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DDI Terror DA – Starter Pack

Terror DA 1NC

Risk of terrorism is low now because of communciations surveillanceLewis 14 (senior fellow and director of the Strategic Technologies Program at the Center forStrategic and International Studies)(James Andrew, Underestimating Risk in the Surveillance Debate, http://csis.org/files/publication/141209_-Lewis_UnderestimatingRisk_Web.pdf)

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

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

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

The plan is wishful thinking that eliminates the ONLY and MOST POWERFUL tool that the US has against terrorismLewis 14 (senior fellow and director of the Strategic Technologies Program at the Center forStrategic and International Studies)(James Andrew, Underestimating Risk in the Surveillance Debate, http://csis.org/files/publication/141209_-Lewis_UnderestimatingRisk_Web.pdf)

The echoes of September 11 have faded and the fear of attack has diminished. We are reluctant to accept terrorism as a facet of our daily lives, but major attacks—roughly one a year in the last five years—are regularly planned against U.S. targets, particularly passenger aircraft and cities. America’s failures in the Middle East have spawned new, aggressive terrorist groups. These groups include radicalized recruits from the West—one estimate puts the number at over 3,000—who will return home embittered and hardened by combat. Particularly in Europe, the next few years will see an influx of jihadis joining the existing population of homegrown radicals, but the United States itself remains a target. America’s size and population make it is easy to disappear into the seams of this sprawling society. Government surveillance is, with one exception and contrary to cinematic fantasy, limited and disconnected. That exception is communications surveillance, which provides the best and perhaps the only national-level solution

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to find and prevent attacks against Americans and their allies. Some of the suggestions for alternative approaches to surveillance, such as the recommendation that NSA only track “known or suspected terrorists,” reflect both deep ignorance and wishful thinking. It is the unknown terrorist who will inflict the greatest harm. This administration could reasonably argue that everything it has done is legal and meets existing requirements for oversight, but this defense is universally perceived as legalistic hairsplitting. If the government can be faulted, it is for obsessive secrecy. The public debate over NSA’s surveillance programs routinely exaggerates risks and errors, 1 but in the absence of a compelling official narrative, the space was filled with conjecture and distortion. This has not helped a crucial debate where a wrong answer could mean more bombings.

Terrorism guarantees extinctionHellman, Stanford Engineering Prof, 8 [Martin E., emeritus prof of engineering at Stanford, Spring 2008, “Risk Analysis of Nuclear Deterrence” accessed 5-28-14, http://www.nuclearrisk.org/paper.pdf, hec)

The threat of nuclear terrorism looms much larger in the public’s mind than the threat of a full-scale nuclear war, yet this article focuses primarily on the latter. An explanation is therefore in order before proceeding. A terrorist attack involving a nuclear weapon would be a catastrophe of immense proportions: “A 10-kiloton bomb detonated at Grand Central Station on a typical work day would likely kill some half a million people, and inflict over a trillion dollars in direct economic damage. America and its way of life would be changed forever.” [Bunn 2003, pages viii-ix]. The likelihood of such an attack is also significant . Former Secretary of Defense William Perry has estimated the chance of a nuclear terrorist incident within the next decade to be roughly 50 percent [Bunn 2007, page 15]. David Albright, a former weapons inspector in Iraq, estimates those odds at less than one percent, but notes, “We would never accept a situation where the chance of a major nuclear accident like Chernobyl would be anywhere near 1% .... A nuclear terrorism attack is a low-probability event, but we can’t live in a world where it’s anything but extremely low-probability.” [Hegland 2005]. In a survey of 85 national security experts, Senator Richard Lugar found a median estimate of 20 percent for the “probability of an attack involving a nuclear explosion occurring somewhere in the world in the next 10 years,” with 79 percent of the respondents believing “it more likely to be carried out by terrorists” than by a government [Lugar 2005, pp. 14-15]. I support increased efforts to reduce the threat of nuclear terrorism, but that is not inconsistent with the approach of this article. Because terrorism is one of the potential trigger mechanisms for a full-scale nuclear war , the risk analyses proposed herein will include estimating the risk of nuclear terrorism as one component of the overall risk. If that risk, the overall risk, or both are found to be unacceptable, then the proposed remedies would be directed to reduce which- ever risk(s) warrant attention. Similar remarks apply to a number of other threats (e.g., nuclear war between the U.S. and China over Taiwan). his article would be incomplete if it only dealt with the threat of nuclear terrorism and neglected the threat of full- scale nuclear war. If both risks are unacceptable, an effort to reduce only the terrorist component would leave humanity in great peril. In fact, society’s almost total neglect of the threat of full-scale nuclear war makes studying that risk all the more important. The cosT of World War iii The danger associated with nuclear deterrence depends on both the cost of a failure and the failure rate.3 This section explores the cost of a failure of nuclear deterrence, and the next section is concerned with the failure rate. While other definitions are possible, this article defines a failure of deterrence to mean a full-scale exchange of all nuclear weapons available to the U.S. and Russia, an event that will be termed World War III . Approximately 20 million people died as a result of the first World War. World War II’s fatalities were double or triple that number—chaos prevented a more precise deter- mination. In both cases humanity recovered, and the world today bears few scars that attest to the horror of those two wars. Many people therefore implicitly believe that a third World War would be horrible but survivable, an extrapola- tion of the effects of the first two global wars. In that view, World War III, while horrible, is something that humanity may just have to face and from which it will then have to recover. In contrast, some of those most qualified to assess the situation hold a very different view. In a 1961 speech to a joint session of the Philippine Con- gress, General Douglas MacArthur, stated, “Global war has become a Frankenstein to destroy both sides. … If you lose, you are annihilated. If you win, you stand only to lose. No longer does it possess even the chance of the winner of a duel. It contains now only the germs of double suicide.” Former Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara ex- pressed a similar view: “If deterrence fails and conflict develops, the present U.S. and NATO strategy carries with it a high risk that Western civilization will be destroyed” [McNamara 1986, page 6]. More recently, George Shultz, William Perry, Henry Kissinger, and Sam Nunn4 echoed those concerns when they quoted President Reagan’s belief that nuclear weapons were “totally irrational, totally inhu- mane, good for nothing but killing, possibly destructive of life on earth and civilization.” [Shultz 2007] Official studies, while

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couched in less emotional terms, still convey the horrendous toll that World War III would exact: “The resulting deaths would be far beyond any precedent. Executive branch calculations show a range of U.S. deaths from 35 to 77 percent (i.e., 79-160 million dead) … a change in targeting could kill somewhere between 20 million and 30 million additional people on each side .... These calculations reflect only deaths during the first 30 days. Additional millions would be injured, and many would eventually die from lack of adequate medical care … millions of people might starve or freeze during the follow- ing winter, but it is not possible to estimate how many. … further millions … might eventually die of latent radiation effects.” [OTA 1979, page 8] This OTA report also noted the possibility of serious ecological damage [OTA 1979, page 9], a concern that as- sumed a new potentiality when the TTAPS report [TTAPS 1983] proposed that

the ash and dust from so many nearly simultaneous nuclear explosions and their resultant fire- storms could usher in a nuclear winter that might erase homo sapiens from the face of the earth , much as many scientists now believe the K-T Extinction that wiped out the dinosaurs resulted from an impact winter caused by ash and dust from a large asteroid or comet striking Earth. The TTAPS report produced a heated debate, and there is still no scientific consensus on whether a nuclear winter would follow a full-scale nuclear war. Recent work [Robock 2007, Toon 2007] suggests that even a limited nuclear exchange or one between newer nuclear-weapon states, such as India and Pakistan, could have devastating long-lasting climatic consequences due to the large volumes of smoke that would be generated by fires in modern megacities. While it is uncertain how destructive World War III would be, prudence dictates that we apply the same engi- neering conservatism that saved the Golden Gate Bridge from collapsing on its 50th anniversary and assume that preventing World War III is a necessity—not an option.

**Uniqueness**

Terror Threat High

Terrorist threats are high now – an attack on the US is likely and intelligence is critical Collins 5/10/15 (Eliza, wirter for Politico, "Mike McCaul Warns of Growing Us Terrorist Threat")

More people are being recruited by terrorist groups than the FBI estimates, the chairman of the House Homeland Security Committee said on Sunday.¶ FBI Director James Comey said last week that hundreds, maybe thousands of people, are being recruited on encrypted websites that the FBI can’t penetrate to carry out attacks in the U.S.¶ “We have this phenomenon in the United States where they can be activated by the Internet. Really, terrorism has gone viral ,” Rep. Mike McCaul (R-Texas) said on “Fox News Sunday.”¶ The Texas shooting was a textbook case of law enforcement intercepting a threat, McCaul said, but homegrown terrorism is nonetheless difficult to stop.¶ Late last week, the U.S. raised the threat level at all U.S. military bases .¶ “This threat is like finding a needle in the haystack sometimes - and it’s going to get worse, not better,” McCaul warned.

The threat is increasing – recruiting levels are high and the likelihood of a homegrown attack is hugeVOA News 5/11/15 (Homeland Security Chief: Global Terror Threat Has Entered 'New Phase'")

Appearing on the Fox News Sunday broadcast from Paris, Congressman Michael McCaul, chairman of the House Homeland Security Committee, said there has been an uptick in threat streams against local police and military bases.¶ "We're seeing these on an almost daily basis. It's very concerning. I'm over here with the French counter-terrorism experts on the Charlie Hebdo case, how we can stop foreign fighters coming out of Iraq and Syria to Europe. But then, we have this phenomenon in the United States where they (terrorists) can be activated by the Internet. And, really, terrorism has gone viral," said McCaul.¶ McCaul said the potential terror threat may even be greater than the FBI has outlined. He said the United States faces two threats: one from fighters coming out of the Middle East and the other from thousands at home who will take up the call to arms when the IS group sends out an Internet message. He warned the threat will only get worse , largely because of the existence of so many

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failed states in the Middle East and North Africa.

The likelihood of a lone wolf attack is growingZenko 5/19/15 (Micah, Council on Foreign Relations, "Is US Foreign Policy Ignorning Homegrown Terrorists?")

On February 12, National Counterterrorism Center Director Nicholas Rasmussen told the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence:¶ “We face a much greater, more frequent, recurring threat from lone offenders and probably loose networks of individuals. Measured in terms of frequency and numbers, it is attacks from those sources that are increasingly the most noteworthy…”¶ On February 26, during the annual worldwide threats hearing, Director of National Intelligence James Clapper warned:¶ “Home-grown violent extremists continue to pose the most likely threat to the homeland.”¶ Last Friday, Secretary of Homeland Security Jeh Johnson stated on MSNBC:¶ “We’re in a new phase…in the global terrorist threat where, because of effective use of social media, the Internet, by ISIL, al-Qaeda, we have to be concerned about the independent actor who is here in the homeland who may strike with little or no warning…”¶ Finally, yesterday, former CIA deputy director Michael Morell described the messaging efforts of jihadist groups generally and the self-declared Islamic State (IS) more specifically:¶ “Their narrative is pretty powerful: The West, the United States, the modern world, is a significant threat to their religion. Their answer to that is to establish a caliphate. And they are being attacked by the U.S. and other Western nations, and by these apostate regimes in the region. Because they are being attacked they need support in two ways; people coming to fight for them, and people coming to stand up and attack coalition nations in their home.”¶ In summary, the most likely—though not most lethal—terror threats to Americans come from individuals living within the United States who are partially motivated to undertake self-directed attacks based upon their perception that the United States and the West are at war with the Muslim world.

