amount of dat a -- that there's too much risk that it will break the rules -- even rules enforced by a two-party, three-branch system of checks and balances.

When I first read the order, even I had a moment of chagrin and disbelief at its sweep. But for those who don't like the alternative model, the real question is "compared to what"? Those who want to push the government back into the standard law

enforcement approach of identifying terrorists only by name and not by conduct will have to explain how it will allow us to catch terrorists who use halfway decent tradecraft -- or why sticking with that model is so fundamentally important that we should do so even if it means more acts of terrorism at home.

Best study provesLennard 14 [Natasha – assistant news editor at Salon, “Study: NSA data hoarding doesn’t stop terror attacks”, 1/13/14, http://www.salon.com/2014/01/13/study_nsa_data_hoarding_doesnt_stop_terror_attacks/ \\NL]

Aligning with the findings of a review committee appointed by the White House, a report published Monday from the New America Foundation found that the NSA’s bulk collection of phone data has not prevented terror attacks.

NAF carried out “an in-depth analysis of 225 individuals recruited by al-Qaida or a like-minded group or inspired by al-Qaeda’s ideology, and charged in the United States with an act of terrorism since 9/11.” The study found that traditional investigative methods, such as the use of informants, tips from local communities, and targeted intelligence operations, provided the initial impetus for investigations in the majority of cases, while the contribution of NSA’s bulk surveillance programs to these cases was minimal.

The think tank’s conclusions are strong, challenging government claims that metadata collections of U.S. telephonic communications is necessary to national security:

Surveillance of American phone metadata has had no discernible impact on preventing acts of terrorism and only the most marginal of impacts on preventing terrorist-related activity, such as fundraising for a terrorist group. Furthermore, our examination of the role of the database of U.S. citizens’ telephone metadata in the single plot the government uses to justify the importance of the program – that of Basaaly Moalin, a San Diego cabdriver who in 2007 and 2008 provided $8,500 to al-Shabaab, al-Qaeda’s affiliate in Somalia – calls into question the necessity of the Section 215 bulk collection program.

The findings of the NAF and the White House’s NSA advisory committee not only call into question NSA practices brought to light by Edward Snowden. They highlight the ease with which the administration has been willing to deceive the American public about the necessity of surveillance dragnets. NSA officials had claimed that phone data collections had been necessary in thwarting as many as 54 terror plots. NSA director Keith Alexander was forced to admit that the figure was fabricated during a congressional hearing. At best, one case can be used in support of the efficacy of phone data hoarding for preventing terror plots.

No actual evidence support the claim that bulk data collection under Sec 702/PRISM is relevant for terror casesDanielle Kehl, et.al (with Kevin Bankston, Robyn Greene & Robert Morgus) New America’s Open Technology Institute July 2014 Policy Paper Surveillance Costs: The NSA’s Impact on the Economy, Internet Freedom & Cybersecurity

https://www.newamerica.org/downloads/Surveilance_Costs_Final.pdf

So far, the purported benefits of the programs remain unsubstantiated. While intelligence officials and representatives of the Obama Administration have defended the merits of the NSA programs,18 they have offered little hard evidence to prove their value. To the contrary, initial analyses of the NSA’s bulk records collection program suggest that its benefits are dubious at best, particularly compared to the program’s vast breadth. A January 2014 study from the New America Foundation’s International Security Program, for example, concluded 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… are overblown and even misleading.”19 Similarly, in its review of the telephone records collection program under Section 215 of the USA PATRIOT Act, the Privacy and Civil Liberties Oversight Board (PCLOB) could not identify a single instance in which the telephone records program made a concrete difference in the outcome of a counterterrorism investigation.20 The President’s Review Group concurred, emphasizing that “there is always a possibility that acquisition of more information—whether in the US or abroad—might ultimately prove helpful. But that abstract possibility does not, by itself, provide a sufficient justification for acquiring more information.”21 Although the PCLOB did find in a separate report that “the information the [Section 702] program collects has been valuable and effective in protecting the nation’s security and producing useful foreign intelligence,”22 it provided no details and did not weigh those purported benefits against the various costs of the surveillance. Furthermore, its conclusions were undermined just days later when The Washington Post revealed that

nine out of ten of the Internet users swept up in the NSA’s Section 702 surveillance are not legally targeted foreigners.23

NSA PRISM data collection techniques are actively preventing the successful acquisition of useful information to fight terrorism, and claims that NSA surveillance has stopped terror attack are false and misleading.Robert Taylor 6-18-13 PRISM Probably Never Stopped — and Never Will Stop — a Terrorist Attack

http://mic.com/articles/49449/prism-probably-never-stopped-and-never-will-stop-a-terrorist-attack

While the official party line, repeated ad nauseum, is that the NSA surveillance program has helped stop "dozens" of terrorist attacks, a closer look at the claims made by the White House and the program's defenders cast serious doubt about the program's actual effectiveness. In a recent congressional hearing, Senators Mark Udall and Ron Wyden released a joint statement calling on NSA head General Keith Alexander — "Emperor Alexander" of the covert national security state — to be more forthcoming about the surveillance program. The senators argue that the attacks Alexander claims were thwarted "appear to have been identified using other collection methods. The public deserves a clear explanation.” They also could have been one of the FBI's many, many "terrorism" sting operations. Washington's Blog cites numerous sources — including an NSA veteran, Fortune Management, Wired, and constitutional and military law expert Jonathan Turley — which show that the NSA PRISM program, and other Orwellian surveillance programs, are useless and ineffective, resulting in false information and are actually hindering the process of good police work and intelligence gathering. It didn't stop the Boston Bombing or 9/11 either. Apparently the more eyes Big Brother has, the less he actually sees. The surveillance state is, after all, a massive centrally-planned government bureaucracy so one shouldn't be surprised by incompetence. Do we really want to entrust the government this type of surveillance power "to keep us safe" when it doesn't even know who it's killing with drone strikes? But if surveillance programs are largely ineffective, why do they exist? Like virtually all government restrictions on liberty, especially ones as sweeping as the PATRIOT Act and PRISM, the desire for more intrusive control lies at the heart of any state's power. Dissent against the welfare-warfare state is growing, and any ideological threat to this institutionalized plunder is met with far more attention than, say, prosecuting rape in the military. Cynical? Perhaps. But what does it say when the likes of Senator Dianne Feinstein, House Speaker John Boehner and former Vice President Dick Cheney all call Edward Snowden a "traitor" for leaking information about the NSA spy program to the public? Treason is defined in the Constitution as giving "aid and comfort" to the enemy. According to this Washington "bipartisan consensus" of accepted political thought, "the enemy" Snowden aided are Americans and anyone around the world sympathetic to civil liberties, privacy and the rule of law. If Snowden is a traitor, then I don't want to see what a patriot looks like. They know that the more truth comes out about the national security state that permeates American society like a cancer, the more Americans will likely be outraged and demand answers they don't have. This is why the Obama administration is waging such a ruthless war on whistleblowers. This is nothing new, however, in even America's short history. The first whistleblower against the domestic police state was illegally detained and deported, Wilson and FDR tightened the screws, and the 1947 National Security Act — in which President Truman wanted "to scare the hell out of the American people" — entrenched the national security state. The "war on terror" has built and

