Terrorism

Non unique Current counter-terrorism fails lack of human intelligence outweighs

Eddington 15. Patrick G. Eggerton [a military imagery analyst at the CIA; policy analyst in
homeland security and civil liberties at Cato Institute] US wants to hack your phone because it
doesnt have real spies it needs Reuters, 2015.
The best way to disrupt any organized criminal element is to get inside of it physically. But the U.S.
governments counterterrorism policies have made that next to impossible.
The FBI, for example, targets the very Arab-American and Muslim-American communities it needs
to work with if it hopes to find and neutralize home-grown violent extremists , including promulgating

new rules on profiling that allow for the potential mapping of Arab- or Muslim-American
communities. The Justice Departments refusal to investigate the New York Police Departments
mass surveillance and questionable informant-recruitment tactics among immigrants in the Araband Muslim-American communities has only made matters worse.
Overseas, the Cold War style of spying relying on U.S. embassies as bases from which CIA
and other U.S. government intelligence personnel operate is increasingly difficult in the areas
of the Middle East and southwest Asia undergoing often violent political change.
Steinbach testified about this before the House Homeland Security Committee earlier this month.
The concern is in Syria, he explained, the lack of our footprint on the ground in Syria that
the databases wont have the information we need.
Notice his reference to technology databases rather than the importance of the human element.
The U.S. intelligence communitys emphasis should be on the spy on the ground who actually gathers
critical information and makes any penetration of a terrorist organization possible.

This problem is true for Yemen as well, as a recent Washington Post story highlighted:
The spy agency has pulled dozens of operatives, analysts and other staffers from Yemen as part
of a broader extraction of roughly 200 Americans who had been based at the embassy in Sana,
officials said. Among those removed were senior officers who worked closely with Yemens
intelligence and security services to target al-Qaeda operatives and disrupt terrorism plots often
aimed at the United States.
The CIAs failure to field agents under nonofficial cover, or to recruit enough reliable local informant s on
the ground who could communicate securely with CIA handlers outside Yemen, is symptomatic of
the agencys failure to break with its reliance on embassy-based operations throughout that part of the
world. Compromising encryption technology will do nothing to solve the intelligence communitys
human-intelligence deficit. This is a problem the agency must address if it is ever going to be
successful in finding and neutralizing terrorist cells overseas.
It boils down to the fact that the FBI and the U.S. intelligence community have failed to adapt their
intelligence-collection practices and operations to meet the challenges of the new world disorder
in which we live. As former CIA officer Philip Giraldi has noted:
[I]ntelligence agencies that were created to oppose and penetrate other nation-state adversaries
are not necessarily well equipped to go after terrorists, particularly when those groups are
ethnically cohesive or recruited through family and tribal vetting, and able to operate in a lowtech fashion to negate the advantages that advanced technologies provide.
The CIA has repeatedly attempted occasionally at high cost to penetrate militant
organizations like al Qaeda and Islamic State. Nonetheless, Washingtons overall counterterrorism
bias in funding and manpower has been toward using the most sophisticated technology available as the
key means of battling a relatively low-tech enemy.

The FBIs new anti-encryption campaign is just the latest phase in the governments attempt to
deny Islamic State and related groups the ability to shield their communications. If these militant
groups were traditional nation-states with their own dedicated communications channels, wed
all be cheering on the FBIs efforts. But the Internet has become the primary means for global,
real-time communications for individuals, nonprofits, businesses and governments. So it should
not be treated as just another intelligence target, which is certainly the FBIs and Natural Security
Agencys current mindset.
Using the legislative process to force companies to make defective electronic devices with
exploitable communications channels in the hope that they will catch a tiny number of potential
or actual terrorists is a self-defeating strategy. If implemented, the FBIs proposal would only make
all Americans more vulnerable to malicious actors online and do nothing to stop the next terrorist attack.

NSA ineffective info-overload, turns disad

Puiu 15. Tibi Puiu [ZME Science] The NSA is gathering so much data, its
become swamped and ironically ineffective at preventing terrorism
http://www.zmescience.com/research/technology/nsa-overwhelmed-data-53354/

of the most famous NSA whistleblowers (or the original NSA whistleblower), William
Binney, said the agency is collecting stupendous amounts of data so much that its actually hampering
intelligence operations. Binney worked for three decades for the intelligence agency, but left
shortly after the 9/11 attacks. A program he had developed was scrapped and replaced with a system
he said was more expensive and more intrusive, which made him feel he worked for an incompetent
employer. Plans to enact the now controversial Patriot Act was the last straw, so he quit. Since
then, Binney has frequently criticized the agency and revealed some of its operations hazards and
weaknesses. Among these, he alleges: The NSA buried key intelligence that could have prevented
One