Intelligence Increasing

US surveillance is increasing to deal with new terrorist threatsBennett 5/18/15 (Brian, washington based reporter for the LA Times, "White House Steps Up Warning About Terrorism on US Soil")

Alarmed about the growing threat from Islamic State, the Obama administration has dramatically stepped up warnings of potential terrorist attacks on American soil after several years of relative calm.¶ Behind the scenes, U.S. authorities have raised defenses at U.S. military bases, put local police forces on alert and increased surveillance at the nation's airports, railroads, shopping malls, energy plants and other potential targets.¶ Driving the unease are FBI arrests of at least 30 Americans on terrorism-related charges this year in an array of "lone wolf" plots, none successful, but nearly all purportedly inspired by Islamic State propaganda or appeals.¶ The group's leader, Abu Bakr Baghdadi, drove home the danger in a 34-minute audio recording released online Thursday. He urged Muslims everywhere to "migrate to the Islamic State or fight in his land, wherever that may be."¶ It is pretty easy for [Islamic State] to reach out to a very large number of people using a very robust social media presence. I suspect we should see more plots going forward.¶ - J.M. Berger, a nonresident fellow at the Brookings Institution¶ The audio was released with translations in English, French, German, Russian and Turkish, signaling the militants' increasingly ambitious attempts to draw new recruits — and to spark violence — around the world.¶ U.S. officials estimate the Sunni Muslim group has drawn 22,000 foreign fighters to Syria and Iraq, including about 3,700 from Western nations. About 180 Americans have gone, or tried to go.¶ U.S. counter-terrorism officials initially viewed Islamic State as primarily a regional security threat, focused on expanding and protecting its self-proclaimed Islamist caliphate in Syria and Iraq, rather than launching attacks abroad.¶ But the analysis has shifted sharply as gunmen inspired by the group, but not controlled or assisted by them, opened fire at the Parliament in Ottawa; at a cafe in Sydney, Australia; at a kosher grocery in Paris; and, on May 3, in Garland, Texas.¶ In the Texas case, two would-be terrorists apparently prompted by Islamic State social media messages tried to shoot their way into a provocative contest for caricatures of the prophet Muhammad. Both gunmen were shot to death, and

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no one else was killed. Islamic State later claimed responsibility for the assault, the first time it has done so for an attack on U.S. soil.¶ James B. Comey, the FBI director, warned this month that "hundreds, maybe thousands" of Americans are seeing recruitment pitches from Islamic State on Facebook, Twitter and other social media, as well as messages sent to smartphones of "disturbed people" who could be pushed to attack U.S. targets.¶ " It's like the devil sitting on their shoulders saying, 'Kill, kill, kill, '" Comey told reporters.¶ The United States has entered a "new phase, in my view, in the global terrorist threat," Jeh Johnson, director of Homeland Security, said Friday on MSNBC.¶ "We have to be concerned about the independent actor, and the independent actor who is here in the homeland who may strike with little or no warning," he said. "The nature of the global terrorist threat has evolved."¶ That poses a special challenge for U.S. intelligence and law enforcement agencies, which spent years desperately trying to penetrate and understand Al Qaeda's rigid hierarchy and top-down approach to terrorism.¶ Now they are struggling to detect and prevent lethal attacks by individuals — such as the April 2013 bombing of the Boston Marathon by two Russian-born brothers — with little or no outside communication or support.¶ The administration has sought to stiffen homeland defenses, and intelligence gathering , in response.

**Links**

2NC Link Framer

Broad NSA access to US data is crucial to preveting terrorist attacks in the US – their authors vastly underestimate the probability of attack. You need to evaluate link through a very high probability of attempted attackLewis 14 (senior fellow and director of the Strategic Technologies Program at the Center forStrategic and International Studies)(James Andrew, Underestimating Risk in the Surveillance Debate, http://csis.org/files/publication/141209_-Lewis_UnderestimatingRisk_Web.pdf)

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

Brazil is needed, the private sector has powerful incentives and legitimate means to obtain information and usually has the best data. Risk Is Not Going Away Broad surveillance of communications is the least intrusive and most effective method for discovering terrorist and espionage

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activity. Many countries have expanded surveillance programs since the 9/11 attacks to detect and prevent terrorist activity, often in cooperation with other countries, including the United States. Precise metrics on risk and effectiveness do not exist for surveillance, and we are left with conflicting opinions from intelligence officials and civil libertarians as to what makes counterterrorism successful. Given resurgent authoritarianism and continuing jihad, the new context for the surveillance debate is that the likelihood of attack is increasing. Any legislative change should be viewed through this lens.

2NC 702 Link Ext.

NSA mass surveillance is critical – we’re drawing down in every other area of intelligence gathering which means it’s essential to preventing terrorism Wittes 14 (Benjamin, Senior Fellow @ the Brookings Institute, April 8th 2014, "Is Al Qaeda Winning: Grading the Administration's Counter terrorism Policy, Brookings Institute)

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

Link – NSA Link Run

Surveillance works and NSA domestic programs are key

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Zuckerman, Bucci and Carafano 13 (Jessica, Policy Analyst, Western Hemisphere, Heritage Foundation, Steven P., Director of the Center for Foreign and National Security Policy at the Heritage Foundation, and James Jay, PhD, Vice President for the Institute for National SEcurity and Foreign Policy, "60 Terrorist Plots Since 9/11: Continued Lessons in Domestic Counterterrorism")

Strengthening the Domestic Counterterrorism Enterprise¶ Three months after the attack at the Boston Marathon, the pendulum of awareness of the terrorist threat has already begun to swing back, just as it did after 9/11. Due to the resilience of the nation and its people, for most, life has returned to business as usual. The threat of terrorism against the United States, however, remains.¶ Expecting to stop each and every threat that reaches a country’s borders is unreasonable, particularly in a free society committed to individual liberty. Nevertheless, there are important steps that America’s leaders can take to strengthen the U.S. domestic counterterrorism enterprise and continue to make the U.S. a harder target. Congress and the Administration should:¶ Ensure a proactive approach to preventing terrorist attacks. Despite the persistent threat of terrorism, the Obama Administration continues to focus on reactive policies and prosecuting terrorists rather than on proactive efforts to enhance intelligence tools and thwart terrorist attempts. This strategy fails to recognize the pervasive nature of the threat posed by terrorist groups such as al-Qaeda and homegrown extremism. The Administration, and the nation as a whole, should continue to keep in place a robust, enduring, and proactive counterterrorism framework in order to identify and thwart terrorist threats long before the public is in danger.¶ Maintain essential counterterrorism tools. Support for important investigative tools such as the PATRIOT Act is essential to maintaining the security of the U.S. and combating terrorist threats. Key provisions within the act, such as the roving surveillance authority and business records provision, have proved essential for thwarting terror plots, yet they require frequent reauthorization. In order to ensure that law enforcement and intelligence authorities have the essential counterterrorism tools they need, Congress should seek permanent authorization of the three sun setting provisions within the PATRIOT Act.[208] Furthermore, legitimate government surveillance programs are also a vital component of U.S. national security, and should be allowed to continue. Indeed, in testimony before the house, General Keith Alexander, the director of the National Security Agency (NSA), revealed that more than 50 incidents of potential terrorism at home and abroad were stopped by the set of NSA surveillance programs that have recently come under scrutiny. That said, the need for effective counterterrorism operations does not relieve the government of its obligation to follow the law and respect individual privacy and liberty. In the American system, the government must do both equally well.¶ Break down the silos of information. Washington should emphasize continued cooperation and information sharing among federal, state, and local law enforcement agencies to prevent terrorists from slipping through the cracks between the various jurisdictions. In particular, the FBI should make a more concerted effort to share information more broadly with state and local law enforcement. State and local law enforcement agencies are the front lines of the U.S. national security strategy. As a result, local authorities are able to recognize potential danger and identify patterns that the federal authorities may miss. They also take the lead in community outreach, which is crucial to identifying and stopping “lone wolf” actors and other homegrown extremists. Federal law enforcement, on the other hand, is not designed to fight against this kind of threat; it is built to battle cells, groups, and organizations, not individuals.¶ Streamline the domestic counterterrorism system. The domestic counterterrorism enterprise should base future improvements on the reality that governments at all levels are fiscally in crisis. Rather than add additional components to the system, law enforcement officials should streamline the domestic counterterrorism enterprise by improving current capabilities, leveraging state and local law enforcement resources and authorities, and, in some cases, reducing components where the terrorist threat is not high and the financial support is too thin or could be allocated more effectively. For example, the Department of Homeland Security should dramatically reduce the number of fusion centers, many of which exist in low-risk areas or areas where similar capabilities exist. An easy way to reduce the number of fusion centers is to eliminate funding to those that are located outside the 31 urban areas designated as the highest risk.¶ Fully implement a strategy to counter violent extremism. Countering violent extremism is an important complementary effort to an effective counterterrorism strategy. In August 2011, the U.S. government released a strategic plan called “Empowering Local Partners to Prevent Violent Extremism in the United States.”[209] The plan focuses on outlining how federal agencies can assist local officials, groups, and private organizations in preventing violent extremism. It includes strengthening law enforcement cooperation and helping communities understand how to counter extremist propaganda (particularly online). Sadly, this plan is not a true strategy. It fails to assign responsibilities and does not direct action or resource investments. More direction and leadership must be applied to transform a laundry list of good ideas into an effective program to support communities in protecting and strengthening civil society.¶ Vigilance Is Not Optional¶ In a political environment of sequestration on the one hand and

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privacy concerns on the other, there are those on both sides of the aisle who argue that counterterrorism spending should be cut and U.S. intelligence agencies reigned in. As the above list indicates however, the long war on terrorism is far from over . Most disturbingly, an increasing number of Islamist-inspired terrorist attacks are originating within America’s borders. The rise of homegrown extremism is the next front in the fight against terrorism and should be taken seriously by the Administration.¶ While there has not been another successful attack on the homeland on the scale of 9/11, the bombings in Boston reminded the country that the threat of terrorism is real and that continued vigilance is critical to keeping America safe. Congress and the Administration must continue to upgrade and improve the counterterrorism capabilities of law enforcement and intelligence agencies as well exercise proper oversight of these capabilities. The American people are resilient, but the lesson of Boston is that the government can and should do more to prevent future terror attacks.

Accessing foreign data stored in the US is crucial to deter terrorismThe Washington Post 13 ("US Defends Surveillance Tactics in War on Terrorism")

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

Link – PRISM

PRISM program is key to thwarting major terror attacksCarafano 13 (James Jay, Vice President for Defense and Foreign Policy Studies at the Heritage Foundation, PRISM Is Essential to US Security in War Against Terrorism")13

If changes are made, however, they should to be made for the right reason. Leaders must never compromise our security for political expediency.¶ At least 60 Islamist-inspired terrorist plots have been aimed at the U.S. since the 9/11 attacks. The overwhelming majority have been thwarted thanks to timely, operational intelligence about the threats. Congress should not go back to a pre-/11 set of rules just to appeal to populist sentiment.¶ Congress and the White House have an obligation to protect our liberties and to safeguard our security -- in equal measure. Meeting that mission is more important than winning popularity polls.

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**Impact**

Retaliation Impact

Terrorist retaliation causes nuclear war – draws in Russia and ChinaRobert Ayson, Professor of Strategic Studies and Director of the Centre for Strategic Studies: New Zealand at the Victoria University of Wellington, 2010 (“After a Terrorist Nuclear Attack: Envisaging Catalytic Effects,” Studies in Conflict & Terrorism, Volume 33, Issue 7, July, Available Online to Subscribing Institutions via InformaWorld)A terrorist nuclear attack, and even the use of nuclear weapons in response by the country attacked in the first place, would not necessarily represent the worst of the nuclear worlds imaginable. Indeed, there are reasons to wonder whether nuclear terrorism should ever be regarded as belonging in the category of truly existential threats. A contrast can be drawn here with the global catastrophe that would come from a massive nuclear exchange between two or more of the sovereign states that possess these weapons in significant numbers. Even the worst terrorism that the twenty-first century might bring would fade into insignificance alongside considerations of what a general nuclear war would have wrought in the Cold War period. And it must be admitted that as long as the major nuclear weapons states have hundreds and even thousands of nuclear weapons at their disposal, there is always the possibility of a truly awful nuclear exchange taking place precipitated entirely by state possessors themselves. But these two nuclear worlds— a non-state actor nuclear attack and a catastrophic interstate nuclear exchange —are not necessarily separable. It is just possible that some sort of terrorist attack, and especially an act of nuclear terrorism, could precipitate a chain of events leading to a massive exchange of nuclear weapons between two or more of the states that possess them. In this context, today’s and tomorrow’s terrorist groups might assume the place allotted during the early Cold War years to new state possessors of small nuclear arsenals who were seen as raising the risks of a catalytic nuclear war between the superpowers started by third parties. These risks were considered in the late 1950s and early 1960s as concerns grew about nuclear proliferation, the so-called n+1 problem. t may require a considerable amount of imagination to depict an especially plausible situation where an act of nuclear terrorism could lead to such a massive inter-state nuclear war. For example, in the event of a terrorist nuclear attack on the United States, it might well be wondered just how Russia and/or China could plausibly be brought into the picture, not least because they seem unlikely to be fingered as the most obvious state sponsors or encouragers of terrorist groups. They would seem far too responsible to be involved in supporting that sort of terrorist behavior that could just as easily threaten them as well. Some possibilities, however remote, do suggest themselves. For example, how might the United States react if it was thought or discovered that the fissile material used in the act of nuclear terrorism had come from Russian stocks,40 and if for some reason Moscow denied any responsibility for nuclear laxity? The correct attribution of that nuclear material to a particular country might not be a case of science fiction given the observation by Michael May et al. that while the debris resulting from a nuclear explosion would be “spread over a wide area in tiny fragments, its radioactivity makes it detectable, identifiable and collectable, and a wealth of information can be obtained from its analysis: the efficiency of the explosion, the materials used and, most important … some indication of where the nuclear material came from.”41 Alternatively, if the act of nuclear terrorism came as a complete surprise, and American officials refused to believe that a terrorist group was fully responsible (or responsible at all) suspicion would shift immediately to state possessors. Ruling out Western ally countries like the United Kingdom and France, and probably Israel and India as well, authorities in Washington would be left with a very short list consisting of North Korea , perhaps Iran if its program continues, and possibly Pakistan. But at what stage would Russia and Chin a be definitely ruled out in this high stakes game of nuclear Cluedo? In particular, if the act of nuclear terrorism occurred against a backdrop of existing tension in Washington’s relations with Russia and/or China , and at a time when threats had already been traded between these major powers, would officials and political leaders not be tempted to assume the worst? Of course, the chances of this occurring would only seem to increase if the United States was already involved in some sort of limited armed conflict with Russia and/or China, or if they were confronting each other from a distance in a proxy war, as unlikely as these developments may seem at the present time. The reverse might well apply too: should a nuclear terrorist attack occur in Russia or China during a period of heightened tension or even limited conflict with the United States, could Moscow and Beijing resist the pressures that might rise domestically to consider the United States as a possible perpetrator or encourager of the attack? Washington’s early