expanded upon these previous encroachments of liberty and is now used to predictably smear the messenger and fear-monger to justify this level of secrecy and surveillance. As a result, we have sacrificed so much liberty in the name of professed security, and have neither. Given that you are eight times more likely to killed by the state than by a terrorist — a threat that is compounded by such a reckless, lawless and militaristic foreign policy — a government that has institutionalized broad powers to assassinate, wage aggressive war, suspend habeus corpus and monitor virtually our every move, justified in the name of "security," seems like the real threat to peace and liberty. Benjamin Franklin's often-cited axiom about balancing security and liberty, however, need not be a sacrifice of one or the other. Liberty is the mother, not the daughter, of order and security. This is why the Bill of Rights exists; to restrict government power so that it protects rights, not tramples on them. But even in the realm of security, we find that liberty and the market do a far better job of striking this balance between our natural desires for safety and freedom. As David Greenwald argues in "Martial Law vs. Market Law: Reflections on Boston," entrusting our security to a highly centralized monopoly imposing a top-down, uniform model on 300 million plus Americans leads to predictable abuse while. In a free society, "it is the citizens who would tell the police which types of conduct would be tolerated." Unfortunately, the NSA surveillance program is just the beginning as governments around the world think that the program doesn't go far enough. As the surveillance state, rooted in unchecked state power unleashed by an interventionist foreign policy, grows the task of defending civil liberties and working to expose and dismantle this beast becomes even more vital. Both our liberty and security depend upon it.

PRISM not effective at fighting terrorism – Boston bombing incident proves, no evidence exists to back up the flawed examples the government has given of its effectiveness.Steven Ahle is the Editor of Red Statements and a regular contributor to The D.C. Clothesline. Prism Fights Terrorism? Don’t You Believe It Posted on June 17, 2013

Ever since PRISM has been revealed, the administration and many members of congress have fallen over themselves, making the claim that PRISM has stopped “dozens of terrorist attacks”. But how true is that? About as true as anything else the Obama Mafiaosa touches. General Keith Alexander told congress that PRISM is a tool against terrorism: “It’s dozens of terrorist events that these have helped prevent. Both here and abroad, in disruption or contributing to the disruption of terrorist attacks,” Alexander told a U.S. Senate committee. His comments backed up the testimony of James Clapper, head of National Intelligence. But I still find it impossible to believe and tend to believe the program was more like the IRS scandal than it is about fighting a war on terror, when we all know the war on terror ended early on in Obama’s first term, when he eliminated the term “war on terror”. Ben Smith at Buzzfeed makes the case that the government lied. In the case of the attempted bombing of the New York subways, the government claimed that the email program stopped that attack. Documents in the public domain say otherwise. These documents show that Najibullah Zazi went to Pakistan to train with Al Qaeda. In 2009, he was charged with leading two other men into a plot to bomb the subways in New York. Now the question becomes, did PRISM stop the attack or was it good old fashioned police work? Zazi’s capture actually was the result of British Intelligence arresting several suspected terrorists. In 2010 a special court allowed British officials to search their computers and they found Zazi’s email address in there. “The open case is founded upon a series of emails exchanged between a Pakistani registered

email account sana_pakhtana@yahoo.com and an email account admittedly used by Naseer humaonion@yahoo.com between 30 November 2008 and 3 April 2009. The Security Service’s assessment is that the user of the sana_pakhtana account was an Al Qaeda associate…” Therefore, this information was obtained even before Zazi was a suspect in any kind of terror plot. PRISM was not responsible. But as we have seen in the past, this administration will keep on trotting out lie after lie in an effort to keep anyone from knowing what they were really up to. Now, let me tell you why I firmly believe PRISM was not about catching terrorists, although they may have used it as such at one time or another. Here’s my scenario. A young Muslim travels from the US to Russia, where he is radicalized. The Russians contact the US and the FBI investigates the young man. If PRISM were truly a tool to catch terrorists, would they not have gone into their massive collection of data and listened to his phone calls and read his emails. And armed with that monitor the mosque he attended. Perhaps even listened to his rant in favor of Jihad. Had any of this had been done, he would not have been able to, with the help of his brother, bomb the Boston Marathon. This was the textbook case for PRISM as a tool to fight terrorism. Yet, it was never used. maybe they were too busy visiting Ted Nugent?

NSA PRISM efforts have actually not solved any terrorist attack, despite government claims – they can offer evidence or examples

ROBERT ZUBRIN June 21, 2013 4:00 AM president of Pioneer Energy and the author of Energy Victory. Read more at: http://www.nationalreview.com/article/351622/prism-costs-lives-robert-zubrin

The answer is no. In a recent article published in the Chronicle of Higher Education, authors John Mueller and Mark G. Stewart provide an analysis of the only two concrete examples that had been offered at that point by the Obama administration of how PRISM supposedly impaired a terrorist plot. One was the arrest of an American accomplice to the 2008 Mumbai terrorist attack, which arrest, however, did nothing to stop the attack. The other was the arrest of three Pakistani-trained Afghan-Americans who were plotting to bomb the New York subway system. However, those arrests were actually enabled by a tip from British intelligence, which got wind of the plot using standard surveillance techniques. The tip was then reinforced by the plotters’ foolish use of stolen credit cards to buy large quantities of explosive supplies. In short, American security agencies did not succeed in foiling the first plot, and the gathering of metadata on the American public had nothing to do with stopping the second one. The NSA’s director, General Keith Alexander, told a House committee this week that PRISM and other NSA programs have helped stop 50 plots worldwide, including ten in the U.S., but he named no arrests and did not specify, in his public testimony, how much was learned through metadata collection and how much through conventional surveillance programs. Deputy FBI Director Sean Joyce did tell the same House committee of four cases in which PRISM data helped foil a plot or expose a conspirator — but one of the ones he listed was the subway plot. Nor has any other evidence been advanced by anyone to show that metadata gathering was critical in stopping any plots. But what is known is that thousands of Americans died to bankroll this questionable surveillance.