9/11; The agencys bulk data collection from internet and telephone communications is unconstitutional
and illegal in the US; Electronic intelligence gathering is being used for covert law enforcement, political
control and industrial espionage, both in and beyond the US; Edward Snowdens leaks could have

been prevented. Ironically, Snowden cites Binney as an inspiration. His greatest insights however
is that the NSA is ineffective at preventing terrorism because analysts are too swamped with information
under its bulk collection programme. Considering Binneys impeccable track record he was co-founder
and director of the World Geopolitical & Military Analysis at the Signals Intelligence Automation
Research Center (SARC), a branch with 6,000 employees I can only presume he knows what hes
talking about. The Patriot Act is a U.S. law passed in the wake of the September 11, 2001 terrorist

attacks. Its goals are to strengthen domestic security and broaden the powers of law-enforcement
agencies with regards to identifying and stopping terrorists. In effect, the law laxes the restrictions
authorities have to search telephone, e-mail communications, medical, financial, and other records.
Because a lot of people use web services whose servers are located in the US, this means that the records
of people not located or doing business in the US are also spied upon by the NSA. All this information,
however, comes at a price: overload. According to the Guardian, the NSA buffers a whooping 21
petabytes a day! In this flood of information, an NSA analyst will quickly find himself overwhelmed .

Queering keywords like bomb or drugs might prove a nightmare for the analyst in question.
Its impossible not to, considering four billion people around two-thirds of the worlds
population are under the NSA and partner agencies watchful eyes, according to Binney.
Thats why they couldnt stop the Boston bombing, or the Paris shootings, because the data was
all there, said Binney for ZDnet.

Popularity Disad
In response to unpopular Zero impact to cred
Daryl G. Press, Associate Professor in the Government Department at Dartmouth College and Coordinator of War and Peace Studies at
Dartmouths John Sloan Dickey Center for International Understanding, and Jennifer Lind, Associate Professor in the Government Department

13, Red Lines and Red Herrings http://walt.foreignpolicy.com/posts/2013/05/06/red_lines_and_red_herrings

at Dartmouth College, 5-6-20

The problem is that there's little evidence that supports the view that countries' record for
keeping commitments determines their credibility. Jonathan Mercer, in his book Reputation and
International Politics, examined a series of crises leading up to World War I and found that backing
down did not cause one's adversaries to discount one's credibility. In another book, Daryl Press
examined a series of Cold War crises between NATO and the Warsaw Pact. From 1958 to 1961, Nikita
Khrushchev repeatedly threatened to cut off NATO's access to West Berlin. Each time, the
deadlines passed and Khrushchev failed to carry out his threats. If backing down damages
credibility, Khrushchev's credibility should have been plummeting, but the deliberations of
American and British leaders show that his credibility steadily grew throughout this period. And
a year after the 1961 Berlin confrontation, when the same American decision-makers confronted
Khrushchev during the Cuban Missile Crisis, they took his threats very seriously. Senior U.S. leaders
were convinced that Khrushchev would respond to any forceful U.S. act against Cuba with an
immediate Soviet attack against Berlin. Four years of backing down had not damaged Soviet
credibility in the least. Documents from American and British archives reveal that when NATO
leaders tried to assess the credibility of Soviet threats, they didn't focus on the past. Instead, they
looked at Khrushchev's current threat and the current circumstances and asked themselves two simple
questions. Can he do it? And would it serve his interests? In the eyes of the Macmillan,
Eisenhower, and Kennedy governments, Soviet credibility was growing -- despite Khrushchev's
bluster -- simply because Soviet power was expanding. Power and interests in the here-and-now
determine credibility, not what one did in different circumstances in the past. Even the canonical case for
reputational arguments -- Hitler's dismissal of French and British threats in 1939 -- shows that credibility stems from
power and interests. When Hitler told his generals why the British and French would not oppose him
when he invaded Poland, he listed seven reasons, every one of which was about the balance of power .
The "worms" quote was a throwaway line after a detailed analysis of the balance of military
power and Poland's indefensibility.

