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Intro
Starts time, (small pause)
You look suspicious I am going to take your phone records, internet
history, and bank statements because you are a threat to national
security. Now I am sure you didnt like that false accusation against you
judge and you are not alone. However, the difference between you and the
hundreds of thousands of innocent citizens who fundamental rights are
violated yearly is that you were told before your information was taken.
Through a highly abusive subpoena called National Security Letters, the
FBI is able to pull private information without any justification and service
providers are subject to a gag order that prevents them from telling
average citizens just like you that their rights have been violated.

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Define NSL
Now you may be thinking what are National Security Letters?

(If your confused about anything about our AFF just look at this card)!Timm defines National security letters in 2015 by stating
Trevor Timm; co-founder and the executive director of the Freedom of the Press Foundation; journalist,
activist, and lawyer who writes a twice weekly column for The Guardian on privacy, free speech, and
national security; contributed to The Atlantic, Al Jazeera, Foreign Policy, Harvard Law and Policy
Review, PBS MediaShift, and Politico; formerly worked as an activist at the Electronic Frontier
Foundation; helped the longtime General Counsel of The New York Times, James Goodale, write a book
on the Pentagon Papers and the First Amendment; received his J.D. from New York Law School; 2013
recipient of the Hugh Hefner First Amendment Award for journalism; We just sued the Justice
Department over the FBIs secret rules for using National Security Letters on journalists; Freedom of
the Press Foundations; 30 July 2015; https://freedom.press/blog/2015/07/we-just-sued-justicedepartment-over-fbis-secret-rules-using-national-security-letters

National Security Letters are subpoena-like legal orders that the FBI
can unilaterally issue to service providers without any court sign off at all. Worse,
they almost always come with a gag order, preventing service providers from ever
disclosing that they received one. (In 2013, a federal court ruled NSLs were an
unconstitutional violation of the First Amendment , but the decision is on appeal. They are still
in use).
For those unfamiliar,

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Plan
The United States Federal Government should substantially curtail its use
of National Security Letters by eliminate the use of gag orders, all nonrelevant information gathered, and establish oversight of National
Security Letters usage.

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Inherency
Congress and Court mandated rules alone dont solve-Timm16
Trevor Timm; co-founder and the executive director of the Freedom of the Press Foundation; journalist,
activist, and lawyer who writes a twice weekly column for The Guardian on privacy, free speech, and
national security; contributed to The Atlantic, Al Jazeera, Foreign Policy, Harvard Law and Policy
Review, PBS MediaShift, and Politico; formerly worked as an activist at the Electronic Frontier
Foundation; helped the longtime General Counsel of The New York Times, James Goodale, write a book
on the Pentagon Papers and the First Amendment; received his J.D. from New York Law School; 2013
recipient of the Hugh Hefner First Amendment Award for journalism; We just sued the Justice
Department over the FBIs secret rules for using National Security Letters on journalists; Columbia
Journalism Review; When can the FBI use National Security Letters to spy on journalists? Thats
classified.; 11 January 2016; http://www.cjr.org/criticism/national_security_letters.php
Remember one year ago when then-Attorney General Eric Holder supposedly tightened restrictions on the Justice
Department so it could not easily conduct surveillance on journalists emails and phone calls? Well it turns out the

a large loophole in its internal rules that allows the FBI to

completely circumvent those restrictions and spy on journalists in secrecyand with
absolutely no court oversightusing National Security Letters. And what , exactly, are
the Justice Departments rules for when they can target a journalist with a National Security
Letter (NSL)? Well, according the government, thats classified . For those unfamiliar with NSLs,
they are a particularly pernicious and controversial surveillance order that the FBI can
serve on internet and communications providers to demand all sorts of digital
information without any oversight from judges or courts. Worse, NSLs almost always
have a gag order attached to them, preventing the phone or email companies not
only from telling the target of the NSL that he or she is under surveillance but from
publicly acknowledging they received an NSL at all. Various aspects of NSLs have
been ruled unconstitutional in the past (including in a case still ongoing), but because of
slight changes by Congress and the courts, they still persist.
Justice Department inserted