NSA programs, including PRISM, have no discernible impact on preventing terror attacks, evidence exists that refutes all examples of this given by the federal government.MEGHAN NEAL January 13, 2014 // 09:50 AM EST You'll Never Guess How Many Terrorist Plots the NSA's Domestic Spy Program Has Foiled http://motherboard.vice.com/blog/youll-never-guess-how-many-terrorist-plots-the-nsas-domestic-spy-program-has-foiled

At the end of this week President Obama is expected to finally answer the mounting calls to curtail the NSA's bloated power to invade its citizens' privacy by spying on millions of Americans' communications. But the president is going to have a hard time falling back on the old standby explanation that massive data collection is a necessary evil to protect the country from terrorism. A new analysis of terrorism charges in the US found that the NSA's dragnet domestic surveillance "had no discernible impact" on preventing terrorist acts. Instead, the majority of threats over the last decade were detected by regular old intelligence and law enforcement methods—tips, informants, CIA and FBI ops, routine law enforcement. The nonprofit think tank New America Foundation published a report today after investigating the 227 Al Qaeda-affiliated people or groups that have been charged for committing an act of terrorism in the US since 9/11. It found just 17 of the cases were credited to NSA surveillance, and just one conviction came out of the government's extra-controversial practice of spying on its own citizens. And that charge, against San Diego cab driver Basaaly Moalin, was for sending money to a terrorist group in Somalia. There was no threat of an actual attack. This is hardly the first time experts have searched for a link between bulk metadata collection and foiled terrorist plots and come up empty-handed. So far, the only real value in collecting and monitoring billions of US phone records has been to provide extra support in investigations already underway by the FBI or another agency, or to verify that a rumored threat isn't real (the "peace of mind" metric), the report found. But that hasn't stopped NSA officials and the Obama administration from drumming up a connection between terrorist attacks and surveillance to defend the agency's snooping. Shortly after Edward Snowden blew the lid off the classified PRISM program and the backlash heated up, officials claimed the mass surveillance tactics had thwarted 54 terrorist plots. NSA Director Keith Alexander trotted out this number in his testimony before Congress and the president echoed the line to the press. Eventually that claim was found to be grossly exaggerated and Alexander walked back the statement, admitting the cases weren't actually terrorist plots per se. He traded in the words "plots" and "attacks" for "events" and "activities." But the 50+ number was already pretty well-circulated through the press. Of course, government talking points on the issue also strategically tie the unpopular spy ops to the attack on 9/11. Officials were told to use lines like, "NSA and its partners must make sure we connect the dots so that the nation is never attacked again like it was on 9/11," and "I much prefer to be here today explaining these programs than explaining another 9/11 event that we were not able to prevent," Al Jazeera revealed. But even though the attack on the World Trade Center was used as justification for expanding the intelligence community's powers in the first place, the new report suggests that the 9/11 hijackers didn't succeed by totally blindsiding the US, but because the government bungled the early warnings. "The overall problem for US counterterrorism officials is not that they need the information from the bulk collection of phone data, but that they don’t sufficiently understand or widely share the information they already possess that is derived from conventional law enforcement and intelligence techniques," wrote New American Foundation National Security Director Peter Bergen. Now it's over a decade later and the US government has backdoor access into basically the entire digiverse, with no evidence to prove the

dubious data collection is doing anything at all useful. Last month, Obama's advisory panel determined the agency’s spy operations are "not essential to preventing attacks," and handed him 46 recommendations for reforming the programs. Unfortunately, sources say the president has embraced the terrorism justification and isn’t expected to make any major moves to narrow the scope of domestic surveillance, just call for minor changes to reassure Americans that their civil liberties aren't being trampled.

Plan reforms to Section 702 will protect privacy without damaging national securityJake Laperruque July 2014 https://cdt.org/blog/why-average-internet-users-should-demand-significant-section-702-reform/

There are sensible reforms that can significant limit the collateral damage to privacy caused by Section 702 without impeding national security. Limiting the purposes for which Section 702 can be conducted will narrow the degree to which communications are monitored between individuals not suspected of wrongdoing or connected to national security threats. Closing retention loopholes present in the Minimization Guidelines governing that surveillance will ensure that when Americans’ communications are incidentally collected, they are not kept absent national security needs. And closing the backdoor search loophole would ensure that when Americans’ communications are retained because they communicated with a target of Section 702 surveillance, they couldn’t be searched unless the standards for domestic surveillance of the American are met.

Current NSA data collection strategy focuses on vulnerability mitigation rather than threat mitigation which is an inferior method for resolving terror concerns – privacy and relations are necessary to effectively implement a threat mitigation strategy.Shawn Henry, 2-13-13 PRESIDENT, CROWDSTRIKE SERVICES http://www.gpo.gov/fdsys/pkg/CHRG-113hhrg81461/html/CHRG-113hhrg81461.htm