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response to a terrorist nuclear attack on its own soil might also raise the possibility of an unwanted (and nuclear aided) confrontation with Russia and/or China. For example, in the noise and confusion during the immediate aftermath of the terrorist nuclear attack, the U.S. president might be expected to place the country’s armed forces, including its nuclear arsenal, on a higher stage of alert. In such a tense environment, when careful planning runs up against the friction of reality, it is just possible that Moscow and/or China might mistakenly read this as a sign of U.S. intentions to use force (and possibly nuclear force) against them. In that situation, the temptations to preempt such actions might grow, although it must be admitted that any preemption would probably still meet with a devastating response.

Retaliation defense doesn’t apply – three reasonsBrenner 10 (Michael, Professor of International Affairs at the University of Pittsburgh, "When do We Go To War in Yemen?" The National Journal, January 5, http://security.nationaljournal.com/2010/01/when-do-we-go-to-war-in-yemen.php#1403177)

We appear trapped in a room convinced that behind one of the walls lies the promised land - if only we could find through dint of physical effort the right access point. This is multi-layered insanity. It is we ourselves who have created this chamber of tears. For one thing, we angrily keep stoke stoking our collective fears. Witness the hysterical reaction to the underwear bomber. This inept try is the most serious in eight years . That should be occasion for some relief and satisfaction, despite the demonstration of our equally inept security services. A second element is our tolerance for sloppy thinking and, consequently, the mis-guided policies that it engenders. The Afghan escalation is the latest case in point. However one judges the merits of the course taken, the public arguments justifying it are full of holes. Obama’s statements on the subject, frankly, are disdainful of public intelligence – much less that of people like us. Third, the national discourse on terror has been irretrievably politicized in the worst sense of the term . Posturing and electoral calculation predominate . Candor is away with the leave of our leaders. Every public figure – elected or unelected, national or local, Republican or Democrat – j umps in as if it were ‘garbage time’ in a mid-season NBA game .

Homegrown Terror Impact

A terror attack on US soil is likely – it would involve WMD’s which would be catastrophicSchleifer 5/12/15 (Theodore, "Former CIA Official: ISIS Terrorist Attack in US is Possible")

Islamic militants have the ability to direct individuals to conduct small-scale attacks in the United States and could pose an even greater threat in the future, according to the former deputy director of the Central Intelligence Agency.¶ Michael Morell, a longtime intelligence analyst who served as acting director of the agency after the resignation of David Petraeus in 2012, warned that if ISIS was allowed to take refuge in Iraq and Syria, they could orchestrate an attack in the United States. The group has claimed responsibility for a recent attack in Garland, Texas, where police killed two gunmen.¶ RELATED: Former CIA official takes aim at politicians¶ Morell told CNN's Jake Tapper on "The Lead" that it is "not far-fetched" that ISIS or other terrorist groups could gain access to weapons of mass destruction.¶ " That would be the nightmare scenario: a terrorist attack, here in the United States, here in New York, another major city, that involved either chemical, biological or other nuclear weapons ," he said.

2NC Impact Comparison

Probability of attack is extremely high absent countermeasuresKanani 11 (Rahim, Founder and Editor-in-Chief of World Affairs Commentary, "New al-Qaeda Chief Zawahiri Has Strong Nuclear Intent," Forbes, June 29, www.forbes.com/sites/rahimkanani/2011/06/29/new-al-qaeda-chief-zawahiri-has-strong-nuclear-intent/)

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We should be especially worried about the threat of nuclear terrorism under Zawahiri’s leadership . In a recent report titled “Islam and the Bomb: Religious Justification For and Against Nuclear Weapons”, which I researched for and contributed to, lead author Rolf Mowatt-Larssen, former director of intelligence and counterintelligence at the U.S. Department of Energy, argues that al-Qaeda’s WMD ambitions are stronger than ever. And that “this intent no longer feels theoretical, but operational.” “I believe al -Qaeda is laying the groundwork for a large scale attack on the United States, possibly in the next year or two ,” continues Mowatt-Larssen in the opening of the report issued earlier this year by the Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs at Harvard Kennedy School. “The attack may or may not involve the use of WMD, but there are signs that al-Qaeda is working on an event on a larger scale than the 9/11 attack.” Most will readily dismiss such claims as implausible and unlikely, and we hope they are right, but after spending months with Mowatt-Larssen, who also served as the former head of the Central Intelligence Agency’s WMD and terrorism efforts, scrutinizing and cross-referencing Zawahiri’s 268-page treatise published in 2008 titled “Exoneration”, the analytics steered us towards something far more remarkable than expected. “As I read the text closely, in the broader context of al-Qaeda’s past, my concerns grew that Zawahiri has written this treatise to play a part in the ritualistic process of preparing for an impending attack,” states Mowatt-Larssen. “As Osama bin Laden’s fatwa in 1998 foreshadowed the 9/11 attack, Ayman Zawahiri’s fatwa in 2008 may have started the clock ticking for al-Qaeda’s next large scale strike on America. If the pattern of al-Qaeda’s modus operandi holds true, we are in the middle of an attack cycle.” Among several important findings, Zawahiri sophisticatedly weaves identical passages, sources and religious justifications for a nuclear terrorist attack against the United States previously penned by radical Saudi cleric Nasir al Fahd. Indeed, the language used, research cited, and arguments put forth are nothing short of detailed and deliberate. Reading as both a religious duty to kill millions of Americans and a lengthy suicide note together, this piece of literature is something we must take seriously with Zawahiri now at the helm of al-Qaeda. The time may have come for al-Qaeda’s new CEO to leave a legacy of his own. Concluding the author’s note, Mowatt-Larssen states, “Even if this theory proves to be wrong, it is better to overestimate the enemy than to under estimate him . Conventional wisdom holds that al-Qaeda is spent—that they are incapable of carrying out another 9/11. Leaving aside whether this view is correct, for which I harbor grave doubts, we will surely miss the signs of the next attack if we continue to overestimate our own successes, and dismiss what terrorists remain capable of accomplishing when they put their minds to it.”

Turns all econ impactsCirincione 07 – (2007, Joseph, President of the Ploughshares Fund, former vice president for national security and international policy at the Center for American Progress in Washington, DC, former director for non-proliferation at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, “Bomb Scare: The History and Future of Nuclear Weapons,” p. xi)

Profound societal damage would also occur. Physicist Charles Ferguson and scholar William Potter explain in a 1004 study:Consequences stemming from a terrorist-detonated nuclear weapon in an America city would emanate beyond the immediate tens or hundreds of thousands of fatalities and the massive property and financial damage. Americans who were not killed or injured by the explosion would live in fear that they could die from future nuclear terrorist attacks. Such fear would erode public confidence in the government and could spark the downfall of the administration in power. The tightly interconnected economies of the United States and the rest of the world could sink into a depression as a result of a crude nuclear weapon destroying the heart of a city.This threat stems not only from the 27,000 nuclear weap· ons held by eight or nine nations today but also from the possibility that new nations or even terrorist groups will join this deadly club. Many therefore conclude that we must find a non-nuclear alternative to global security. Upon receiving the 2005 Nobel Peace, Prize Mohamed EIBaradei, the dircc· tor general of the International Atomic Energy Agency, said, "I have no doubt that. if we hope to escape

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self-destruction, then nuclear weapons should have no place in our collective conscience. and no role in our security.”7

Nuclear terrorism causes global nuclear escalation – national retaliation goes globalMorgan 9 (Dennis Ray, Professor of Foreign Studies at Hankuk University, “World on Fire: Two Scenarios of the Destruction of Human Civilization and Possible Extinction of the Human Race,” Futures, Vol. 41, Issue 10, p683-693, ScienceDirect)

In a remarkable website on nuclear war, Carol Moore asks the question "Is Nuclear War Inevitable??" [10].4 In Section 1, Moore points out what most t errorists obviously already know about the nuclear tensions between powerful countries. No doubt, they've figured out that t he best way to escalate these tensions into nuclear war is to set off a nuclear exchange. As Moore points out, all that militant terrorists would have to do is get their hands on one small nuclear bomb and explode it on either Moscow or Israel . Because of the Russian "dead hand" system , "where regional nuclear commanders would be given full powers should Moscow be destroyed," it is likely that any attack would be blamed on the United States " [10]. Israeli leaders and Zionist supporters have, likewise, stated for years that if Israel were to suffer a nuclear attack , whether from terrorists or a nation state, it would retaliate with the suicidal "Samson option" against all major Muslim cities in the Middle East. Furthermore, the Israeli Samson option would also include attacks on Russia and even "anti-Semitic" European cities [10]. In that case, of course, Russia would retaliate, and the U.S. would then retaliate against Russia. China would probably be involved as well, as thousands, if not tens of thousands, of nuclear warheads, many of them much more powerful than those used at Hiroshima and Nagasaki, would rain upon most of the major cities in the Northern Hemisphere. Afterwards, for years to come, massive radioactive clouds would drift throughout the Earth in the nuclear fallout, bringing death or else radiation disease that would be genetically transmitted to future generations in a nuclear winter that could last as long as a 100 years , taking a savage toll upon the environment and fragile ecosphere as well.

A2: Heg OWs

A nuclear terror attack would destroy US global leadershipMichael 12 – (2012, George, PhD, Associate Professor of Counterproliferation and Deterrence Theory, USAF Counterproliferation Center, Maxwell AFB, “Strategic Nuclear Terrorism and the Risk of State Decapitation,” Defence Studies Volume 12, Issue 1, 2012, taylor and francis)

In his book Atomic Obsession: Nuclear Alarmism from Hiroshima to Al-Qaeda, John Mueller argues that even if a single nuclear device were detonated, though catastrophic, it would not portend the demise of an entire city, much less the economy of a country, a government, or a civilization. Rather, Mueller believes that America would be resilient, citing the example of Japan during World War II, which sustained an intense nationwide conventional bombing campaign along with two nuclear attacks, yet whose civil society and government survived. Conceding that a nuclear attack could devastate a locale, Mueller still dismisses the notion that it would extinguish the rest of the country –as he puts it –’Do farmers in Iowa cease plowing because an atomic bomb went off in an Eastern city? Do manufacturers close down their assembly lines? Do all churches, businesses, governmental structures, community groups simply evaporate?’ 105

Arguably, though, Mueller’s analysis is somewhat facile and gives short shrift to the possibility of strategic nuclear terrorism. For instance, a nuclear device planted in a certain place (near the Capitol Building in Washington DC) at a certain time (the President’s State of the Union Address) could decapitate the US government . Although there is a plan of presidential succession, it might not be carried out smoothly. Moreover, in this scenario if power were contested by different

officials, would the rest of the country recognize their authority? And without a functioning government, would the state governments, which depend so much on the federal government, really be viable for very long? In time of crisis, Americans have

come to assume that the federal government will take the lead. If the federal leadership were decapitated, it might not be that easy to put Humpty Dumpty together again.