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Sig/harms
The Gag order associated with National Security Letters violate
the first amendment and the Courts agree- Currier 2014
Cora Currier; The Intercept; journalist with a focus on national security, foreign affairs, and human
rights; reported for PorPublica, Stars and Stripes, The Nation, Columbia Journalism Review, Al Jazeera
America, and many other outlets; former editorial staff of The New Yorker and a lead researcher on
several books of history and politics; COURT SPOTLIGHTS THE FBI'S SUPER-SECRET NATIONAL
SECURITY LETTERS; 9 October 2014; https://firstlook.org/theintercept/2014/10/09/court-spotlightsuper-secret-national-security-letters/

a judge found that the gag order that comes with

NSLs violated the First Amendment. The nondisclosure rule significantly infringe[s]
on speech regarding controversial government powers, U.S. District Judge Susan
Illston, of Northern California, wrote in March 2013. She also ordered that the FBI stop sending out
Last year, in a sharp rebuke to the government,

NSLs entirely, but put the order on hold to give the government a chance to appeal.

Lack of judicial oversite is the cause of the abuse of power that

comes with National Security Letters- Zetter 2013
Kim Zetter; Wired; Federal Judge Finds National Security Letters Unconstitutional, Bans Them; awardwinning, senior staff reporter at Wired covering cybercrime, privacy, and security; currently writing a
book about Stuxnet, a digital weapon that was designed to sabotage Iran's nuclear program;
3/15/2013; http://www.wired.com/2013/03/nsl-found-unconstitutional/

The lack of court oversight raises the possibility for extensive abuse of NSLs under
the cover of secrecy, which the gag order only exacerbates . In 2007 a Justice
Department Inspector General audit found that the FBI had indeed abused its
authority and misused NSLs on many occasions . After 9/11, for example, the FBI paid multimilliondollar contracts to AT&T and Verizon requiring the companies to station employees inside the FBI and to give these
employees access to the telecom databases so they could immediately service FBI requests for telephone records.

The I[nspector] G[eneral] found that the employees let FBI agents illegally look at
customer records without paperwork and even wrote NSLs for the FBI.

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McCarthyism Adv
First to define what McCarthyism is. Essentially, McCarthyism is the act of
false accusations toward citizens without sufficient evidence thus

By Congress ignoring the abuse from National Security Letters

they have destroyed individual rights for the sake of
security- Bendix and Quirk 2013
William Bendix and Paul J. Quirk; (Bendix) assistant professor of political science at Keene State
College, research focuses on Congress, legislative deliberation, and homeland security and civil
liberties policies; (Quirk) Phil Lind Chair in U.S. Politics and Representation at the University of British
Columbia and a former research associate at the Brookings Institution, focuses on debate and
deliberation in Congress and the mass public; Government Studies at Brookings Institution; July 2013;
http://www.brookings.edu/~/media/research/files/papers/2013/07/29-surveillance-policymaking-patriotact-bendix-quirk/bendix-quirk_patriot-act_v14.pdf

despite the extensive proceedings, congressional debates and decisions have often
been superficial and uninformedresulting in policies that unnecessarily
weakened investigations, compromised privacy rights, or both. Members of Congress,
But

unfortunately, have few incentives to conduct thoughtful formulation of surveillance policy. They face little political
risk from bolstering security at the expense of privacy, because the loss of privacy directly and immediately affects
a relatively small number of peoplethose under investigation. In terms of electoral rewards, oversight of the
executive does not compete well with legislating, let alone fundraising or speechmaking.7 And all too often,

Congress have greater interest in scoring partisan points or

defending their partys president than in conducting careful performance
evaluations. In addition to the deficient incentives, Congress has structural
weaknesses that have undermined the ability to strike an intelligent,
democratically sanctioned balance between security and individual rights.
members of

From a legislative perspective our government has failed at protecting

individual right to privacy and the freedom of speech. Congress and the
Executive branch fails to pass a law restricting the use of National
Security Letters which only leaves the Judicial Branch outlining the flaws
in our past policy making process. Thus this leaves a Federal Bureau of
Investigation that has too much power which is used for unjustified
investigations that play no part in aiding in national security.