Vulnerability mitigation is the current cybersecurity approach in the private sector, and has been for the past 20 years. We continuously focus on hardening our networks by ``Defense-in-Depth'', using firewalls, anti-virus software, patching vulnerabilities, and employing intrusion prevention systems. This approach generally stops those actors who do not care who their specific targets are, but are simply like burglars who are willing to rob anybody's house and take anybody's jewelry. Our mistake, however, is that we are using the same approach against Advanced Persistent Threat actors who actually have specific targets in mind, and are not going to stop until they have reached their goals. These modern-day cyber burglars are targeting the equivalent of the Hope Diamond, quite specifically, not fungible engagement rings. For our most advanced and well-funded adversaries, there are no substitutes for their targets, regardless of how many, and they will continue their onslaught until they achieve success. Ironically, our own defensive efforts have actually made the problem worse, by encouraging our adversaries to outperform us, while we outspend them. Although many are not prepared to consider this possibility, the result of our failure to distinguish between the novice and the professional adversary has been a proliferation of more capable malware, created by nation-state adversaries and organized crime groups,

and an escalation of their activities in order to defeat our defenses. what does this mean? Employing a threat mitigation strategy requires an increased ability to detect and identify our adversaries, and to penalize them. This is the identical strategy we employ in the physical world every single day to thwart criminals, spies, and terrorists. Achieving these goals in the cyber environment, however, will require unprecedented coordination between private industry--which as a whole has the ownership and ability to achieve these goals, and governments, which are primarily authorized to investigate and penalize them. Inevitably we must bring the private sector and the Government together to achieve the goal of threat deterrence. The vast majority of the intelligence that will lead to identification of the adversaries resides on private-sector networks; they are, in essence, ``crime scenes'', and the evidence and artifacts of the breach are resident on those networks. That threat intelligence, too, can't be shared periodically via e-mail at human speed; it needs to be shared among all victims, in real-time, at network speed. The private sector, then, can fill tactical gaps that the Government is blind to. This can be done while respecting privacy, a critical and absolutely necessary element of intelligence sharing.

PRISM only making the haystack bigger when it comes to finding terroristsShaun Waterman 6/20/13, reporter for The Washington Times and senior editor for United Press International, “NSA Data gathering gave little help in four terrorism investigations”, http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2013/jun/20/nsa-data-gathering-gave-little-help-in-4-terrorism/?page=all

The Obama administration’s efforts to justify the National Security Agency ’s vast data-gathering

about Americans’ phone and online communications hit a snag this week, as doubts surfaced about

newly declassified details on terrorism investigations that U.S. intelligence officials released to

reassure the public. Lawmakers with access to classified information and lawyers who have followed

the four cases made public said the NSA ’s domestic data gathering had not played the crucial role

that officials assert. “We have yet to see any evidence that the bulk phone records collection

program has provided any otherwise unobtainable intelligence,” Democratic Sens. Ron Wyden of

Oregon and Mark Udall of Colorado said in a joint statement. “ It is highly doubtful that these [ NSA collection]

programs played the kind of central role in these cases that officials have said, ” said Michael German, a lawyer

and former undercover FBI agent who now works for the American Civil Liberties Union. Since contract computer technician and self-proclaimed whistleblower Edward Snowden revealed the existence of two huge top-secret NSA data-gathering programs this month, officials have struggled to justify them to the public without worsening the damage they say the revelations have caused to national security. This week, intelligence officials at a rare public hearing told the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence that more than 50 terrorist plots, 10 to 12 of which involved a target in the U.S., had been foiled using intelligence from at least one of the NSA programs. One of them, which uses a computer system called Prism to get real-time access to electronic communications carried by U.S. Internet and technology companies, is authorized under Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) amendments of 2008. Prism, which allows the NSA to eavesdrop on email and text messages, as well as Internet telephone and video chat services such as Skype, is used only against targets “reasonably believed” to be foreigners outside the U.S., officials say. They acknowledge that some Americans’ communications are collected “inadvertently” because they are in touch with targeted suspects. But there has been more concern about the second program exposed by Mr. Snowden, which is authorized under Section 215 of the USA Patriot Act, a large suite of anti-terrorism laws passed hurriedly in the wake of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks. Under this program, the NSA collects so-called metadata — time, duration and destination number — about every telephone call made in the U.S. Officials told the House intelligence committee that the data helped them identify contacts between

terrorists abroad and their associates in the U.S. But even FBI Director Robert S. Mueller III acknowledged Wednesday that this huge NSA database of domestic phone calls was only “a contributing factor; one dot amongst a number of dots,” in “many” of the 10 to 12 cases involving a planned attack in the U.S. The one case that he said wholly relied on the program was a 2003 probe that began after a tipoff about a San Diego-based supporter of al-Shabab, a Somali terrorist group with links to al Qaeda. “We closed the investigation down,” said Mr. Mueller, explaining that agents were unable to find evidence of a terrorist connection. In 2007, the NSA gave the FBI a phone number in San Diego that they said had been in contact with a phone in East Africa they were monitoring. “They could not tell what calls were made to that telephone line in East Africa,” said Mr. Mueller. “And consequently, they took that number, ran it against the database and came up with this telephone number in San Diego.” Officials then had to “go through the additional legal process” to get the name of the phone subscriber, ensure that there was “predication,” meaning sufficient grounds to open a full federal investigation, and obtain a warrant for a wiretap. On the basis of that surveillance, four men were convicted this year of fundraising for al-Shabab. “That is one case where you have [Section] 215 [data-gathering authority] standing by itself,” Mr. Mueller told Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Patrick J. Leahy, Vermont Democrat. But Mr. Wyden and Mr. Udall, the two Democrats who have seen classified information about the cases, said Mr. Mueller and other officials were giving credit to Section 215 domestic collection for foiling plots that actually were thwarted using foreign intelligence programs such as Section 702.

“Saying that ‘these programs’ have disrupted ‘dozens of potential terrorist plots’ is misleading if the

bulk [domestic] phone records collection program is actually providing little or no unique value,”

they said in their statement. In fact, the ACLU ’s Mr. German said, the huge proliferation of

electronic surveillance data was overwhelming the FBI and “just making the haystack bigger.” He

noted as an example of missing a needle that the FBI ’s Webster Commission Report into the

bureau’s failure to identify accused Fort Hood shooter Maj. Nidal Hasan as a jihadist called the case “a stark example of the impact