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Former Defense Secretary William Perry once speculated that it was more likely that a nuclear device would arrive in Washington DC or New York City by way of a truck or freighter than a missile. 106 The federal government’s planning scenario envisages a ten-kiloton nuclear device detonated in an urban area. 107 In a case study developed by the Homeland Security Council, a ten-kiloton nuclear device was detonated near the White House. The study estimated that over 150,000 injuries would be incurred with a possible 70 percent mortality rate. Furthermore, over 100,000 persons would require decontamination, which would overwhelm regional capabilities. In the aftermath, the study predicted that over 500,000 persons would attempt to evacuate the city, effectively closing both egress and ingress routes. 108In a typical nuclear-fission weapon explosion, about half of the energy goes into the blast. About a third of the energy goes into thermal effects. The remaining energy goes into prompt and residual radiation. Much of the radiation lies in the mushroom cloud produced by the explosion. 109 In addition to the direct effects of the detonation, people would also be killed from indirect blast effects, such as the collapse of buildings and fires caused from broken gas pipes, gasoline in cars, and so on. 110 Inasmuch as terrorists would not have the capability to deliver a nuclear bomb by air, the detonation would almost certainly be at ground level thus limiting the blast radius and the resulting firestorm. 111

Nevertheless, a ground burst weapon would loft far more radioactive debris into the atmosphere resulting in greater contamination.At ground zero, that is, the point on the earth at which the detonation occurs, a ten-kiloton blast would produce a fireball about 72 meters (236 feet) in diameter. 112 Prompt radiation would kill approximately 95 percent of the people within a diameter of 2.4 kilometers (roughly one and a half miles) within weeks. 113 A detonation of a ten-kiloton nuclear device on Pennsylvania Avenue in the area where the Robert F. Kennedy Department of Justice Building is located would largely destroy a circle area about two miles (3.2 kilometers) in

diameter which would encompass the White House, the Capitol Building, and the Supreme Court Building. 114 Many of the people unfortunate to be in the area would be killed.During the Cold War, the US government faced the prospect of a decapitating strike. Soviet ‘Yankee’-class submarines, which regularly operated 600 nautical miles from the East Coast of the United States, had the capability of destroying Washington DC, within eight to ten minutes of launching their nuclear missiles. 115 However, an attempted decapitation strike by the Soviet Union would have been an act of irrational desperation insofar as an attack on Washington would not have prevented a devastating series of retaliatory strikes from the US military. 116 To ensure second strike capability, both the United States and the Soviet Union developed plans for the continuity of command and control of nuclear weapons in the event of a decapitation strike. 117

The Continuity of Government (COG) refers to a system of procedures that would allow the government to continue operations in the event some catastrophic event. Although protocols of succession and the replacement of elected and appointed officials were included by the framers in the Constitution, the need for COG plans took on a new sense of urgency in the nuclear era. A series of national security directives dictate procedures for government agencies in the event of a crisis. In 1998, President Bill Clinton signed Presidential Directive 67, which requires federal agencies to develop plans to ensure the continuance of operations, a chain of command, and delegation of authority. The full text of the directive remains classified. 118

The 25th amendment clarifies the procedures for the transfer of power relating to the incapacitation of the president. However, under the conditions of a nuclear attack and the ensuing societal disruption, a smooth transition may not be possible. If the sitting elected president survives, then everyone should agree that he legitimately holds the reins of power. If, however, the president is dead or missing, the lines of authority are less clear as evidenced on 30 March 1981, when John F. Hinckley Jr attempted to assassinate President Ronald Reagan. Soon thereafter, Secretary of State Alexander Haig announced that he was in charge of the executive branch because Vice President George H.W. Bush was out of town and President Reagan was incapacitated while undergoing surgery for his wound. In doing so, Haig overlooked that the Speaker of the House Tip O’Neill and the President pro tempore of the Senate Strom Thurmond preceded him in the line of succession respectively.

Ensuring the continuity of the command, control, and communications of the military is vital as well.

Christened as the National Command Authority (NCA), 119 the political and military leaders who are designated as members of the chain of command for US forces must be able to survive a surprise attack in order to carry out retaliatory attacks. 120 According to the Department of Defense Directive 5100.30 issued on 2

December 1971, the NCA consists only of the president and the secretary of defense or their deputized alternatives or successors. This could lead to confusion insofar as there are twin lines of succession, one for the presidency and one for the command of US military forces. 121In order to avoid the prospect of decapitation, the US government has established plans to evacuate the NCA authorities from Washington DC to a National Airborne Operations Center aircraft and to 96 hardened command bunkers in the Federal Relocation Arc, located about 50 miles or more from the city. 122 The ‘underground White House’ located inside Raven Rock Mountain in Pennsylvania is the home of the Alternative National Military Command Center and is equipped to house the president and other members of the NCA. Another important relocation center –the Western Virginia Office of Controlled Conflict Operations –was established in a man-made cavern within Mount Weather located about 50 miles northwest of Washington DC, just outside Bluemont, Virginia. 123

Though commendable, these plans might not be adequate to ensure a continuity of government in the event of a surprise decapitating strike by a terrorist group. Certain trends in contemporary America could make the issue of transition particularly contentious. One worrisome development is a seeming polarization in the United States over matters such as political partisanship, national identity, and cultural issues. Since the 1990s, the American party system has been increasingly characterized by an ideological divide. This was reflected in the rift in the electoral map of the country after the 2000 and 2004 presidential elections. Generally speaking, ‘red’ states favor a more conservative course for the nation, while ‘blue’ states prefer a more liberal orientation. The political center appears to be attenuating. As the political scientist Alan Abramovitz found in his research, in 1984, 41 percent of the voters surveyed identified themselves at the midpoint of an ideological scale. By 2005, though, the number that identified

themselves at the center had dropped to 28 percent. 124 Historically, American political culture has favored centrism and pragmatism over ideology. And though the distribution of wealth in the country is quite uneven compared to other Western democracies as measured by the Gini Index, the middle class is still the class with which most Americans overwhelmingly identify. 125 The festering economic crisis, though, could create a greater pool of the

discontented, as evidenced by the Occupy Wall Street protests in the fall of 2011. In a highly-polarized America, establishing a consensus could be challenging in the aftermath of a severe crisis.

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A2: Hasn’t Prevented Any Attakcs

The NSA’s surveillance programs are essential to thwart terror attacks – experts agreeEakin 13 (Britian, Al Arabiya- Washington, "NSA: Secret US Surveillance helped prevent 50-plus terror attacks")

Secret surveillance programs helped prevent more than 50 potential terror attacks worldwide, including plots to target the New York Stock Exchange and the city’s subway, the director of the National Security Agency testified on Tuesday.¶ Ten of the 50 potential threats were domestic, said Army General Keith B. Alexander.¶ A hearing before the House Intelligence Committee sought to calm fears among the American public that the U.S. government spies on them unconstitutionally, and repeated assurances that none of the NSA surveillance programs can target U.S. citizens at home or abroad without a court order.¶ “These programs are limited, focused and subject to rigorous oversight,” Alexander said.¶ Because of that, the civil liberties and privacy of Americans are not at stake, he added.¶ However, Bruce Fein, a specialist in constitutional law, said the NSA surveillance programs are unconstitutional because there is no demonstration of individualized suspicion, as required by the Fourth Amendment.¶ “The government has a burden to show some reasonable suspicion that someone being spied on is engaged in some wrongdoing before privacy can be invaded,” said Fein.¶ Nonetheless, the witnesses defended the NSA programs as legal and necessary because of the nature of the threat of terrorism.¶ “If you’re looking for a needle in a haystack, you have to get the haystack first,” testified Deputy Attorney General James Cole.¶ Alexander and other senior U.S. intelligence officials testified in response to details leaked by former NSA contractor Edward Snowden about how the agency gathers data.¶ The hearing reviewed NSA surveillance programs 215 and 702. Testimony said program 215 gathers data in bulk from various providers, such as Verizon, but does not look at content or names, while program 702 applies only to foreign citizens.¶ The leak has sparked a debate among the American public over what information the government should be able to collect to safeguard national security, and how it should be allowed to gather it.¶ A recent Pew poll shows that a slight majority of Americans think the NSA surveillance programs are acceptable.¶ Meanwhile, U.S. President Barack Obama’s approval ratings have dropped over the past month.¶ Alexander linked the relative safety Americans have enjoyed since the 9/11 attacks directly to the NSA surveillance programs, but Fein said people’s fears are being exploited.¶ “Most people are risk-averse. They’re easily frightened, and told they need to surrender their liberties in order to be safe, even if it’s not true,” Fein said.¶ The government has not provided any evidence that these programs are effective, he added. “It’s just their say-so.”¶ When questioned about whether the NSA surveillance programs previously collected any other information, Alexander said what they have and have not collected remains classified and cannot be discussed.¶ However, some details about how the programs have stopped potential terror attacks would be presented as early as Wednesday to U.S. lawmakers, he said.

Surveillance is necessary to crush terror attacks – Sulmasy 13 (Glenn, special reporter for CNN, "Why We Need Government Surveillance")

The current threat by al Qaeda and jihadists is one that requires aggressive intelligence collection and efforts. One has to look no further than the disruption of the New York City subway bombers (the one being touted by DNI Clapper) or the Boston Marathon bombers to know that the war on al Qaeda is coming home to us , to our citizens, to our students, to our streets and our subways.¶ This 21st century war is different and requires new ways and methods of gathering information. As technology has increased, so has our ability to gather valuable, often actionable, intelligence. However, the move toward "home-grown" terror will necessarily require, by accident or purposefully, collections of U.S. citizens' conversations with potential overseas persons of interest.¶ An open society, such as the United States, ironically needs to use this technology to protect itself. This truth is naturally uncomfortable for a country with a Constitution that prevents the federal government from conducting "unreasonable searches and seizures." American historical resistance towards such activities is a bedrock of our laws, policies and police procedures.¶ But what might have been reasonable 10 years ago is not the same any longer. The constant armed struggle against the jihadists has adjusted our beliefs on what we think our government can, and must, do in order to protect its citizens.¶ However, when we hear of programs such PRISM, or the Department of Justice getting phone records of scores of citizens without any signs of suspicious activities

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nor indications of probable cause that they might be involved in terrorist related activities, the American demand for privacy naturally emerges to challenge such "trolling" measures or data-mining.

A2: No Nuclear Terror – Top Level

Nuclear terror is a big deal yo – most recent evidence – they’re complacencyBunn 13 – (2013, Matthew, PhD, Professor of Practice; Co-Principal Investigator, Project on Managing the Atom, Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs, Harvard, “Beyond Crises: The Unending Challenge of Controlling Nuclear Weapons and Materials,” in Nuclear Weapons Security Crises: What Does History Teach? Ed. Henry D. Sokolski. Strategic Studies Institute, U.S. Army War College, 253-278)

In short, the threats are out there. In a world that includes terrorists with global reach, effective nuclear security and accounting measures are needed wherever nuclear weapons, plutonium, or HEU exist. All countries with such stockpiles on their soil should ensure that they are at least protected against a modest group of well-armed, well-trained outsiders;

a wellplaced insider; and both outsiders and an insider working together, using a broad range of tactics. Countries that face more substantial adversary threats—Pakistan being an obvious example—need to provide even higher levels of protection.9

Unfortunately, in many countries around the world, the security measures in place today are demonstrably not sufficient to protect against the kinds of threats terrorists and thieves have already shown they can pose. For

example, a U.S. team visiting a foreign site with a Category I quantity of HEU from 2005 to 2010 found that there were no fences around the perimeter, no sensors to detect intrusions, no video surveillance systems to help guards assess the cause of alarms generated by sensors, and no vehicle barriers.10 (It is a reasonable bet that this facility also did not have an on-site armed response team to protect it from armed attackers.) The U.S. team recommended that all of these basic security measures be put in place, which the country agreed

to do. But when a team of congressional auditors visited in 2010-11, some of the improvements were still under way. The fact that such glaring weaknesses still existed at a site with Category I materials years after the September 11, 2001 (9/11), attacks speaks volumes about the urgent work still ahead to plug nuclear security weak points around the world. Indeed, I would argue that every country with nuclear weapons or weapons-usable nuclear materials—including the United States—has more to do to ensure that these items are effectively protected.PUNCTUATING COMPLACENT EQUILIBRIUM: THE U.S. CASE

If political turmoil is not the most important driver of nuclear security problems, what is? In a word, complacency—the belief that nuclear terrorism is not a serious threat, and that whatever security measures are in place today are already sufficient. The history of nuclear security is a story of punctuated equilibrium, with long stretches of complacency and little change punctuated by moments when something—typically, a major incident of some kind—made it possible to move the system to a higher-security state, from which it would then begin to drift slowly into

complacency again. The results of incidents and other events are mediated by the different political cultures and institutions in different countries, so that one country might react to an incident by establishing substantial new security rules, while another might react by having participants in the system offer explanations why it could never happen again.