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The FBI continually abuses their power to use National

Security Letters-Zetter 2013
Kim Zetter; Wired; Federal Judge Finds National Security Letters Unconstitutional, Bans Them; awardwinning, senior staff reporter at Wired covering cybercrime, privacy, and security; currently writing a
book about Stuxnet, a digital weapon that was designed to sabotage Iran's nuclear program;
3/15/2013; http://www.wired.com/2013/03/nsl-found-unconstitutional/

under a federal law that governs NSLs, a power greatly

expanded under the Patriot Act that allows the government to get detailed
information on Americans finances and communications without oversight from a
judge. The FBI has issued hundreds of thousands of NSLs over the years and has
been reprimanded for abusing them though almost none of the requests have been challenged by
Both challenges are allowed

the recipients.

Domestic Surveillance such as National Security Letters have

effectively moved the US toward a Police State-Bendix and
Quirk 2013
William Bendix and Paul J. Quirk; (Bendix) assistant professor of political science at Keene State
College, research focuses on Congress, legislative deliberation, and homeland security and civil
liberties policies; (Quirk) Phil Lind Chair in U.S. Politics and Representation at the University of British
Columbia and a former research associate at the Brookings Institution, focuses on debate and
deliberation in Congress and the mass public; Government Studies at Brookings Institution; July 2013;
http://www.brookings.edu/~/media/research/files/papers/2013/07/29-surveillance-policymaking-patriotact-bendix-quirk/bendix-quirk_patriot-act_v14.pdf

Snowden have
revealed vast new eavesdropping by American authorities, at home and abroad. The leaks
revealed blanket collection of domestic phone records , warrantless capture of emails from
U.S internet companies, and wiretaps on offices of friendly foreign governments and the European Union,
Dramatic intelligence leaks by National Security Agency (NSA) whistle blower Edward

among other things. The revelations have triggered widespread fears of an Orwellian Big-Brother security

Bush and Barack Obama have

constructed a brave new world of pervasive surveillance.1 The Washington Times asserted that
the Fourth Amendment has been effectively stripped out of the Constitution by
the executive.2 And a Bloomberg editorial questioned whether Americans are now living in a
police state.3
establishment. The Los Angeles Times declared that Presidents George W.

The US is leading to a police state from all the unwarranted

surveillance on citizens- Olson 2015
Roger E. Olson; (Ph.D., Rice University) is professor of theology at George W. Truett Theological
Seminary of Baylor University in Waco, Texas; Why Are We (in the U.S.A.) Headed toward a Police
State?; 21 March 2015; http://www.patheos.com/blogs/rogereolson/2015/03/why-are-we-in-the-u-s-aheaded-toward-a-police-state/

the U.S., a society that promotes itself as the land of

the free, is headed gradually but discernably toward becoming a police state. All
one has to do to discern the validity of this concern is pay attention to the news. Some police,
prosecutors and judges, to say nothing of federal agencies, seem able to act
outside the spirit of the law, if not the letter of the law, with impunity. This lawlessness appears in the
justice system, here and there, all the way from the top down and the bottom up. From federal torture of
suspected terrorists down to police confiscation of property on suspicion,
Some time ago here I suggested that

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from prosecutors hiding exonerating evidence to federal surveillance of
citizens without warrantsAmerica is in danger of losing its precious freedoms.

