Drones Aff University of

Michigan 2015
This file has two versions of the 1AC one with a beefed up privacy advantage and
one with a shorter privacy advantage & a drone warfare advantage. If you want to
make arguments about probability, the first 1AC is for you; if you want to race to big
impacts, the latter is for you.
The starter set is designed to provide equitable ground to both sides, as camp goes
on you may be wise to rewrite the plan to make the McNeal CP not competitive.

1AC Privacy

Contention 1 Privacy
The federal government is ramping up its use of drones for
domestic surveillance, this harms the 4th amendment in
unprecedented ways
Gilens 2013 (Naomi [ACLU Speech, Privacy and Technology Project]; New
Documents Reveal U.S. Marshals Drones Experiment, Underscoring Need for
Government Transparency; https://www.aclu.org/blog/new-documents-reveal-usmarshals-drones-experiment-underscoring-need-government-transparency; kdf)
The use of surveillance drones is growing rapidly in the United States , but we know
little about how the federal government employs this new technology. Now, new
information obtained by the ACLU shows for the first time that the U.S. Marshals Service has
experimented with using drones for domestic surveillance. We learned this through
documents we released today, received in response to a Freedom of Information Act request. The documents are
available here. (We also released a short log of drone accidents from the Federal Aviation Administration as well as
accident reports and other documents from the U.S. Air Force.) This revelation comes a week after a bipartisan bill
to protect Americans privacy from domestic drones was introduced in the House. Although the Marshals Service
told us it found 30 pages about its drones program in response to our FOIA request, it turned over only two of those
pagesand even they were heavily redacted. Heres what we know from the two short paragraphs of text we were
able to see. Under a header entitled Unmanned Aerial Vehicle, Man-Portable (UAV) Program, an agency document
overview begins: USMS Technical Operations Group's UAV Program provides a highly portable, rapidly deployable
overhead collection device that will provide a multi-role surveillance platform to assist in [redacted] detection of
targets. Another document reads: This developmental program is designed to provide [redacted] in support of TOG
[presumably the agencys Technical Operations Group] investigations and operations. This surveillance solution can
be deployed during [multiple redactions] to support ongoing tactical operations. These heavily redacted documents
reveal almost no information about the nature of the Marshals drone program. However, the Marshals Service
explained to the Los Angeles Times that they tested two small drones in 2004 and 2005. The experimental program
ended after both drones crashed. It is surprising that what seems like a small-scale experiment remained hidden
from the public until our FOIA unearthed it. Even more surprising is that seven years after the program was

As drone use becomes

more and more common, it is crucial that the governments use of these spying
machines be transparent and accountable to the American people . All too often, though, it
is unclear which law enforcement agencies are using these tools, and how they are doing
so. We should not have to guess whether our government is using these eyes in the
sky to spy on us. As my colleague ACLU staff attorney Catherine Crump told me, Americans have the
right to know if and how the government is using drones to spy on them . Drones are
too invasive a tool for it to be unclear when the public will be subjected to them. The
government needs to respect Americans privacy while using this invasive
technology, and the laws on the books need to be brought up to date to ensure that
America does not turn into a drone surveillance state. All over the U.S., states and localities are
discontinued, the Marshals still refuse to disclose almost any records about it.

trying to figure out through the democratic political process exactly what kind of protections we should put in place
in light of the growing use of what Time Magazine called the most powerful surveillance tool ever devised, on- or

this
production from the Marshals Service underscores the need for a federal law to
ensure that the governments use of drones remains open and transparent. A
number of federal lawmakers are already pushing to bring the law up to date.
Representatives Ted Poe (R-Texas) and Zoe Lofgren (D-Calif.) recently introduced the first
bipartisan legislation to regulate the governments use of drones . The proposed legislation,
which is supported by the ACLU, would enact judicial and Congressional oversight
mechanisms, require government agencies to register all drones and get a warrant
offline. These debates are essential to a healthy democracy, and are heartening to see. However,

when using them for surveillance (except in emergency situations), and prohibit the domestic
use of armed drones. We believe this billand hopefully a future companion bill in the Senatewill provide
a strong foundation for future legislation protecting our privacy rights in the face of proliferating drone surveillance
and government secrecy.