A2: Can’t Get a Nuke

Terrorist groups can acquire nuclear weapons from Pakistan – they have the motivation and moneyPakistan Today 5/23/15 ("IS Terrorists Say They could Buy a Nuclear Weapon from Pakistan within a year")

In the latest issue of its propaganda magazine, Dabiq, the Islamic State (IS) has suggested that the terrorist group is expanding so rapidly that it will buy its first nuclear weapon from Pakistan within a year.¶ The article, which the group attributes to British hostage John Cantlie, says that the IS surpassed its roots as “the most explosive Islamic ‘group’ in the modern world” to evolve into “the most explosive Islamic movement

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the modern world has ever seen” in less than twelve months.¶ The British photojournalist, Cantlie, is often used in the terrorist group’s propaganda and has made appearances in several of their videos, including a YouTube series called “Lend Me Your Ears”. Cantlie has been IS’s hostage since the past two years.¶ In the piece title “The Perfect Storm”, the militant group mentions other terrorist organisations such as Boko Haram, which recently pledged allegiance to the IS, uniting across the Middle East, Asia and Africa to create one global movement.¶ The article claims this arrangement of groups has happened at the same time as IS militants have seized “tanks, rocket launchers, missile systems, anti-aircraft systems,” from the US and Iran before turning to the subject of more extreme weapons the group is not in possession of – such as nuclear weapons.¶ “Let me throw a hypothetical operation onto the table,” the article continues. “The Islamic State has billions of dollars in the bank, so they call on their wilāyah in Pakistan to purchase a nuclear device through weapons dealers with links to corrupt officials in the region.”¶ “It’s the sum of all fears for Western intelligence agencies and it’s infinitely more possible today than it was just one year ago.¶ “And if not a nuke, what about a few thousand tons of ammonium nitrate explosive? That’s easy enough to make.”¶ An attack launched by IS against the United States would ridicule “the attacks of the past” .¶ “They’ll (IS) be looking to do something big, something that would make any past operation look like a squirrel shoot, and the more groups that pledge allegiance the more possible it becomes to pull off something truly epic.¶ “Remember, all of this has happened in less than a year. How more dangerous will be the lines of communication and supply a year on from today?”¶ For now, the capability of IS to obtain such a device is beyond the group at the moment.¶ However, it should be noted that the Islamic State is indeed a well-funded group having secured numerous oil fields in Syria and Iraq. Further, the group also sells artifacts stolen from heritage sites seized during its insurgency, sometimes even for six figure sums.¶ The group also extorts money.¶ The finances of IS have been estimated to be about $2 billion, but there is no way to verify how much money it actually has access to.¶ The threats come against a mixed series of wins and losses in both countries; the group has been driven out of Tikrit in Iraq but has overrun Ramaldi and the Syrian ancient city of Palmyra.

A2: No Nuclear Terror

Nuclear threat high- dirty bombs, theft, selling, research reactors Vladimir Z. Dvorkin 12 Major General (retired), doctor of technical sciences, professor, and senior fellow at the Center for International Security of the Institute of World Economy and International Relations of the Russian Academy of Sciences. The Center participates in the working group of the U.S.-Russia Initiative to Prevent Nuclear Terrorism, 9/21/12, "What Can Destroy Strategic Stability: Nuclear Terrorism is a Real Threat," belfercenter.ksg.harvard.edu/publication/22333/what_can_destroy_strategic_stability.html

Hundreds of scientific papers and reports have been published on nuclear terrorism. International conferences have been held on this threat with participation of Russian organizations, including IMEMO and the Institute of U.S. and Canadian Studies. Recommendations on how to combat the threat have been issued by the International Luxembourg Forum on Preventing Nuclear Catastrophe, Pugwash Conferences on Science and World Affairs, Russian-American Elbe Group, and other organizations. The UN General Assembly adopted the International Convention for the Suppression of Acts of Nuclear Terrorism in 2005 and cooperation among intelligence services of leading states in this sphere is developing.¶ At the same time, these efforts fall short for a number of reasons, partly because various acts of nuclear terrorism are possible . Dispersal of radioactive material by detonation of conventional explosives (“dirty bombs”) is a method that is most accessible for terrorists. With the wide spread of radioactive sources, raw materials for such attacks have become much more accessible than weapons-useable nuclear material or nuclear weapons. The use of “dirty bombs” will not cause many immediate casualties, but it will result into long-term radioactive contamination, contributing to the spread of panic and socio-economic destabilization.¶ Severe consequences can be caused by sabotaging nuclear power plants, research reactors, and radioactive materials storage facilities. Large cities are especially vulnerable to such attacks. A large city may host dozens of research reactors with a nuclear power plant or a couple of spent nuclear fuel storage facilities and dozens of large radioactive materials storage facilities located nearby. The past few years have seen significant efforts made to enhance organizational and physical aspects of security at facilities, especially at nuclear power plants. Efforts have also been made to improve security

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culture. But these efforts do not preclude the possibility that well-trained terrorists may be able to penetrate nuclear facilities . ¶ Some estimates show that sabotage of a research reactor in a metropolis may expose hundreds of thousands to high doses of radiation. A formidable part of the city would become uninhabitable for a long time.¶ Of all the scenarios, it is building an improvised nuclear device by terrorists that poses the maximum risk. There are no engineering problems that cannot be solved if terrorists decide to build a simple “gun-type” nuclear device. Information on the design of such devices, as well as implosion-type devices, is available in the public domain . It is the acquisition of weapons-grade uranium that presents the sole serious obstacle. Despite numerous

preventive measures taken, we cannot rule out the possibility that such materials can be bought on the black market.

Theft of weapons-grade uranium is also possible. Research reactor fuel is considered to be particularly vulnerable to theft, as it is scattered at sites in dozens of countries. There are about 100 research reactors in the world that run on weapons-grade uranium fuel, according to the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA).¶ A terrorist “gun-type” uranium bomb can have a yield of least 10-15 kt, which is comparable to the yield of the bomb dropped on Hiroshima. The explosion of such a bomb in a modern metropolis can kill and wound hundreds of thousands and cause serious economic damage. There will also be long-term sociopsychological and political consequences.¶ The vast majority of states have introduced unprecedented security and surveillance measures at transportation and other large-scale public facilities after the terrorist attacks in the United States, Great Britain, Italy, and other countries. These measures have proved burdensome for the countries’ populations, but the public has accepted them as necessary. A nuclear terrorist attack will make the public accept further measures meant to enhance control even if these measures significantly restrict the democratic liberties they are accustomed to. Authoritarian states could be expected to adopt even more restrictive measures.¶ If a nuclear terrorist act occurs, nations will delegate tens of thousands of their secret services’ best personnel to investigate and attribute the attack. Radical Islamist groups are among those capable of such an act. We can imagine what would happen if they do so, given the anti-Muslim sentiments and resentment that conventional terrorist attacks by Islamists have generated in developed democratic countries. Mass deportation of the non-indigenous population and severe sanctions would follow such an attack in what will cause violent protests in the Muslim world. Series of armed clashing terrorist attacks may follow. The prediction that Samuel Huntington has made in his book “The Clash of Civilizations and the Remaking of World Order” may come true. Huntington’s book clearly demonstrates that it is not Islamic extremists that are the cause of the Western world’s problems. Rather there is a deep, intractable conflict that is rooted in the fault lines that run between Islam and Christianity. This is especially dangerous for Russia because these fault lines run across its territory. To sum it up, the political leadership of Russia has every reason to revise its list of factors that could undermine strategic stability.  BMD does not deserve to be even last on that list because its effectiveness in repelling massive missile strikes will be extremely low. BMD systems can prove useful only if deployed to defend against launches of individual ballistic missiles or groups of such missiles. Prioritization of other destabilizing factors—that could affect global and regional stability—merits a separate study or studies. But even without them I can conclude that nuclear terrorism should be placed on top of the list. The threat of nuclear terrorism is real , and a successful nuclear terrorist attack would lead to a radical transformation of the global order.  All of the threats on the revised list must become a subject of thorough studies by experts. States need to work hard to forge a common understanding of these threats and develop a strategy to combat them.

A2: No Retaliation

Even crude devices make escalation likelyConley 3 ACC chief of Systems Analysis Branch, 2003 Harry, “Not with Impunity Assessing US Policy for Retaliating to a Chemical or Biological Attack”, 3-5, http://www.airpower.maxwell.af.mil/airchronicles/apj/apj03/spr03/conley.html

The number of American casualties suffered due to a WMD attack may well be the most important variable in determining the nature of the US reprisal . A key question here is how many Americans would have to be killed to prompt a massive response

by the United States. The bombing of marines in Lebanon, the Oklahoma City bombing, and the downing of Pan Am Flight 103 each resulted in a casualty count of roughly the same magnitude (150–300 deaths). Although these events caused anger and a desire for retaliation among the American public, they prompted no serious call for massive or nuclear retaliation. The body count from a single biological

attack could easily be one or two orders of magnitude higher than the casualties caused by these events. Using the rule of proportionality as a guide, one

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could justifiably debate whether the United States should use massive force in responding to an event that resulted in only a few thousand deaths . However, what if the casualty count was around 300,000? Such an unthinkable result from a single CBW incident is

not beyond the realm of possibility: “According to the U.S. Congress Office of Technology Assessment, 100 kg of anthrax spores delivered by an efficient aerosol generator on a large urban target would be

between two and six times as lethal as a one megaton thermo-nuclear bomb.”46 Would the deaths of 300,000 Americans be enough to trigger a nuclear response? In this case, proportionality does not rule out the use of nuclear weapons . Besides simply the total number of casualties, the types of casualties- predominantly military versus civilian- will also affect the nature and scope of the US reprisal action. Military combat entails known risks, and the emotions resulting from a significant number of military casualties are not likely to be as forceful as they would be if the attack were against civilians. World War II provides perhaps the best examples for the kind of event or circumstance that

would have to take place to trigger a nuclear response. A CBW event that produced a shock and death toll roughly equivalent to those arising from the attack on Pearl Harbor might be sufficient to prompt a nuclear retaliation . President Harry Truman’s decision to drop

atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki- based upon a calculation that up to one million casualties might be incurred in an invasion of the Japanese homeland47- is an example of the kind of thought

process that would have to occur prior to a nuclear response to a CBW event. Victor Utgoff suggests that “if nuclear retaliation is seen at the time to offer the best prospects for suppressing further CB attacks and speeding the defeat of the aggressor, and if the original attacks had caused severe damage that had outraged American or allied publics, nuclear retaliation would be more than just a possibility, whatever promises had been made.”48

A2: Low Probability

9-11 and the black market prove – nuclear terrorism is the greatest threat in the world todayYusuf 2K9 [MoEED, Fellow, Frederick S. Pardee Center for the Study of the Longer-Range Future Boston University, “Predicting Proliferation: The History of the Future of Nuclear Weapons” POLICY PAPER Number 11, January 2009, http://www.brookings.edu/papers/2009/~/media/Files/rc/papers/2009/01_nuclear_proliferation_yusuf/01_nuclear_proliferation_yusuf.pdf]

Perhaps the most striking development in efforts to predict the role of nuclear weapons in the post-Cold War era has been the importance accorded to nuclear terrorism. While the mention of the issue remained peripheral for the most part prior to the collapse of the Soviet Union, it came into the limelight immediately after the USSR’s dissolution. Ever since, the inevitability of the spread of nuclear terrorism and that of a successful terrorist attack in the distant future were taken for granted. The period after the 9/11 attacks on the United States and the 2003 revelation of the nuclear black market fostered considerable pessimism about the menace of terrorism.195 As confirmed by former State Department Official William J. Perry in a recent Congressional testimony, nuclear terrorism is widely considered to be the “greatest danger today”.