US Surveillance is overstepping so far even the average citizen

can see the formation of a police state. Next we will go on to a
brief narrative by Mr. Lindorffs firsthand experience with the
United States, the Police State, in 2015 he states
Dave Lindorff; founding member of ThisCantBeHappening!, an online newspaper collective, and is a
contributor to Hopeless: Barack Obama and the Politics of Illusion (AK Press); Counter Punch;
Returning Home to the US is to Enter a Police State; 23 June 2015;
http://www.counterpunch.org/2015/06/23/returning-home-to-the-us-is-to-enter-a-police-state/
A few weeks ago,

I got a vivid comparative look at how far this country has

moved towards becoming a police state. The occasion was a brief visit to
Montreal, where my wife was to give a harpsichord recital at an early keyboard music conference. At the
Canadian border crossing, just above Lake Champlain, the Canadian official politely asked us our purpose in
coming to Canada. Informed it was to perform harpsichord music at a music conference , he
actually asked my wife what composers she was playing! (It was Gaspard le Roux) I tried to imagining even being
asked such a question by an American border official and simply couldnt. The Canadian officer also
asked us if were bringing anything in with us. Told that we had a keyboard, he asked if we planned to sell it a

waved us
through with a smile. On our way back into the US, we found ourselves
being questioned by a grim-faced, beefy, cop-like guy, complete with
sidearm, about where wed been and what wed done in Canada. Now this is getting draconian.
We are both US citizens traveling back from home from a visit to a country
that is about as close an ally to the US as a country can be. There is no
reason why an immigration official, having looked at our passports, should
be asking us about our activities while in Canada. Hell, I could have said I was
attending a conference on promoting world socialist revolution, or a global
meeting of some white supremacist organization. It wouldnt matter. Hed
still have to grant us entry. I have every right to attend such political meetings in the US with
impunity if I want to, and I have the same right as a US citizen to attend them abroad
too. The stupid thing, of course, about such questions, is that if I actually
were doing something illegal say passing stolen state secrets to a spy
connection in Canada, or meeting with some terrorist organization to plot a
bombing in the US I certainly wouldnt offer that information to a border
patrol officer. So why would we be asked by a border patrol official to report what we had been doing in
Canada? The only reason I can come up with is intimidation. We were being
shown that our behavior as US citizens is being monitored, and that if we do
things that the government finds bothersome, we will be questioned and
monitored further. It wouldnt surprise me that if I had actually attended a conference on promoting
fair question for a customs official. Then, assured wed be bringing it back home with us, he

world revolution during my trip and had lied about it by saying all Id done was attend a music conference with my
wife, I could be accused of committing the felony of lying to a federal border official. It is, after all, a felony to lie
to an FBI agent something that itself is incredibly draconian when you stop and think about it. There were other
differences too, of course (besides the much better roads up north, and the government-funded health care),
between Canada and the US. Central Montreal is undergoing a lot of renovation at the moment, and given that it
has a grid of one-way streets, with many of them temporarily closed at various points it can be difficult to
maneuver ones vehicle to a destination, or in our case, to find our way out of town to the highway back to the US

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trying to locate a Montreal cop we could ask for directions was a
challenge. While driving around for half an hour looking in vain for the way
out of town, I didnt see a police patrol car once. And no cops were to be seen patrolling
on foot either. Compare that to any US city. On my latest trip to New York, which has 50,000 cops
border. But

for a city of 8 million people, I saw cops everywhere I looked (often in pairs!): in Penn Station and the Port

you can see the next cop from whatever cop youre standing
nearest to, and often armed National Guard troops too. Up on the street, police cars
and cops on foot are ubiquitous. So are video cameras. The same is true here in Philadelphia, where
Authority Bus Terminal