of the data explosion.” “The exponential growth in the amount of electronically stored information is a critical challenge to the FBI,” the commission concluded. Also Thursday, the FBI acknowledged that Deputy Director Sean Joyce misspoke this week in describing to lawmakers details about another of those four cases, involving a Kansas City man called Khalid Ouazzini. Mr. Ouazzini was placed under court-ordered surveillance by the FBI after the NSA discovered he had been in email contact with a terrorist suspect in Yemen, Mr. Joyce said. He added that the surveillance uncovered a “nascent” plot to bomb the New York Stock Exchange. “Was the plot serious?” he was asked. “I think the jury considered it serious, since they were all convicted,” he replied. But an FBI official acknowledged Thursday that Mr. Ouazzini and two associates in New York had merely pleaded guilty to lesser charges of money laundering or providing support to terrorist groups. Nevertheless, the official defended that case as an example of the program’s success regardless of the specific convictions ultimately achieved. “We stand behind the example that was provided,” he said. Nonetheless, doubts continued to surface about the other two cases as well. In the case of David Headley, the Pakistani-American charged with aiding the 2008 Mumbai terrorist attack, the ACLU’s Mr. German said the FBI had received “no fewer than five separate tipoffs that he was visiting terror training camps — two of them from his ex-wives.” Authorities said Headley was planning an attack on the Danish newspaper that printed multiple satirical cartoons of Islam’s Prophet Muhammad when the NSA program enabled officials to catch up to him. The most serious attack officials say was thwarted was Najibullah Zazi’s attempt to bomb the New York subway. Zazi was caught because his al Qaeda handler in Pakistan was emailing him from the same Yahoo account that he had used to communicate with a British-based terrorist cell broken up the previous year, official said.

PRISM has been the least successful of all NSA programsJason Ditz 6/11/13, News editor and writer for The Huffington Post, “Surveillance: The God that Failed”, http://www.huffingtonpost.com/jason-ditz/surveillance-the-god-that_b_3420900.html

Over a few short days, we have learned the Obama Administration and the NSA are engaged in worldwide surveillance on a scale unprecedented in human history. The president and other officials have dismissed the privacy concerns therein, insisting that the security benefits outweigh basic human

dignity. Yet even if this had been the case , it is plain that PRISM and the rest of the surveillance

schemes are such colossal failures that they are impossible to defend on any grounds. They must be

immediately stopped. PRISM is the most important aspect of this surveillance system, and gives the

NSA and other affiliated officials with direct access to private data of hundreds of millions of

Americans, and billions of users worldwide, through nine major Internet companies , including

Microsoft, Google, Facebook and Apple. This is just part of the overall system, however, and a leaked report from the NSA's analysis tool named Boundless Informant showed 97 billion pieces of

"intelligence"culled over a 30-day span centering around March. As officials have sought to defend the

program, they have been unable to provide many examples of this "intelligence" amounting to

anything. Several years of this level of information awareness amounted to one arrest over a

speculative plot by Najibullah Zazi . In 2009 Zazi was arrested for plotting to bomb the New York

subways. His plot consisted of him buying hydrogen peroxide and nail-polish remover from a beauty salon, and his ability to go from those items to a "weapon of mass destruction" was dubious, at best.

Still, a plot is a plot, and officials are clinging to it apparently for lack of anything else. Some critics have

noted that 97 billion pieces of intelligence per month did nothing to stop the Boston Marathon

bombings , which again is a fair point. Yet when the surveillance system has jumped outside of the

realm of "terror suspects" and is now watching all of us, all of the time, it is clear that focusing merely on

this one segment misses the broader point. Murders, kidnappings -- in fact , all the violent and non-

violent crimes in the United States are being committed by people who, if they are on the Internet,

were under surveillance. Yet PRISM failed to detect any of these other plots ahead of time. Think

about that: every school shooter was under intensive scrutiny for years before their attack. Every

premeditated murder was planned by someone whose communications were being carefully

scrutinized. PRISM caught nary a one of these people. That's a string of failures impossible to ignore.

We can even extend it beyond matters of crime. Every person who attempted suicide was facing the same surveillance. Every Google search they did, every desperate email they sent that could've served as a warning went through PRISM The NSA collected all of this, and did nothing about it. If we, as individuals, are to be expected to sacrifice the sum total of all of our privacy to a surveillance leviathan watching us at all times, nominally for our own protection, this dramatic incompetence is an

insurmountable problem. We can put aside all of the debating about sacrificing our liberty for

security, because the plain truth is that we aren't getting the security dividends at any rate.

Biggest success story for PRISM has been disproven as effectiveABBY OHLHEISER 6/11/13, Author for The Wire and The Atlantic, “The NSA’s best defense of prism didn’t even last a week”, http://www.thewire.com/national/2013/06/nsas-only-terrorist-defense-prism-didnt-even-last-week/66143/

Looks like surveillance defenders just lost their main talking point in defense of the NSA's (formerly) secret phone and data tracking programs: Najibullah Zazi, the would-be New York City subway bomber, could have easily been caught without PRISM. That's according to a devastating rebuttal from theAssociated Press out Tuesday, which further explains that those employing the Zazi defense didn't even get the details right on the attempted plot in the first place. In case you missed the Zazi subplot in the massive NSA story that's been dominating headlines for the past week, a quick primer: Last Thursday, Representative Mike Rogers referred to an unspecified terrorist attack that was thwarted by the blanket surveillance programs revealed by the Guardian and the Washington Post. That planned attack, it turned out, was Zazi's al-Qaeda backed pan to

bomb the NYC Subway system. Defenders of the NSA programs, like Rogers, have been pushing that story ever since. For example, here's Sen. Dianne Feinstein on ABC's "This Week," talking about Zazi as a phone tracking success story: "The second is a man who lived in colorado, who made the decision that he was going to blow up a new york subway, who went to a beauty wholesale supply place, bought enough hydrogen peroxide to make bombs, was surveilled by the FBI for six months, traveled to go to new york to meet with a number of other people who were going to carry out this attack with him." As the AP points out, it looks like Feinstein misspoke there. It's PRISM, not the phone tracking program, that officials are saying led to Zazi's capture, according to declassified documents addressing the investigation that were released in the wake of

the NSA news last week. And it gets worse for Team NSA: even before Feinstein et al. took to the Sunday

talk shows, many had already raised credible doubts about the necessity of PRISM in the Zazi

investigation, including Adam Goldman, who co-bylined today's AP story: Which brings us to the