With globalization, the nuclear black market and access to information has made the potential of nuclear terrorism even greaterYusuf 2K9 [MoEED, Fellow, Frederick S. Pardee Center for the Study of the Longer-Range Future Boston University, “Predicting Proliferation: The History of the Future of Nuclear Weapons” POLICY PAPER Number 11, January 2009, http://www.brookings.edu/papers/2009/~/media/Files/rc/papers/2009/01_nuclear_proliferation_yusuf/01_nuclear_proliferation_yusuf.pdf]

Another facet introduced into the debate in the 1990s was the linkage between proliferation to non-state actors and the increased mobility of human movement and enhanced communications brought about by globalization.201 Some experts even saw the possibility of states willingly providing terrorists with operational weapons to use against opponents.202 However, the majority continued to believe that the repercussions were high enough for states not to contemplate such a move.203 A more important strand of this argument however was the concern about non-states actors benefiting from the relatively easy access to nuclear technology, not only as end users but also as suppliers of sensitive materials and technology to those seeking weapons capabilities.204 Interestingly, nuclear scientists were considered to pose a serious threat. Following the demise of the Soviet Union, a number of ex-Soviet nuclear scientists were left jobless and were seen as key targets for terrorists interested in gaining technological know-how.205 The danger of nuclear scientists divulging valuable knowledge was

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proven by the revelation of the A.Q. Khan-led nuclear black market.

A2: Deterrence Solves

Risks of nuclear terrorism high, deterrence won’t solveDaily Times, February 25, 2014, http://www.dailytimes.com.pk/opinion/25-Feb-2014/preventing-nuclear-terrorism

On October 11, 2001, exactly a month after the terrorist attacks on the World Trade Centre, President George W Bush was informed by his CIA director, George Tenet, about the presence of al Qaeda-linked terrorists in New York City with a 10-kiloton nuclear bomb. Overwhelmed by paralysing fear that terrorists could have smuggled another nuclear weapon into Washington DC as well, President Bush ordered Vice President Dick Cheney, along with several hundred federal employees from almost a dozen government agencies, to leave for some undisclosed location outside the capital where they could ensure the continuity of government in case of a nuclear explosion in Washington DC. Although, after subsequent investigations, the CIA’s report turned out to be false, this incident showed that even a false alarm signalling a nuclear attack could lead to a much higher probability of disaster. A nuclear attack in downtown Washington DC has the potential to kill hundreds of thousands of people immediately and wipe the White House, the State Department and many other buildings off the face of the earth, making the 9/11 attacks a ‘historical footnote’.It is evident that the spectre of a terrorist-controlled nuclear weapon is a real threat and is global in scope. Given the potentially disastrous consequences, even a small possibility of terrorists obtaining and detonating a nuclear device justifies urgent action. The most urgent security threat to the world today is the possibility of the stealing of weapons or fissile materials by terrorists. After the collapse of the Soviet Union, hundreds of confirmed cases of successful theft of nuclear materials were reported in Russia. In 1997, General Alexander Lebed, assistant for national security affairs to Boris Yeltsin, revealed that 84 out of 132 special KGB ‘suitcase nuclear weapons’ were unaccounted for in Russia. There are also widespread apprehensions expressed by the international community that militants could steal Pakistan’s nuclear weapons or fissile material. Unfortunately, some incidents of jihadi penetration of Pakistan’s armed forces have further fuelled this perception.In 2001, US officials discovered that Osama bin Laden and his deputy, Ayman al Zawahiri, were in contact with two retired Pakistani nuclear scientists for assistance in making a small nuclear device. Later in 2003, some junior Pakistani army and air force officers colluded with al Qaeda terrorists to attempt to assassinate President Musharraf and enforce sharia in Pakistan. Notwithstanding that the dangers about the security of Pakistan’s nuclear weapons might be highly exaggerated; some genuine concerns arising due to links between terrorists and government authorities must be immediately addressed. Umar Khalid Khurasani, the ameer (head) of the Mohmand Agency chapter of the Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP), also wants to seize nuclear weapons and overthrow the government of Pakistan. Another potential source for the theft of fissile material is more than 130 civilian research reactors worldwide operating with Highly Enriched Uranium (HEU). Most of these facilities have very modest security - in many cases, no more than a night watchman.Unlike the Cold War period, when both the US and the Soviet Union knew that a nuclear attack from either side would be met with a massive retaliatory strike, conventional deterrence does not work against the terrorist groups. In a famous 2007 Wall Street Journal article by Henry Kissinger, George Shultz, William Perry and Sam Nunn (together known as the ‘four horsemen’), it was claimed that, “Most alarmingly, the likelihood that non-state terrorists will get their hands on nuclear weaponry is increasing. In today’s war waged on world order by terrorists, nuclear weapons are the ultimate means of mass destruction...unless urgent new actions are taken, the US soon will be compelled to enter a new nuclear era that will be more precarious, psychologically disorienting, and economically even more costly than was the Cold War.”

A2: Can’t Build a BombThey can build a bombJoyner 9 (Christopher C., Professor of International Law at Georgetown University, “Nuclear Terrorism in a Globalizing World: Assessing the Threat and the Emerging Management Regime,” Stanford Journal of International Law, Summer, p. 218, http://www.thefreelibrary.com/Nuclear+terrorism+in+a+globalizing+world%3A+assessing+the+threat+and...-a0216486733)

A further cause for alarm is the relative ease with which nuclear weapons can be produced . According to

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experts, production of a nuclear weapon is relatively simple once nuclear materials are obtained. (69) Indeed,

the simplest design for a nuclear weapon--the gun-type design used at Hiroshima--can be made after simply referring to literature available in the public domain. (70) As noted in a report by Congress in the 1970s, in order to build a viable nuclear device

one would need "'modest machine-shop facilities.... The financial resources for the acquisition of necessary

equipment on open markets need not exceed a fraction of a million dollars [,] ... a person capable of researching and understanding the literature in several fields and a jack-of-all trades technician ,'" (71) in addition to the nuclear

material. Considering that inexperienced graduate students have produced both simple gun-type and more complex implosion-type bombs, U.S. intelligence concluded that prior to 9/11 the capacity to make such a bomb was well within the capabilities of al-Qaeda . (72)

**AFF**

2AC Strategy Sheet

Don’t just read every card labeled “2AC” – think about what you need and how to best use your 1AC evidence to respond to the DA! Answering the link (No Link 2AC) and the extinction part of the impact (No Extinction 2AC, No Retaliation 2AC) is probably the most important and should get priority. The impact debate can get very deep and complex so you could include as many cards as you have time for but be smart about it. Focus on responding to the claims that are directly laid out in their evidence and don’t forget to include at least one analytic argument between everyday. Read through the 1NC evidence before the debate and tease out the logical and factual flaws it has.

No Attack Coming – 2AC

Reject their probability frame – threats of ISIS and homegrown terror attacks are exaggeratedStewart 5/14/15 (Scott, writer for STRATFOR Global Intelligence, "Don't Take Terrorism Threats at Face Value")

First, it is important to understand the context of the statements made by FBI Director Comey, Department of Homeland Security Secretary Johnson and former CIA Deputy Director Morell. ¶ Comey's statement about not having a complete handle on the grassroots terrorist threat is true. The very nature of such operatives makes them difficult for governments to combat. However, the FBI has been very successful in interdicting grassroots plots in recent months. In fact, I cannot recall so many grassroots operatives being arrested so closely together. However, one of the factors driving Comey's recent remarks is his steadfast belief that technological developments, such as encryption, are creating "dark spaces" that the FBI does not have the ability to investigate. Comey contends that there is no place in the physical world that the FBI cannot get a warrant to search, but technology has permitted criminals and terrorists to create virtual places where the FBI simply cannot penetrate even if they procure the proper search warrants. Comey's recent statement is part of his campaign to convince the public and congress that the FBI needs the ability to investigate those places.¶ Secretary Johnson's statement about the new jihadist threat is also nothing new. Indeed, I heard him make the same statement last November and took issue with it then. Leaderless resistance, the terrorist operational model that stresses the importance of lone wolf operatives, is simply not a new problem in the United States. It has existed for decades and been actively promoted in the jihadist world since at least 2004. ¶ Michael Morell is on a book tour and attempting to sell as many books as possible. One way to accomplish that is to make eye-popping claims. If the Islamic State had the capability to launch a 9/11-style attack inside the United States, or a similar spectacular terrorist attack, it would have already done so. Instead, the Islamic State has been forced to rely on grassroots operatives to conduct less than spectacular attacks on its behalf. Furthermore, the pre-9/11 paradigm has changed and there is simply no way an airline captain is going to relinquish control of his aircraft to be used as a guided cruise missile — nor would the passengers permit it. Because of this, it is very hard to imagine the Islamic State conducting a 9/11-style attack.

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No Attack Coming – 1AR

Al Qaeda has no interest in nukes and has not pursued them Mueller 14 (John, senior fellow at the Cato Institute, senior research scientist at the Mershon Center, political scientist at Ohio State, “Nuclear Alarmism: Proliferation and Terrorism,” in A Dangerous World?: Threat Perception and U.S. National Security, 2014)

When examined, the evidence of al Qaeda’s desire to go atomic and about its progress in accomplishing that exceedingly difficult task, even in the comparative safety of its Afghan haven of the 1990s, is remarkably skimpy, if not completely negligible. The scariest stuff—a decade’s worth of loose nuke rumor, chatter, and hype—seems to have no substance whatever.After an exhaustive study of available materials, Stenersen concludes that, although al Qaeda central may have considered nuclear and other nonconventional weapons, there “is little evidence that such ideas ever developed into actual plans, or that they were given any kind of priority at the expense of more traditional types of terrorist attacks.”63 And there is no reason to believe things got better for them after they were forcefully expelled from their comparatively unembattled base in Afghanistan.In 1996, one of terrorism studies’ top gurus, Walter Laqueur, insisted that some terrorist groups “almost certainly” will use WMDs “in the foreseeable future.”64 Presumably any future foreseeable in 1996 is now history, but in contrast, terrorists in effect seem to be heeding the advice found in a memo on an al Qaeda laptop seized in Pakistan in 2004: “Make use of that which is available … rather than waste valuable time becoming despondent over that which is not within your reach.”65 That is, keep it simple, stupid. Although there have been plenty of terrorist attacks in the world since 2001, all (thus far, at least) have relied on conventional destructive methods. There hasn’t even been much in the way of the occasional gas bomb, not even in Iraq where the technology is hardly much of a secret.

No Link – 2AC

Their link evidence is wrong – theres no evidence that mass surveillance has thwarted terrorismSterman et al 14 (Peter Bergen is the director of the National Security Program at the New America Foundation, where David Sterman and Emily Schneider are research assistants and Bailey Cahall is a research associate)(Do NSA's Bulk Surveillance Programs Stop Terrorists? Peter Bergen, David Sterman, Emily Schneider, and Bailey Cahall National Security Program January 2014)

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, 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. Regular FISA warrants not issued in connection with Section 215 or Section 702, which are the traditional means for investigating foreign persons, were used in at least 48 (21 percent) of the cases we looked at, although it’s unclear whether these warrants played an initiating role or were used at a later point in the investigation. (Click on the link to go to a database of all 225 individuals, complete with additional details about them and the government’s investigations of these cases: http://natsec.newamerica.net/nsa/analysis).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.5 According to the government, the database of American phone metadata allows intelligence authorities to quickly circumvent the traditional burden of proof associated with criminal warrants, thus allowing them to “connect the dots” faster and prevent future 9/11-scale attacks. Yet in the Moalin

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case, after using the NSA’s phone database to link a number in Somalia to Moalin, the FBI waited two months to begin an investigation and wiretap his phone. Although it’s unclear why there was a delay between the NSA tip and the FBI wiretapping, court documents show there was a two-month period in which the FBI was not monitoring Moalin’s calls, despite official statements that the bureau had Moalin’s phone number and had identified him.6,7 This undercuts the government’s theory that the database of Americans’ telephone metadata is necessary to expedite the investigative process, since it clearly didn’t expedite the process in the single case the government uses to extol its virtues.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.

Requiring specific proof will have almost no effect on terror investigationsFarivar 14(Cyrus, Report: NSA bulk metadata collection has “no discernible impact”, Jan 13, 2014, http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2014/01/report-nsa-bulk-metadata-collection-has-no-discernible-impact/)

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 examinedSurveillance 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.The study concluded that “traditional investigative methods,” including the use of informants, community/family tips, are actually far more effective. The researchers also show that individualized and targeted warrants issued through traditional criminal courts or by the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court (FISC) are fully capable of obtaining detailed information—particularly on the content of digital correspondence—that is otherwise legally unobtainable.“[The Bergen report] is additional evidence of the question of the ‘efficacy’ of the surveillance program, a factor that weighs heavily when one balances security against liberty,” Ruthann Robson, a law professor at the City University of New York, told Ars. “If the program does not provide security, then its weight on the scales is minimal.