there are so many police driving around its hard to drive five blocks without seeing one. Philadelphia, a city
with a population of 1.5 million, employs over 6600 police officers. Montreal, a city of 1.8 million, in
contrast, has only 4000 cops, and thats counting senior officers. To match Philly in cop density, Montreal would
have to hire 3920 more cops, about doubling the size of its department. New York has 8 million people and 50,000
cops. To match its cop/resident ratio of 1/160, Montreal would need to almost triple the size of its
police force. America is awash in police. Even in my neighborhood, a suburb of Philadelphia called
Upper Dublin a peaceful place with very little crime and almost no violent crime, with a population of 26,000
there are over 40 police officers. Thats one officer for every 650 people! These cops spend most of their time
sitting around near intersections nabbing people for rolling stops and minor speeding violations, or dealing with
accidents. Theres also been a police hiring frenzy going on. Its not just more police getting hired, but more to
serve the same population. For example, in 1992, there were 332 cops per 100,000 residents. By 2008, that had
risen to be 373 cops per 100,000 a total of 772,000 full-time, sworn uniformed cops with a license to kill and an
increase police density relative to population of over 12%. Increased police hiring has continued apace (as has
funding for prisons) even as the nations cities and states struggle with tight budgets and cut funding for schools,
libraries and other needed services. Friends in Canada tell me their own country is becoming more draconian of
late under the conservative government of Stephen Harper. We certainly saw that on display in Toronto in 2010 as
militarized city and national police brutally confronted protesters at the G-20 economic summit event held there.

But theres no question that things are much more advanced towards a police
state here in the US. Certainly if you have to tell a border agent what you were doing abroad
before you can be waved back through into your own home country, things are going in a very bad
way here.

*These are the warrants in italics

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Solvency
To improve legislation evaluations and oversite of National
Security Letters Congress needs to create a sub-committeeBendix and Quirk 2013
William Bendix and Paul J. Quirk; (Bendix) assistant professor of political science at Keene State
College, research focuses on Congress, legislative deliberation, and homeland security and civil
liberties policies; (Quirk) Phil Lind Chair in U.S. Politics and Representation at the University of British
Columbia and a former research associate at the Brookings Institution, focuses on debate and
deliberation in Congress and the mass public; Government Studies at Brookings Institution; July 2013;
http://www.brookings.edu/~/media/research/files/papers/2013/07/29-surveillance-policymaking-patriotact-bendix-quirk/bendix-quirk_patriot-act_v14.pdf

To improve congressional deliberations on surveillance policy, we suggest that Congress constitute a

new, expanded, and strengthened select committee to receive briefings on domestic
surveillance policy. It should consist of selected members from several committees,
including the Judiciary committees, and not just the Intelligence panels. Without
including multiple committees and at least a dozen or so members from each House,
Congress cannot marshal sufficient expertise or generate sufficient consensus or
authority to control the executive on critical security matters. To minimize the risk of leaks,
the participating legislators could undergo the same security clearances and exposure to investigation and potential

The select committee should be empowered

to deliberate in secret and make legislative recommendations to the president or
the full Congress.
sanctions as top executive-branch security officials.40

Eliminating the gag order and non-relevant information of

National Security Letters is key to protect innocent Americans
and maintains productivity of investigations- Bendix and Quirk
2013
William Bendix and Paul J. Quirk; (Bendix) assistant professor of political science at Keene State
College, research focuses on Congress, legislative deliberation, and homeland security and civil
liberties policies; (Quirk) Phil Lind Chair in U.S. Politics and Representation at the University of British
Columbia and a former research associate at the Brookings Institution, focuses on debate and
deliberation in Congress and the mass public; Government Studies at Brookings Institution; July 2013;
http://www.brookings.edu/~/media/research/files/papers/2013/07/29-surveillance-policymaking-patriotact-bendix-quirk/bendix-quirk_patriot-act_v14.pdf

The most obvious and immediate need is to place permanent restrictions on

national security letters. Congress should pass legislation mandating that
authorities discard all non-relevant information captured with administrative
subpoenas. The Obama administration has already implemented this policy through a Justice Department
directive. But until it becomes a statutory requirement, either the current or a succeeding administration could
easily cancel this safeguard and allow agents, as they did in the Bush administration, to stockpile personal

a permanent
safeguard would protect privacy without creating new investigative obstacles.
information of innocent Americans. Since this reform merely codifies current practice,