Associated Press takedown. Zazi, as Goldman and Matt Apuzzo explain, was foiled when officials intercepted an email to a Yahoo

email address in September of 2009. It looks like they did use PRISM to capture the incriminating missive, but

here's the thing: they didn't have to. Although 2007 and 2008 laws gave the FBI the go-ahead to

monitor email accounts linked to known terrorists without a warrant, investigators would have

easily gotten a warrant to monitor the account in question anyway : "To get a warrant, the law requires that the

government show that the target is a suspected member of a terrorist group or foreign government, something that had been well established

at that point in the Zazi case." In other words, the Zazi plot does little to justify blanket surveillance of

millions of phone and email accounts without a warrant, because authorities found the email

address they needed without PRISM, and could have monitored that account without it, too. But,

hey, NSA defenders are going to get at least one more big chance to mount a defense of the agency's

massive data tracking programs : the ACLU filed suit against the NSA on Tuesday, claiming that the programs violate the First and

Fourth amendments, along with Section 215 of the Patriot Act itself. Or, they could mount their new defense in response to one of the other pending lawsuits against them for PRISM-like programs, like the two pending lawsuits filed by the Electronic Frontier Foundation before last week's news even broke.

A2 Politics

NSA surveillance unpopular with republicans – 2 to 1 margin Lee 13 – (Timothy B. Lee, senior editor at Vox, former writer for Washington Post, Ars Technica, and Forbes, “Poll: Republicans hate NSA spying. Democrats are ambivalent.”, The Washington Post, June 12, 2013, http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/wonkblog/wp/2013/06/12/poll-republicans-hate-nsa-spying-democrats-are-ambivalent/) Wang

A majority of Americans , 53 percent, disapprove of two N ational S ecurity A gency surveillance programs whose existence was reported last week. A Gallup poll found that just 37 percent approved of the NSA's efforts to "compile

telephone call logs and Internet communications."¶ Interestingly, the most intense opposition to the programs comes

from the political right . Republicans disapprove of the program by almost a 2 to 1 margin .

Independents disapprove , 56 to 34 percent . But 49 percent of Democrats approve of the program, compared with 40

percent who disapprove.¶ Gallup says the partisan breakdown on the issue has changed over time. When the polling organization asked a similar question in 2006, the NSA's program had more support from Republicans than Democrats. Gallup believes the shift "reflects the party of the president under whose watch the programs were carried out at those two points in time." Of course, the programs in question were begun during the Bush administration.¶ Americans were evenly split, 44 percent to 42 percent, on whether it was right for

Edward Snowden to leak classified documents to the press.¶ A recent CBS poll found similar results, with 58 percent of respondents disapproving of the government collection of information about "ordinary Americans." That poll found the same partisan split, with Democrats more likely to approve.¶ In contrast, a Pew/Washington Post survey found that a majority of voters approved of surveillance when told that the programs were supervised by the courts and intended to "investigate terrorism."

Surveillance reform overwhelmingly bipartisan – over 70% of both parties oppose spying programs Clement 13 – (Scott Clement, survey research analyst for Capital Insight, chair for the American Association for Public Opinion Research (AAPOR)’s Jourbakust Education team, “Concern over NSA privacy violations unites Democrats and Republicans, poll finds”, August 16, 2013, http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/the-fix/wp/2013/08/16/concern-over-nsa-privacy-violations-unites-democrats-and-republicans-poll-finds/) Wang

Fresh disclosures that the National Security Agency broke privacy rules threatens to fuel Americans fast-growing concerns about civil liberties. But the surprising partisan consensus that programs trample on privacy marks a key feature of public assessments, representing a break from similar debates during George W. Bush's presidency.¶ A July Washington Post-ABC News poll — before the latest

disclosures reported by The Post — found fully 70 percent of Democrats and 77 percent of Republicans said the NSA's phone and Internet surveillance program intrudes on some Americans' privacy rights . What's more,

Democrats and Republicans who did see intrusions were about equally likely to say they were "not justified:" 51 and 52 percent respectively. Nearly six in 10 political independents who saw intrusions said they are unjustified. ¶ There was less partisan agreement in 2006, when news about the George W. Bush administration's warrantless wiretapping program broke. That January, a Post-ABC poll found 73 percent of Democrats — but only 50 percent of Republicans — said federal agencies were intruding on some Americans' privacy rights.

Broad support for bulk data surveillance reform

CSM, 6-3-2015, "For privacy advocates, USA Freedom doesn't end push for surveillance reform," http://www.csmonitor.com/World/Passcode/2015/0603/For-privacy-advocates-USA-Freedom-doesn-t-end-push-for-surveillance-reform

Supporters of surveillance reform took a brief moment on Tuesday to savor the Senate’s 67-32 passage of the USA Freedom Act before immediately locking their sights on the next targets for change. The bill that was quickly signed into law by President Obama puts an end to the National Security Agency’s bulk collection of phone call metadata and imposes conditions and limits on how US spy agencies can use and access phone data. It also amends key portions of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act of 1976 and the USA Patriot Act of 2005 with language that introduces greater transparency and oversight of government surveillance practices and the decisions of the FISA court.

Recommended: How well do you know the world of spying? Take our CIA and NSA quiz. USA Freedom “is the most significant national surveillance reform in the last 30 years,” said Harley Geiger, advocacy director and senior counsel at the Center for

Democracy and Technology. “It demonstrates that the era of rubber stamping mass surveillance is over.” Several other groups including the American Civil Liberties Union, the Internet Infrastructure Coalition, and the Open Technology Institute expressed similar sentiments. “We’re celebrating because, however small, this bill marks a day that some said could never happen – a day when the NSA saw its surveillance power reduced by Congress,” the Electronic Frontier Foundation wrote. But most reform groups also noted that the Freedom Act leaves unchanged many other controversial surveillance practices. For instance, the Freedom Act does not change a FISA provision referred to as Section 702, which the government has used as its authority to conduct extensive surveillance on online communications . The government has cited Section 702 as its authority for programs like PRISM for collecting huge quantities of data directly from servers and networks belonging to several Internet giants including Google, Microsoft, Yahoo, and Facebook.