No Link – 1AR

It’s statistically impossible to use mass surveillance to stop an attack – too many false positivesCorrigan 15 (senior lecturer in mathematics, computing, and technology at the Open University, U.K.)(Ray, Mass Surveillance Will Not Stop Terrorism, http://www.slate.com/articles/health_and_science/new_scientist/2015/01/mass_surveillance_against_terrorism_gathering_intelligence_on_all_is_statistically.html)

Mass data collectors can dig deeply into anyone’s digital persona but don’t have the resources to do so with everyone. Surveillance of the entire population, the vast majority of whom are innocent, leads to the diversion of limited

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intelligence resources in pursuit of huge numbers of false leads. Terrorists are comparatively rare, so finding one is a needle-in-a-haystack problem. You don’t make it easier by throwing more needleless hay on the stack.It is statistically impossible for total population surveillance to be an effective tool for catching terrorists.Even if your magic terrorist-catching machine has a false positive rate of 1 in 1,000—and no security technology comes anywhere near this—every time you asked it for suspects in the U.K. it would flag 60,000 innocent people. Law enforcement and security services need to be able to move with the times, using modern digital technologies intelligently and through targeted data preservation—not a mass surveillance regime—to engage in court-supervised technological surveillance of individuals whom they have reasonable cause to suspect. That is not, however, the same as building an infrastructure of mass surveillance.Mass surveillance makes the job of the security services more difficult and the rest of us less secure.

No Extinction – 2AC

Terrorism doesn’t pose an existential riskFettweis, Professor of Political Science, ‘10Chris, Professor of Political Science @ Tulane,Threat and Anxiety in US Foreign Policy, Survival, 52:2

Even terrorists equipped with nuclear, biological or chemical weapons would be incapable of causing damage so cataclysmic that it would prove fatal to modern states. Though the prospect of terrorists obtaining and using such weapons is one of the most consistently terrifying scenarios of the new era, it is also highly unlikely and not nearly as dangerous as sometimes portrayed. As the well-funded, well-staffed Aum Shinrikyo cult found out in the 1990s, workable forms of weapons of mass destruction are hard to purchase, harder still to synthesise without state help, and challenging to use effectively. The Japanese group managed

to kill a dozen people on the Tokyo subway system at rush hour. While tragic, the attack was hardly the stuff of apocalyptic nightmares. Super-weapons are simply not easy for even the most sophisticated non-state actors to use.31

If terror- ists were able to overcome the substantial obstacles and use the most destructive weapons in a densely populated area, the outcome would of course be terrible for those unfortunate enough to be nearby. But we should not operate under the illusion that doomsday would arrive. Modern industrialised countries can cope with disasters, both natural and man-made. As unpleasant as such events would be, they do not represent existential threats.

No Extinction – 1AR

Claims of an existential risk from terrorism are irrationalFettweis, Professor of Political Science, ‘10Chris, Professor of Political Science @ Tulane,Threat and Anxiety in US Foreign Policy, Survival, 52:2

Conventional war, much less outright assault, is not the leading security challenge in the minds of most Americans today. Instead, irregular or non- state actors,

especially terrorists, top the list of threats to the West since 11 September 2001. The primary guiding principle of US foreign policymaking, for better or worse, is the continuing struggle against terrorism. President Bush repeatedly used the term ‘Islamofascists’ to describe the enemy that he re-oriented the US defence establishment to fight, transforming al-Qaeda from a ragtag band of lunatics into a

threat to the republic itself. It is not uncommon for even sober analysts to claim that Islamic terrorists present an ‘existential threat’ to the United States, especially if they were ever to employ nuclear, biological or chemical weapons. Perhaps it is Parkinson’s Law that inspires some analysts to compare Islamic fundamentalists with the great enemies of the past, such as the Nazis or the Communists, since no rational analysis of their destructive potential would allow such a conclu- sion. Threat is a function of capabilities and intent; even if al-Qaeda has the intent to threaten the existence of the United States, it does not possess the capability to do so.

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No Retaliation – 2AC

Most likely response would be conventional – 9/11 proves.Ayson ‘10Robert Ayson, Centre for Strategic Studies, Victoria University of Wellington. “After a Terrorist Nuclear Attack: Envisaging Catalytic Effects”. Studies in Conflict & Terrorism, Volume 33, Issue 7 July 2010 , pages 571 – 593. InformaWorld.

Even if the actual perpetrators of the nuclear violence and any leaders of the terrorist group were identified and could be targeted militarily, it does not necessarily follow that such a reaction would need to be enormously violent. One possible option would be an attempt to seize the terrorist leadership alive and have them tried for crimes against humanity, even if some sort of retrospective international legal arrangements might be needed to cover the actions of a non-state group. Another option would be a “surgical” strike, including perhaps by the use of drones, if the attacked country still felt it necessarily to highlight an asymmetry between the indiscriminate and illegitimate violence of the attackers and the carefully crafted response of the attacked country. Any violent action against states that had been harboring or assisting the terrorists might also be limited so as to protect the international reputation of the victim . The importance of limiting the use of force might grow if there was some uncertainty about the identity of the attacking group and their state (and non-state) supporters, to reduce the political costs should that identification later prove to have been erroneous. Alternatively if the terrorist group was thought to possess additional nuclear weapons, some might counsel a cautious military response in case any violent response led to further attacks. However, one would expect this last argument to get fairly short shrift: few would want to be accused of appeasing proven nuclear terrorists. Of course the state victim of the nuclear attack might well decide to use much higher levels force against the terrorist group and any of its state supporters, (and especially if any of the latter were considered to have helped the group acquire the nuclear weapon that had been used). If the leadership of the terrorist group that authorized the attack were thought to be operating from a particular overseas location, one might expect aerial bombing and missile attacks, the deployment of a battle group task force offshore (depending on the geography) and then perhaps the insertion of larger numbers of regular forces. Of course, this begs the assumption that the state victim was a country such as the United States whose armed forces do have the global reach these options could require (although there is also the very real possibility that the United States might respond in this way even if it had not been the

direct victim of the nuclear terrorist attack). Indeed, the precedent of the international response to the 9/11 attacks suggests that a large international military coalition in support of the state victim could be organized reasonably quickly. But it is not obvious that this coalition would be presented with a carbon copy of the Al Qaeda-Taliban nexus as a readily available target for its

mission. In any case, it is likely that a number of governments would want to join together in what would amount to a significant show of force.

No Retaliation – 1AR

Newest evidence – no nuclear retaliation Kimball ‘9Daryl. President of the ACA. Change U.S. Nuclear Policy? Yes, We Can. September 2009. http://www.armscontrol.org/act/2009_09/focus.

Given the United States’ conventional military edge, no plausible circumstance requires or could justify the use of nuclear weapons to deal with a non-nuclear threat. They are useless in deterring or responding to nuclear terrorism. Gen. Colin Powell put it well in his 1995 autobiography: “No matter how small these nuclear payloads were, we would be crossing a threshold. Using nukes at this point would mark one of the most significant political decisions since Hiroshima.”

No Nuclear Use – 2AC

Many barriers to WMD terrorismBruce Hoffman, March-April, 2014, Low-Tech Terrorism, National Interest, http://nationalinterest.org/article/low-tech-terrorism-9935 (Bruce Hoffman is a contributing editor to The National Interest, a senior fellow at the U.S. Military Academy’s Combating Terrorism Center, and a professor and director of the Center for Security Studies at Georgetown University.

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Fortunately, the report’s most breathless prediction concerning the likelihood of terrorist use of weapons of mass destruction (WMD) has not come to pass. But this is not for want of terrorists trying to obtain such capabilities. Indeed, prior to the October 2001 U.S.-led invasion of Afghanistan, Al Qaeda had embarked upon an ambitious quest to acquire and develop an array of such weapons that, had it been successful, would have altered to an unimaginable extent our most basic conceptions about national security and rendered moot debates over whether terrorism posed a potentially existential threat. But just how effective have terrorist efforts to acquire and use weapons of mass destruction actually been? The September 11, 2001, attacks were widely noted for their reliance on relatively low-tech weaponry—the conversion, in effect, of airplanes into missiles by using raw physical muscle and box cutters to hijack them. Since then, efforts to gain access to WMD have been unceasing. But examining those efforts results in some surprising conclusions. While there is no cause for complacency, they do suggest that terrorists face some inherent constraints that will be difficult for them to overcome. It is easier to proclaim the threat of mass terror than to perpetrate it.

No Nuclear Use – A2: Loose Nukes

No loose nukes – tons of safeguards and states like Russia and Pakistan maintain tight control Mueller 14 (John, senior fellow at the Cato Institute, senior research scientist at the Mershon Center, political scientist at Ohio State, “Nuclear Alarmism: Proliferation and Terrorism,” in A Dangerous World?: Threat Perception and U.S. National Security, 2014)

Stealing or Illicitly Purchasing a Bomb: Loose NukesThere has also been great worry about “loose nukes,” especially in postcommunist Russia—weapons, “suitcase bombs” in particular, that can be stolen or bought illicitly. A careful assessment conducted by the Center for Nonproliferation Studies has concluded that it is unlikely that any of those devices have been lost and that, regardless, their effectiveness would be very low or even nonexistent because they (like all nuclear weapons) require continual maintenance.39 Even some of those people most alarmed by the prospect of atomic terrorism have concluded, “It is probably true that there are no ‘loose nukes ,’ transportable nuclear weapons missing from their proper storage locations and available for purchase in some way.”40It might be added that Russia has an intense interest in controlling any weapons on its territory because it is likely to be a prime target of any illicit use by terrorist groups, particularly Chechen ones of course, with whom it has been waging a vicious on-and-off war for two decades. The government of Pakistan, which has been repeatedly threatened by terrorists, has a similar interest in controlling its nuclear weapons and material—and scientists. As noted by Stephen Younger, former head of nuclear weapons research and development at Los Alamos National Laboratory, “Regardless of what is reported in the news, all nuclear nations take the security of their weapons very seriously.”41 Even if a finished bomb were somehow lifted somewhere, the loss would soon be noted and a worldwide pursuit launched.Moreover, finished bombs are outfitted with devices designed to trigger a nonnuclear explosion that would destroy the bomb if it were tampered with. And there are other security techniques: bombs can be kept disassembled with the components stored in separate high-security vaults, and security can be organized so that two people and multiple codes are required not only to use the bomb but also to store, maintain, and deploy it. If the terrorists seek to enlist (or force) the services of someone who already knows how to set off the bomb, they would find, as Younger stresses, that “only few people in the world have the knowledge to cause an unauthorized detonation of a nuclear weapon.” Weapons designers know how a weapon works, he explains, but not the multiple types of signals necessary to set it off, and maintenance personnel are trained in only a limited set of functions.42

No Nuclear Use – A2: Nuclear Failed State

Loose nuke highly unlikely even in a failed state – nuclear weapons would still be heavily guarded and remain on lock

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Mueller 14 (John, senior fellow at the Cato Institute, senior research scientist at the Mershon Center, political scientist at Ohio State, “Nuclear Alarmism: Proliferation and Terrorism,” in A Dangerous World?: Threat Perception and U.S. National Security, 2014)

There could be dangers in the chaos that would emerge if a nuclear state were to fail, collapsing in full disarray—Pakistan is frequently brought up in this context and sometimes North Korea as well. However, even under those conditions, nuclear weapons would likely remain under heavy guard by people who know that a purloined bomb would most likely end up going off in their own territory; would still have locks (and in the case of Pakistan would be disassembled); and could probably be followed, located, and hunted down by an alarmed international community. The worst-case scenario in that instance requires not only a failed state but also a considerable series of additional permissive conditions, including consistent (and perfect) insider complicity and a sequence of hasty, opportunistic decisions or developments that click flawlessly in a manner far more familiar to Hollywood scriptwriters than to people experienced with reality.43

No Nuclear Use – A2: Building a Bomb

Too many hurdles – technical requirements alone are infeasible Mueller 14 (John, senior fellow at the Cato Institute, senior research scientist at the Mershon Center, political scientist at Ohio State, “Nuclear Alarmism: Proliferation and Terrorism,” in A Dangerous World?: Threat Perception and U.S. National Security, 2014)