Circumvention/case
We get permanent fiat any other interpretation turns debate from a should
question to a will question. Neg would always win and wed also learn a lot less.
Reform will snowball
Patel 6/25/2015 (Faiza [co-director of the Brennan Centers Liberty and National Security
Program]; When will surveillance reform stop being just 'cool'?;
www.brennancenter.org/blog/when-will-surveillance-reform-stop-being-just-cool; kdf)
Last week, former National Security Agency Director Michael Hayden

declared that he was cool with the recently

enacted USA Freedom Act, which reined in government bulk collection of Americans phone records. His characterization of
that program as little is no doubt accurate. Information from the archive of documents released by NSA whistleblower Edward
Snowden has revealed many other programs that pose equal or greater risks to Americans privacy. But Hayden is too quick to assume that the
phone records program will be the only reform. The passage of the USA Freedom Act is the first curtailment of

intelligence authorities since the 9/11 attacks and should mark the beginning not the end
of reform. Its no surprise that Congress chose to tackle the phone record program first. It is relatively
straightforward for people to understand, and its goal of amassing a vast database of information about Americans is patently difficult to square
with our constitutional values. Two review boards found it to be of minimal counterterrorism value, and a federal appeals court declared it illegal.
Even the intelligence community and the president were amenable to reform. But Congress is well aware

that this reform is insufficient. Many of the votes against the act in the House and Senate came from
lawmakers who believe it didnt go far enough.

Government surveillance is unique and invites tyranny

Robertson 2015 (James [served on the FISC from 2002 to 2005, resigning the day after
warrantless wiretaps were exposed]; Forward of What went wrong with the FISA court;
https://www.brennancenter.org/sites/default/files/analysis/What_Went_
%20Wrong_With_The_FISA_Court.pdf; kdf)
Many people are surprised to learn that there is no right to privacy in the Constitution . Privacy is more
of a cultural construct than a legal one in this country, and we are aiding and abetting its steady erosion
with our dependence on the Internet, our credit cards and smartphones, our flirtation with social media, and our
capitulation to commercial exploitation of Big Data. In a sense, we are all under surveillance,
all the time our whereabouts, activities, and transactions reduced to metadata and available to anyone who can break the code
and we have brought it upon ourselves. Surveillance by the government, however, is another matter. Distrust or at least
wariness of a government that collects data about us lies deep in the amygdala of our civic consciousness.
This administration may be operating lawfully and with full regard to our rights and privileges, but what about that one? Have we been reading
too many novels, or is there a real threat of tyranny? Here, of course, is where the Constitution comes in, with the Fourth

Amendments guarantee of [t]he right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and
effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures. I have no criticism of the FISA Court. I know and deeply respect every
one of its presiding judges for the last 30 years, and I am well acquainted with many of the other FISA judges who have served. They are, every
one of them, careful and scrupulous custodians of the extraordinary and sensitive power entrusted to them. The staff that supports the FISA Court,
the Justice Department lawyers who appear before the FISA Court, and the FBI, CIA and NSA personnel who present applications to the FISA
Court are superb, dedicated professionals. What I do criticize is the mission creep of the statute all of those people are

implementing.

Circumvention wont happen if surveillance is prohibited

Ackerman, 15 --- American national security reporter and blogger, national
security editor for the Guardian (6/1/2015, Spencer, The Guardian, Fears
NSA will seek to undermine surveillance reform; Privacy advocates are
wary of covert legal acrobatics from the NSA similar to those deployed post9/11 to circumvent congressional authority, Lexis, JMP)
Despite that recent history, veteran intelligence attorneys reacted with

scorn to the idea that NSA lawyers will undermine surveillance

reform. Robert Litt, the senior lawyer for director of national intelligence,
James Clapper, said during a public appearance last month that creating a
banned bulk surveillance program was " not going to happen ".
"The whole notion that NSA is just evilly determined to read the law in a
fashion contrary to its intent is bullshit, of the sort that the Guardian and
the left - but I repeat myself - have fallen in love with. The interpretation of
215 that supported the bulk collection program was creative but not beyond
reason, and it was upheld by many judges," said the former NSA general
counsel Stewart Baker, referring to Section 215 of the Patriot Act.
This is the section that permits US law enforcement and surveillance
agencies to collect business records and expired at midnight, almost two
years after the whistleblower Edward Snowden revealed to the Guardian
that the Patriot Act was secretly being used to justify the collection of phone
records from millions of Americans.
With one exception, the judges that upheld the interpretation sat on the
non-adversarial Fisa court, a body that approves nearly all government
surveillance requests and modifies about a quarter of them substantially.
The exception was reversed by the second circuit court of appeals.
Baker, speaking before the Senate voted, predicted: "I don't think
anyone at NSA is going to invest in looking for ways to defy
congressional intent if USA Freedom is adopted."
And our legislation is uniquely difficult to circumvent. Circumvention is not an open
defiance of law, it must be founded in the wording of legislation. Entailing the requirement
of loopholes or unclear wording, but our legislation is a clear ban on an entire surveillance
technology.