Bipartisan support for additional bulk data restrictionsAlex Marthews, 5-29-2014, "We Need Real Surveillance Reform, Not The House's "USA Freedom Act", https://www.restorethe4th.com/blog/we-need-real-surveillance-reform-not-the-houses-usa-freedom-act/

We urge the Senate, and especially the Judiciary Committee, to fight hard for the Fourth Amendment in the next few months by advancing as strong a bill as possible – much stronger than this one. The USA Freedom Act, in its original form, was popular enough in the House to have passed unamended, had it been allowed to come to the floor. In the Senate, the same may well be true, and our next steps on Capitol Hill will be to work to make that happen. When we look back in a generation at the era of our out-of-control surveillance state, we will wonder why we didn't take the Fourth Amendment as seriously as our Founders took it. We will feel shame that we were willing to sell our Bill of Rights in an attempt to thwart the same terrorists said to be attacking it. The sooner we replace this act with actual reform, the sooner our out-of-control surveillance state will finally be a thing to look back on.

Momentum toward surveillance reform in Congress nowSpencer Ackerman, 6-2-2015, "Rand Paul allies plan new surveillance reforms to follow USA Freedom Act," Guardian, http://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2015/jun/02/rand-paul-house-allies-surveillance-usa-freedom-act

Several of Rand Paul’s allies in the US House of Representatives are seeking to capitalize on the momentum of surveillance reform as the USA Freedom Act continues through the Senate by attempting

to stop the National Security Agency from undermining encryption and banning other law enforcement agencies from collecting US data in bulk. Thomas Massie, a libertarian-minded Kentucky Republican, has authored an amendment to a forthcoming appropriations bill that blocks any funding for the National Institute of Science and Technology to “coordinate or consult” with the NSA or the Central Intelligence Agency “for the purpose of establishing cryptographic or computer standards that permit the warrantless electronic surveillance” by the spy agencies. He is joined in the effort by Democrat Zoe Lofgren of California. Massie and Lofgren will place the amendment on the bill funding the Justice Department as early as Tuesday. Their move is part of the first wave of follow-up measures by privacy advocates to supplement the USA Freedom Act, a bill already passed by the House which, although it would limit some NSA powers,

many civil libertarians consider insufficient. “The USA Freedom Act is definitely not the last word. Whenever a program

expires or whenever funding is required, those are must-pass pieces of legislation that present opportunities for refinement,” Massie told the Guardian on Tuesday. Lofgren and another civil libertarian, Republican Ted Poe of Texas, will propose an amendment to the same appropriations bill that would block the Federal Bureau of Investigation from inserting vulnerabilities into encryption on mobile devices. The FBI director, James Comey, is

currently campaigning against tech companies that are expanding encryption for their commercial products. “Privacy is a constitutional right, whether the FBI likes it or not,” Poe told the Guardian on Tuesday. Another congressional privacy advocate,

Democrat Jared Polis of Colorado, will push a further amendment to the appropriations bill that would in effect block the Drug Enforcement Agency from collecting Americans’ phone data in bulk – a recently exposed surveillance program that preceded the NSA’s now-shuttered bulk collection. The Guardian has acquired the text of all these amendments. Polis told the Guardian he wanted to “rein in” the DEA’s “unwarranted and unconstitutional

program”, calling the Freedom Act “the beginning of a reform process, not the conclusion of one”.

Tech lobbies support privacy reform; and they are Washington’s biggest lobbyistsAstra Taylor Become A Fan, 6-4- 2014 , "How the Internet Is Transforming from a Tool of Liberation to

One of Oppression," Huffington Post, http://www.huffingtonpost.com/astra-taylor/internet-oppression-liberation_b_5449838.html

There are various reasons pessimism is on the rise besides surveillance, though that's a big one. Google has been investigated by government officials for promoting its own products in search results above competitors' and has been revealed as one of Washington's biggest lobbyists. Subpar labor conditions and worker suicides at Apple's factories have made headlines. Amazon has been getting bad press lately for the abominable conditions in its warehouses and for bullying publishers to get more favorable terms, making it impossible or difficult for customers to purchase certain titles. The list goes on. Meanwhile, these companies keep expanding, buying up competition and staking their claim on new technological frontiers, from mobile messaging and virtual reality to home appliances and transportation. As an independent documentary filmmaker and activist, I'm dependent on new technologies and aware of their potential; in many ways, I'm a prime candidate for championing the digital revolution. But like a growing number of my fellow citizens, I'm worried that we've taking the wrong turn on the road to the future, which is why I wrote my book The People's Platform:

Taking Back Power and Culture in the Digital Age. Look around and it's clear that we are not seeing a revolution but a rearrangement, with architectural, economic, and social hierarchies warping the web and many of the problems of the old model--centralization, consolidation, and commercialization--perpetuated and even intensified online. It turns out the old dinosaurs are adapting to digital life just fine. Legacy media companies like Disney, Time Warner, and CBS are doing great; their share prices rising. At the same time, a new crop of behemoths has emerged: Apple, Amazon, Facebook, and Google are now some of the biggest companies on earth. Google, Facebook, and many other major social platforms, are dependent on the

advertising dollar. Only they are far more ubiquitous and invasive. They monitor our private thoughts and track our every move, sucking up our personal data in order to better serve marketers, who are the real paying customers. "Surveillance is the business model of the Internet," as technologist Bruce Schneier has said, and the NSA and other state agencies piggyback on these private sector practices. To put things in perspective, Disney didn't read your diary and your mail or follow you around the mall. For too long we've been talking about

what the Internet might hypothetically do. But the fact is that technologies do not emerge in a vacuum; economic

forces in particular shape the evolution of our tools. In an age of increasing inequality and diminishing democracy, this is a major cause for concern. Our communications system is at a crossroads -- one path leading to an increasingly corporatized and commercialized world where we are treated as targeted consumers, the other to a true cultural commons where we are nurtured as citizens and creators. A more open and egalitarian media system is possible, but technology alone will not bring it about.