The process of making such a weapon is daunting even in this minimal case. In particular, the task requires that a considerable series of difficult hurdles be conquered and in sequence.To begin with, now and likely for the foreseeable future, stateless groups are incapable of manufacturing the requisite weapons-grade uranium themselves because the process requires an effort on an industrial scale. Moreover, they are unlikely to be supplied with the material by a state for the same reasons a state is unlikely to give them a workable bomb.46 Thus, they would need to steal or illicitly purchase the crucial material. A successful armed theft is exceedingly unlikely, not only because of the resistance of guards but also because chase would be immediate. A more plausible route would be to corrupt insiders to smuggle out the necessary fissile material. However, that approach requires the terrorists to pay off a host of greedy confederates, including brokers and money transmitters, any one of whom could turn on them or—either out of guile or incompetence—furnish them with stuff that is useless.47Moreover, because of improved safeguards and accounting practices, it is decreasingly likely that the theft would remain undetected.48 That development is important because if any missing uranium is noticed, the authorities would investigate the few people who might have been able to assist the thieves, and one who seems suddenly to have become prosperous is likely to arrest their attention right from the start. Even one initially tempted by, seduced by, or sympathetic to, the blandishments of the smooth-talking foreign terrorists might soon develop sobering second thoughts and go to the authorities. Insiders tempted to assist terrorists might also come to ruminate over the fact that, once the heist was accomplished, the terrorists would, as analyst Brian Jenkins puts it none too delicately, “have every incentive to cover their trail, beginning with eliminating their confederates.”49It is also relevant to note that over the years, known thefts of highly enriched uranium have totaled fewer than 16 pounds. That amount is far less than that required for an atomic explosion: for a crude bomb, more than 100 pounds are necessary to produce a likely yield of one kiloton. Moreover, none of those thieves was connected to al Qaeda, and, most arrestingly, none had buyers lined up—nearly all were caught while trying to peddle their wares. Indeed, concludes analyst Robin Frost, “There appears to be no true demand, except where the buyers were government agents running a sting.” Because there appears to be no commercial market for fissile material, each sale would be a one-time affair, not a continuing source of profit such as drugs, and there is no evidence of established underworld commercial trade in this illicit commodity.50

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If terrorists were somehow successful in obtaining a sufficient mass of relevant material, they would then have to transport it out of the country over unfamiliar terrain, probably while being pursued by security forces. Then, they would need to set up a large and well-equipped machine shop to manufacture a bomb and populate it with a select team of highly skilled scientists, technicians, and machinists. The process would also require good managers and organizers. The group would have to be assembled and retained for the monumental task without generating consequential suspicions among friends, family, and police about their curious and sudden absence from normal pursuits back home. Pakistan, for example, maintains a strict watch on many of its nuclear scientists even after retirement.51Some observers have insisted that it would be “easy” for terrorists to assemble a crude bomb if they could get enough fissile material.52 However, Christoph Wirz and Emmanuel Egger, two senior physicists in charge of nuclear issues at Switzerland’s Spiez Laboratory, conclude that the task “could hardly be accomplished by a subnational group.” They point out that precise blueprints are required, not just sketches and general ideas, and that even with a good blueprint, the terrorist group “would most certainly be forced to redesign.” They also stress that the work, far from being “easy,” is difficult, dangerous, and extremely exacting and that the technical requirements “in several fields verge on the unfeasible.”53Los Alamos research director Younger makes a similar argument, expressing his amazement at “self-declared ‘nuclear weapons experts,’ many of whom have never seen a real nuclear weapon,” who “hold forth on how easy it is to make a functioning nuclear explosive.” Information is available for getting the general idea behind a rudimentary nuclear explosive, but none is detailed enough for “the confident assembly of a real nuclear explosive.” Younger concludes, “To think that a terrorist group, working in isolation with an unreliable supply of electricity and little access to tools and supplies” could fabricate a bomb “is far-fetched at best.”54Under the best of circumstances, the process could take months or even a year or more, and it would all, of course, have to be carried out in utter secret even while local and international security police are likely to be on the intense prowl. In addition, people, or criminal gangs, in the area may observe with increasing curiosity and puzzlement the constant comings and goings of technicians unlikely to be locals. The process of fabricating a nuclear device requires, then, the effective recruitment of people who at once have great technical skills and will remain completely devoted to the cause. In addition, a host of corrupted coconspirators, many of them foreign, must remain utterly reliable; international and local security services must be kept perpetually in the dark; and no curious outsider must get wind of the project over the months, or even years, it takes to pull off.The finished product could weigh a ton or more. Encased in lead shielding to mask radioactive emissions, it would then have to be transported to, as well as smuggled into, the relevant target country. Then, the enormous package would have to be received within the target country by a group of collaborators who are at once totally dedicated and technically proficient at handling, maintaining, and perhaps assembling the weapon. Then, they would have to detonate it somewhere under the fervent hope that the machine shop work has been proficient, that no significant shakeups occurred in the treacherous process of transportation, and that the thing—after all that effort—doesn’t prove to be a dud.The financial costs of the extended operation in its cumulating entirety could become monumental. There would be expensive equipment to buy, smuggle, and set up, as well as people to pay—or pay off. Some operatives might work for free out of dedication, but the vast conspiracy also requires the subversion of an array of criminals and opportunists, each of whom has every incentive to push the price for cooperation as high as possible. Any criminals who are competent and capable enough to be an effective ally in the project are likely to be both smart enough to see opportunities for extortion and psychologically equipped by their profession to be willing to exploit them.

No Nuclear Use – A2: State-Sponsored Nuke

No state would give a nuke to a terrorist – risk of discovery is too high

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Mueller 14 (John, senior fellow at the Cato Institute, senior research scientist at the Mershon Center, political scientist at Ohio State, “Nuclear Alarmism: Proliferation and Terrorism,” in A Dangerous World?: Threat Perception and U.S. National Security, 2014)

However, thus far, terrorist groups seem to have exhibited only limited desire and even less progress in going atomic. That lack of action may be because, after a brief exploration of the possible routes, they—unlike generations of alarmists—have discovered that the tremendous effort required is scarcely likely to be successful.34Obtaining a Finished Bomb: Assistance by a StateOne route a would-be atomic terrorist might take would be to receive or buy a bomb from a generous like-minded nuclear state for delivery abroad. That route is highly improbable, however, because there would be too much risk—even for a country led by extremists—that the ultimate source of the weapon would be discovered. As one prominent analyst, Matthew Bunn, puts it, “A dictator or oligarch bent on maintaining power is highly unlikely to take the immense risk of transferring such a devastating capability to terrorists they cannot control, given the ever-present possibility that the material would be traced back to its origin.” Important in this last consideration are deterrent safeguards afforded by “nuclear forensics,” which is the rapidly developing science (and art) of connecting nuclear materials to their sources even after a bomb has been exploded.35Moreover, there is a very considerable danger to the donor that the bomb (and its source) would be discovered before delivery or that it would be exploded in a manner and on a target the donor would not approve of—including on the donor itself. Another concern would be that the terrorist group might be infiltrated by foreign intelligence.36In addition, almost no one would trust al Qaeda. As one observer has pointed out, the terrorist group’s explicit enemies list includes not only Christians and Jews but also all Middle Eastern regimes; Muslims who don’t share its views; most Western countries; the governments of Afghanistan, India, Pakistan, and Russia; most news organizations; the United Nations; and international nongovernmental organizations.37 Most of the time, it didn’t get along all that well even with its host in Afghanistan, the Taliban government.38

A2: Turns Econ

Terrorism wouldn’t have a big effect on the economyMcCaslin ‘7 John, staff writer. “Inside the Beltway.” The Washington Times. Lexis.

Bottom line: Terrorists are drawn from well-educated, high-income families and are more likely to be engineers and doctors, as opposed to those from uneducated and poor backgrounds. But more importantly, Mr. Krueger says Americans must correctly identify the root causes of terrorism, because "an accurate understanding of terrorists' motives can help us put terrorists' acts behind us, demystify terrorism, and enable society to move on and put the risks of future attacks into perspective." The economist reminds readers in spite of widespread fear that foreign terrorists will attack the United States, 88 percent of terrorist attacks "occur in the perpetrator's country of origin." Finally, don't assume long-term economic effects of terrorism are huge and crippling. The global loss of about $6.4 billion per year owing to terrorism is a comparatively small share of the gross domestic product.

Terrorism won’t derail the economy- very small impactShapiro ‘3 Robert Shapiro, Al-Qaida and the GDP, Feb. 28, 2003, http://www.slate.com/id/2079298/

The immediate costs of terrorism are rarely very high for an economy. For small operations—a political murder or bombing that kills a few people (think Colombian narco-terrorists, IRA operatives, or Palestinian suicide

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bombers)—the direct economic impact is negligible. Even a huge terror strike is a blip in a vast economy like the United States'. The World Trade Center attack did not move the U.S. economy, as consumer spending and GDP accelerated strongly in the quarter immediately following the attack. Modern economies regularly absorb greater losses from bad weather and natural disasters—for example, the 1988 heat wave that took the lives of more than 5,000 Americans or the 1999 earthquake in Izmit, Turkey, that killed 17,000—without derailing. But terrorism is not a simple assault: It is violence intended to create expectations of more violence to come. Fear of violence dampens investment by raising the "risk premium": Investors demand a higher return to offset a marginal increase in the odds that violence will sink their investment, so overall investment slows as projects that can't meet the higher return fall by the wayside. In addition, fear of violence often induces firms to spend more on security—guards, fire walls, record storage, insurance—leaving less for other, more productive investments. These effects are greatest on small countries beset by protracted terrorist campaigns, in which no place seems safe from attack, and on small economies that depend on foreign capital. In Colombia, beset by narco-terrorism for 20 years, foreign capital fled long ago, and per-capita income is now 45 percent below the average for Latin America. Similarly, when religious violence raged through Belfast in the '80s and early '90s, Northern Ireland became the U.K.'s poorest region as industry and people migrated to the southern republic. But the economic damage is not necessarily permanent: As the violence abated in the mid-1990s, Northern Ireland began to recover. Israel is the other major example of a country where terrorists have significantly damaged a relatively small economy. The current intifada has created a wartime political and economic climate. The Bank of Israel estimates that intifada terrorism has cost Israel 4 percent of its GDP, as foreign investment and tourism have fallen sharply and security costs and budget deficits have soared. The economic effects of terrorist acts tend to be localized, which becomes apparent in economies larger than Israel or Colombia. Political violence has plagued the Basque region of Spain since the early '70s. A recent econometric simulation by Spanish economists found that per-capita GDP has grown 10 percent more slowly there than in a hypothetical control region. Moreover, the economic

disparity widened whenever the violence intensified. But the terrorist activity remained confined to the Basque area, and over this period Spain has grown to become the world's 10th largest economy. The evidence suggests that in large, successful economies such as ours, terrorism scares investment away from industries and localities thought to be particularly vulnerable to new attacks and toward safer sectors and places. The World Trade Center attacks dealt a blow to the economy of Manhattan, but not to Boston or Chicago. Even in Manhattan, the economic impact is concentrated in the downtown area, where the terrorists destroyed nearly 30 percent of Class A real estate. Sept. 11 also set back a handful of industries, principally airlines, hotels, and insurance. But as the economy's overall performance at the time indicated, investment and demand shifted to other industries—especially as the Federal Reserve has eased credit to calm post-Sept. 11 markets. Similarly, when Red Brigade attacks spiked in Germany and Italy in the late '70s and early '80s, tourism suffered but not those countries' overall economies. Large economies can roll with occasional acts of destructive terror because their modern markets quickly relocate capital and jobs to wherever they can be used relatively productively. Size matters, too. Even the largest conventional terrorist strike wouldn't capsize our $10 trillion economy. Scenarios for a terrorist attack on a nuclear power plant speculate that as many as 50,000 people could die and property losses could reach $350 billion. Even such horrifying losses would equal just 3 percent of the GDP and be limited to one region. What disrupts an economy like ours are not local shocks like a terrorist act but shocks that hit all our markets, as when OPEC tripled the price of energy. Only a truly gigantic terrorist attack could derail the American economy. A nuclear device set off in a major U.S. city could inflict such huge losses—in the trillions of dollars—and sufficiently undermine people's expectations, to change our economic course. Short of such catastrophic terrorism, nothing that al-Qaida could do would have nearly the broad economic impact of, say, the recent plunge in consumer confidence or President Bush's tax cuts.

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