The current legal framework is inadequate at confronting the

privacy concerns posed by drones
Rothfuss 2014 (Ian F [George Mason School of Law]; Student Comment: An
Economic Perspective on the Privacy Implications of Domestic Drone Surveillance;
10 J.L. Econ. & Pol'y 441; kdf)
Introduction A sixteen-hour standoff with police began after a suspect took control of six cows that wandered on to
his farm and "chased police off his land with high powered rifles." n1 Without the suspect's knowledge, police used
a Predator drone to locate and apprehend him on his 3,000-acre farm. n2 In addition to law enforcement, anyone
may buy a handheld drone. The Parrot AR.Drone 2.0, for example, costs less than three hundred dollars and can fly
up to 165 feet from its controller while recording and transmitting live high-definition video from the sky. n3

Unmanned aerial vehicles (drones) have become essential to government surveillance overseas and are
now being deployed domestically for law enforcement and other purposes . The
ability of drones to conduct widespread domestic surveillance has raised serious
privacy concerns. Both government and private actors may use drones. Given the proliferation of this new
technology, Congress has recently directed the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) to expedite the licensing
process and open the domestic airspace to drones. n4 Situations like the one described above will likely become
more common in the near future. n5 Domestic drones [*442] have the potential to allow the government to
effectively and efficiently monitor the activities of people across the nation. Part I of this Comment examines the
capabilities of drones, discusses currently planned drone deployments, and examines recent developments that
have brought the topic of domestic drone surveillance to the forefront of national security law discussions. This

current law does not adequately protect privacy interests from

the widespread surveillance that could result from the unrestricted domestic use of
drones. Part II discusses the sources of the right to privacy and examines the current state of the law. Part III
comment concludes that

applies an economic perspective to determine the optimal level of domestic drone surveillance that the law should
allow. This analysis is based upon a general economic model of surveillance developed by Andrew Song following
the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks. n6 Economic analysis shows that the uncontrolled domestic deployment
of drones would lead to an inefficient and unproductive loss of social utility. Prompt legislative action is therefore
necessary to address the fundamental privacy challenges presented by the use of drones. Part IV concludes by
proposing a legal framework to balance security and other interests while safeguarding the privacy rights of U.S.
citizens. As discussed in this comment, such legislation should allow constructive use of the technology within a
framework that protects individual privacy rights. I. Background: Domestic Deployment of Drones Recent
congressional legislation has directed the FAA to expedite its current licensing process and allow the private and
commercial use of drones in U.S. airspace by October 2015. n7 The FAA has streamlined the authorization process
to "less than 60 days" for nonemergency drone operations. n8 Among other requirements, the recent legislation
directs the FAA to allow government agencies to operate small drones weighing less than 4.4 pounds. n9 The use of
drones can be expected to increase dramatically in the coming years. [*443] The FAA has already authorized many
police departments and other agencies to use drones. n10 As of November 2012, the FAA oversaw 345 active
Certificates of Waiver or Authorization that allow public entities to operate drones in civil airspace. n11 Customs and
Border Protection uses Predator drones along the nation's borders "to search for illegal immigrants and smugglers"
n12 and "the FBI and Drug Enforcement Administration have used Predators for other domestic investigations." n13
Predators owned by Customs and Border Protection and based at U.S. Air Force bases have been deployed on
numerous occasions to assist local law enforcement. n14 One law enforcement agency has even deployed a drone
capable of being armed with lethal and non-lethal weapons. n15 Drones also have applications beyond government
law enforcement. Drones may be used to provide live video coverage of events without the need to use piloted
helicopters and by paparazzi chasing after pictures of celebrities and other public figures. n16 Individuals may use
drones to spy on their neighbors, to keep an eye on their children, or to keep tabs on a potentially unfaithful spouse.
n17 The possibilities for corporate espionage and the theft of trade secrets are also endless. Drones range in size
from handheld units to units the size of large aircraft and have a wide variety of capabilities. n18 Nearly fifty
companies are reported to be developing an estimated 150 varieties of drone systems. n19 Users of drones may
include the military, federal and local law enforcement agencies, business entities, and private individuals. Drones
have many diverse domestic uses including surveillance of dangerous disaster sites, patrolling borders, helping law

enforcement locate suspects, monitoring traffic, crop dusting, aerial mapping, media coverage, and many others.

Drones represent an unprecedented convergence of surveillance

technologies that could lead to increased security but could also jeopardize the
privacy of U.S. citizens. Drones may be equipped with a variety of technologies including high-resolution
n20 [*444]

cameras, n21 face-recognition technology, n22 video-recording capability, n23 heat sensors, n24 radar systems,
n25 night vision, n26 infrared sensors, n27 thermal-imaging cameras, n28 Wi-Fi and communications interception

Drones
will soon be able to recognize faces and track the movement of subjects with only
minimal visual-image data [*445] obtained from aerial surveillance. n32 Drones have the ability
to break into wireless networks, monitor cell-phone calls, and monitor entire towns
while flying at high altitude. n33 These rapid technological advancements present
privacy challenges that were not contemplated when our existing laws were
developed.
devices, n29 GPS, n30 license-plate scanners, n31 and other systems designed to aid in surveillance.