Tech companies are a powerful lobbying force in CongressTONY ROMM 1/21/15 6:49 PM EDT senior technology reporter for POLITICO Pro. “Tech giants get deeper into D.C. influence game” Politico (http://www.politico.com/story/2015/01/tech-lobby-apple-amazon-facebook-google-114468.html)

Apple, Amazon and Facebook shelled out record amounts to influence Washington; Google posted one of its biggest lobbying years ever; and a slew of new tech companies dipped their toes into politics for the first time in 2014 — a sign of the industry’s deepening effort to shape

policymaking in D.C. The sharp uptick in spending reflects the tech sector’s evolution from an industry that once shunned

Washington into a powerful interest that’s willing to lobby extensively to advance the debates that

matter most to companies ’ bottom lines — from clamping down on patent lawsuits to restricting NSA surveillance to obtaining

more high-skilled immigration visas and green cards. “ There is increasingly a sense from companies that they need

to engage earlier and smarter,” said Ryan Triplette, a Republican lobbyist for Franklin Square Group, which represents companies

like Apple and Google. “They began opening up their view as their businesses have grown … and not just looking at traditional technology issues.” Apple, which mostly avoided D.C. under the watch of late CEO Steve Jobs, grew its lobbying balance sheet to just over $4.1 million last

year from $3.3 million in 2013, according to an analysis of lobbying reports, the latest of which were filed midnight Tuesday. The iPhone giant recently has shown a greater willingness to engage Washington under CEO Tim Cook: It even dispatched executives to Capitol Hill in September to talk about its new smart watch and health tracking tools hoping to assuage lawmakers’ fears about the new technology’s data-tracking abilities . Amazon’s lobbying expenses — more than $4.7 million, up from around $3.5 million in 2013 — correspond with the company’s own Washington

makeover. The e-commerce giant last year jumped into new lines of business, expanding its pursuit of government contracts while eyeing a new drone delivery service, prompting it to hire a slew of new lobbyists and move to a bigger downtown D.C. office. Amazon is also fighting the Federal Trade Commission over how it handled app purchases made by kids. Apple, Amazon and Google declined to comment on the record. Facebook did not reply to a request for comment. For

all their efforts, these tech giants failed to advance their political priorities in the last Congress — but the

fights are sure to return in 2015 under the Republican-majority Congress. GOP leaders in both chambers have

already promised to revive the debate over patent litigation reform — a critical issue for tech

companies like Google that want to curb lawsuits from so-called patent trolls. There’s also talk of boosting the number of foreign

high-skilled workers, something industry titans have coveted as part of broader immigration reform. The looming expiration of key Patriot Act surveillance authorities means Congress must also wade back into the fight over what data the NSA can collect — a major issue for tech companies stung by Edward Snowden’s leaks about the agency’s spying via popular Internet services. And lawmakers are plugging into new issues like drones and wearable technology that are important to Silicon Valley. “No doubt, Internet and tech companies are a bigger and more important part of the economy — period. It’s natural they’re going to be more involved in the political process,” said Ed Black, president of the

Computer and Communications Industry Association, a trade group whose members include Amazon, Facebook and Google. “ There’s

been a growing realization that not only do tech companies have to be in there [in D.C.], to make a fair pitch,

they have to be more actively involved because they have to fight off hostile efforts.“ Google is the leader

of the tech pack when it comes to lobbying: The company, which until October owned Motorola Mobility, spent more than $17 million in 2014 — its second-most expensive year after 2012, when it battled back a federal antitrust investigation. The search giant’s D.C. operation, led by former GOP Rep. Susan Molinari, relocated last year to a new, sprawling 54,000-square-foot office steps from the Capitol. Facebook, for its part, spent more than $9.3 million in 2014, up from $6.4 million in 2013. The company’s most recent lobbying report points to its work on privacy and security issues along with Internet access and trade, as Facebook aims to expand its service worldwide and avoid foreign rules that might

restrict where it stores user data. Companies like Belkin , a major player in the emerging sector of connected home devices, and

Snapchat , an app for disappearing photo messages, each registered their first-ever lobbyists last year . Snapchat

hired its new consultants from the firm Heather Podesta + Partners after a major data breach registered on Washington’s radar. Other prominent tech companies retained new help, as well. Netflix grew its lobbying roster amid the fight at the FCC over net neutrality. And Uber added D.C. lobbyists to win new allies for its ride-hailing app, which has triggered fights with state and local regulators and cab operators nationwide. And a coalition of tech titans like Apple, Google and Microsoft banded together to invest in an anti-NSA snooping coalition, Reform

Government Surveillance, which spent $230,000 in 2014. Many of those companies’ executives regularly traveled to

Washington to press President Barack Obama on surveillance reforms, and the group ran frequent

advertisements highlighting the need for more NSA transparency.

Tech giants have a huge lobbying interest behind them

Yuval Rosenberg October 27, 2014 executive editor of The Fiscal Times “Google spends more than any other tech giant to influence Congress” The Week (http://theweek.com/articles/442720/google-spends-more-than-other-tech-giant-influence-congress)

Silicon Valley keeps playing the D.C. game. Tech and telecom giants including Google and Facebook spent

millions on political lobbying in the three-month period from July to September, according to data released last week. Google

spent nearly $4 million on its efforts to win favor with lawmakers , up 17 percent over the same period

last year (but down from roughly $5.3 million last quarter). Among major tech-related companies only Comcast

spent more last quarter . The cable giant, of course, is trying to win approval for its $45 billion mega merger with

Time Warner Cable. Over the first nine months of 2014, though , Google has spent $13 million on lobbying, more than

any other tech company. Comcast, by comparison, has spent about $11.8 million, AT&T has doled out roughly $11 million, and Facebook has spent $7.35 million. Google's ramped up spending over the last quarter relative to the same period in 2013 makes it a bit of an outlier in the tech sector. Nine of the 15 tech companies monitored by Consumer Watchdog, an

advocacy group, dialed back their lobbying spending last quarter compared to the third quarter of 2013. Facebook was among the six

[ Companies ] that increased their lobbying efforts , upping third-quarter spending 70 percent, from $1.44 million last year to

$2.45 million this year. Amazon's lobbying bill, at $1.18 million, reached seven figures in a quarter for just the second time, as the retailer upped

third-quarter lobbying by 51 percent over 2013. What are the tech giants buying with that money? " Businesses don't spend big

bucks unless they think that they're going to get something for it ," says John M. Simpson of Consumer Watchdog.

"Sometimes it's as much about what isn't being passed as what is being passed." Google's most recent filing indicates it has lobbied politicians on a host of issues, from cybersecurity and privacy issues to intellectual property enforcement and patent law. It has also lobbied lawmakers on

trade agreements like the Trans-Pacific Partnership, international tax reform, immigration policies, wind power, health IT and data policies, and "unmanned aerial vehicle technology," or drones.