Drones will be used to perpetuate racism

Cyril 2015 (Malkia Amala [under and executive director of the Center for Media
Justice (CMJ) and co-founder of the Media Action Grassroots Network]; Black
America's State of Surveillance; Mar 30;
www.progressive.org/news/2015/03/188074/black-americas-state-surveillance; kdf)
media reporting on government surveillance is laser-focused on the revelations
by Edward Snowden that millions of Americans were being spied on by the NSA. Yet my mothers visit from the
Today,

FBI reminds me that, from the slave pass system to laws that deputized white civilians as enforcers of Jim Crow,

black people and other people of color have lived for centuries with surveillance
practices aimed at maintaining a racial hierarchy. Its time for journalists to tell a new story that
does not start the clock when privileged classes learn they are targets of surveillance. We need to understand that
data has historically been overused to repress dissidence, monitor perceived criminality, and perpetually maintain
an impoverished underclass. In an era of big data, the Internet has increased the speed and secrecy of data
collection. Thanks to new surveillance technologies, law enforcement agencies are now able to collect massive
amounts of indiscriminate data. Yet legal protections and policies have not caught up to this technological advance.
Concerned advocates see mass surveillance as the problem and protecting privacy as the goal. Targeted
surveillance is an obvious answerit may be discriminatory, but it helps protect the privacy perceived as an earned
privilege of the inherently innocent. The trouble is,

targeted surveillance frequently includes the

indiscriminate collection of the private data of people targeted by race but not
involved in any crime. For targeted communities, there is little to no expectation of
privacy from government or corporate surveillance. Instead, we are watched, either as
criminals or as consumers. We do not expect policies to protect us. Instead, weve birthed a complex and
coded culturefrom jazz to spoken dialectsin order to navigate a world in which spying, from AT&T and Walmart
to public benefits programs and beat cops on the block, is as much a part of our built environment as the streets
covered in our blood. In a recent address, New York City Police Commissioner Bill Bratton made it clear: 2015 will
be one of the most significant years in the history of this organization. It will be the year of technology, in which we
literally will give to every member of this department technology that wouldve been unheard of even a few years
ago. Predictive policing, also known as Total Information Awareness, is described as using advanced
technological tools and data analysis to preempt crime. It utilizes trends, patterns, sequences, and affinities found
in data to make determinations about when and where crimes will occur. This model is deceptive, however, because
it presumes data inputs to be neutral. They arent. In a racially discriminatory criminal justice system, surveillance
technologies reproduce injustice. Instead of reducing discrimination, predictive policing is a face of what author
Michelle Alexander calls the New Jim Crowa de facto system of separate and unequal application of laws, police
practices, conviction rates, sentencing terms, and conditions of confinement that operate more as a system of
social control by racial hierarchy than as crime prevention or punishment. In New York City, the predictive policing
approach in use is Broken Windows. This approach to policing places an undue focus on quality of life crimeslike
selling loose cigarettes, the kind of offense for which Eric Garner was choked to death. Without oversight,
accountability, transparency, or rights, predictive policing is just high-tech racial profilingindiscriminate data
collection that drives discriminatory policing practices. As local law enforcement agencies increasingly adopt
surveillance technologies, they use them in three primary ways: to listen in on specific conversations on and offline;

to observe daily movements of individuals and groups; and to observe data trends. Police departments like
Brattons aim to use sophisticated technologies to do all three. They will use technologies like license plate readers,
which the Electronic Frontier Foundation found to be disproportionately used in communities of color and
communities in the process of being gentrified. They will use facial recognition, biometric scanning software, which
the FBI has now rolled out as a national system, to be adopted by local police departments for any criminal justice
purpose. They intend to use body and dashboard cameras, which have been touted as an effective step toward
accountability based on the results of one study, yet storage and archiving procedures, among many other issues,
remain unclear. They will use Stingray cellphone interceptors. According to the ACLU, Stingray technology is an
invasive cellphone surveillance device that mimics cellphone towers and sends out signals to trick cellphones in the
area into transmitting their locations and identifying information. When used to track a suspects cellphone, they
also gather information about the phones of countless bystanders who happen to be nearby. The same is true of

domestic drones, which are in increasing use by U.S. law enforcement to conduct
routine aerial surveillance. While drones are currently unarmed, drone manufacturers
are considering arming these remote-controlled aircraft with weapons like rubber
bullets, tasers, and tear gas. They will use fusion centers. Originally designed to increase interagency
collaboration for the purposes of counterterrorism, these have instead become the local arm of the intelligence
community. According to Electronic Frontier Foundation, there are currently seventy-eight on record. They are the
clearinghouse for increasingly used suspicious activity reportsdescribed as official documentation of observed
behavior reasonably indicative of pre-operational planning related to terrorism or other criminal activity. These
reports and other collected data are often stored in massive databases like e-Verify and Prism. As anybody whos
ever dealt with gang databases knows, its almost impossible to get off a federal or state database, even when the

Predictive policing doesnt just lead to racial and

religious profilingit relies on it. Just as stop and frisk legitimized an initial, unwarranted contact
between police and people of color, almost 90 percent of whom turn out to be innocent of any crime, suspicious
activities reporting and the dragnet approach of fusion centers target communities
of color. One review of such reports collected in Los Angeles shows approximately 75 percent were of people of
data collected is incorrect or no longer true.

color. This is the future of policing in America, and it should terrify you as much as it terrifies me. Unfortunately, it
probably doesnt, because my life is at far greater risk than the lives of white Americans ,
especially those reporting on the issue in the media or advocating in the halls of power. One of the most terrifying

The NSA and FBI

have engaged local law enforcement agencies and electronic surveillance
technologies to spy on Muslims living in the United States. According to FBI training materials
aspects of high-tech surveillance is the invisibility of those it disproportionately impacts.

uncovered by Wired in 2011, the bureau taught agents to treat mainstream Muslims as supporters of terrorism, to
view charitable donations by Muslims as a funding mechanism for combat, and to view Islam itself as a Death
Star that must be destroyed if terrorism is to be contained. From New York City to Chicago and beyond, local law
enforcement agencies have expanded unlawful and covert racial and religious profiling against Muslims not
suspected of any crime. There is no national security reason to profile all Muslims. At the same time, almost
450,000 migrants are in detention facilities throughout the United States, including survivors of torture, asylum
seekers, families with small children, and the elderly. Undocumented migrant communities enjoy few legal
protections, and are therefore subject to brutal policing practices, including illegal surveillance practices. According
to the Sentencing Project, of the more than 2 million people incarcerated in the United States, more than 60 percent
are racial and ethnic minorities. But by far, the widest net is cast over black communities. Black people alone
represent 40 percent of those incarcerated. More black men are incarcerated than were held in slavery in 1850, on
the eve of the Civil War. Lest some misinterpret that statistic as evidence of greater criminality, a 2012 study
confirms that black defendants are at least 30 percent more likely to be imprisoned than whites for the same crime.
This is not a broken system, it is a system working perfectly as intended, to the detriment of all.
The NSA could not have spied on millions of cellphones if it were not already spying on black people, Muslims, and
migrants. As surveillance technologies are increasingly adopted and integrated by law enforcement agencies today,

racial disparities are being made invisible by a media environment that has failed to
tell the story of surveillance in the context of structural racism.

Only regulation of domestic drones can prevent warfare on

citizens and bolster the industry
Ahsanuddin et al 2014 (Sadia - principal investigator for the report and MPAC
research fellow; Domestic Drones: Implications for Privacy and Due Process in the
United States; Sep 8; www.mpac.org/publications/policy-papers/domesticdrones.php; kdf)
Drones also impact due process rights. Drones

are perhaps best known for the role they play in

conducting signature strikes against suspected militants abroad. Will civilians on American soil ever be
subjected to drone attacks? Should civilians fear the weaponization of drones or their use in
delivering lethal payloads? Although the Fifth and Fourteenth Amendments assure individuals
of the right to due process before the deprivation of life, liberty, or property, these rig hts have already
begun to erode due to the global war on terror and the use of drones to conduct
signature strikes by virtue of executive decisions that are devoid of judicial review.
With the mass introduction of domestic drones, there remains a threat and
real fear that drones may be used to deprive individuals of life, liberty, or property
with no opportunity to dispute the charges brought against them. Americans of all
ethnicities and creeds are likely to be affected by the domestic deployment of drones. American Muslims have a

Having been subjected to special law

enforcement attention and scrutiny, American Muslims find themselves particularly
susceptible to infractions of civil liberties . As representatives of the American Muslim population and
special contribution to make to this discussion.

with the expertise to ground our analysis, the Muslim Public Affairs Council (MPAC) proposes the following guidelines
to address the issues of law enforcement use of drones, data collection, weaponization of drones, due process,
oversight, and transparency: Law enforcement use of drones should be restricted. Data collection should be
strictly monitored. The FAA should require, not merely recommend, that test sites incorporate the Fair Information
Principles into their privacy policies. The weaponization of drones should be prohibited. The right to due process
should be preserved. States and individuals should have the ability to bring a cause of action against an entity
that, in operating a drone, violates their rights. Drone deployment by federal agents must be subjected to
Congressional oversight and local public drone use should be subjected to local city council oversight. The general
public should be engaged in the development of policy guidelines by a public body intending to operate drones. In
keeping with the principle of transparency, the FAA should make available to the public the names of drone
applicants, the holders of Certificates of Authorization, other licensees, and privacy policies of drone-operating

Adequate protection of privacy is necessary to allow the public to take

advantage of drone technology without becoming a society in which every
movement is monitored by the authorities. Simultaneously, drone developers need
regulations so that they can conduct research and development unimpeded by
protests and news reports. Additionally, the weaponization of drones on domestic soil poses a threat to
agencies.

due process rights and public safety. This was acknowledged by Sen. Dianne Feinstein, who called for a total
prohibition on the weaponization of domestic drones.13 Indeed, politicians and policymakers representing a broad
spectrum of political views advocate regulations for domestic drones.

Domestic drones will become weaponized posing unique risks

to civil liberties
Greenwald 2013 (Glenn [former columnist on civil liberties and US national
security issues for the Guardian. An ex-constitutional lawyer]; The US Needs To
Wake Up To Threat Of Domestic Drones; Mar 30;
http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2013/mar/29/domestic-drones-uniquedangers; kdf)
The use of drones by domestic US law enforcement agencies is growing rapidly , both
in terms of numbers and types of usage. As a result, civil liberties and privacy groups led by the

ACLU - while accepting that domestic drones are inevitable - have been devoting increasing efforts to publicizing

These efforts are being impeded by those

who mock the idea that domestic drones pose unique dangers (often the same people who
mock concern over their usage on foreign soil). This dismissive posture is grounded not only in
soft authoritarianism (a religious-type faith in the Goodness of US political leaders and state power
generally) but also ignorance over current drone capabilities, the ways drones are now
being developed and marketed for domestic use, and the activities of the
increasingly powerful domestic drone lobby. So it's quite worthwhile to lay out the key undertheir unique dangers and agitating for statutory limits.

discussed facts shaping this issue. I'm going to focus here most on domestic surveillance drones, but I want to say a

The belief that weaponized drones won't be used on US

soil is patently irrational. Of course they will be. It's not just likely but inevitable. Police
departments are already speaking openly about how their drones "could be equipped to
carry nonlethal weapons such as Tasers or a bean-bag gun." The drone industry has already
developed and is now aggressively marketing precisely such weaponized drones for
domestic law enforcement use. It likely won't be in the form that has received the most media
attention: the type of large Predator or Reaper drones that shoot Hellfire missiles which destroy homes
few words about weaponized drones.

and cars in Pakistan, Yemen, Somalia, Afghanistan and multiple other countries aimed at Muslims (although US law
enforcement agencies already possess Predator drones and have used them over US soil for surveillance). Instead,
as I detailed in a 2012 examination of the drone industry's own promotional materials and reports to their

domestic weaponized drones will be much smaller and cheaper , as well as

more agile - but just as lethal. The nation's leading manufacturer of small "unmanned aircraft systems"
shareholders,

(UAS), used both for surveillance and attack purposes, is AeroVironment, Inc. (AV). Its 2011 Annual Report filed with
the SEC repeatedly emphasizes that its business strategy depends upon expanding its market from foreign wars to
domestic usage including law enforcement: AV's annual report added: "Initial likely non-military users of small UAS

." These domestic marketing

efforts are intensifying with the perception that US spending on foreign wars will
decrease. As a February, 2013 CBS News report noted, focusing on AV's surveillance drones: "Now, drones are
include public safety organizations such as law enforcement agencies. . .

headed off the battlefield. They're already coming your way. "AeroVironment, the California company that sells the
military something like 85 percent of its fleet, is marketing them now to public safety agencies." Like many drone
manufacturers, AV is now focused on drone products - such as the "Qube" - that are so small that they can be
"transported in the trunk of a police vehicle or carried in a backpack" and assembled and deployed within a matter
of minutes. One news report AV touts is headlined "Drone technology could be coming to a Police Department near
you", which focuses on the Qube. But another article prominently touted on AV's website describes the tiny UAS
product dubbed the "Switchblade", which, says the article, is "the leading edge of what is likely to be the broader,
even wholesale, weaponization of unmanned systems." The article creepily hails the Switchblade drone as "the
ultimate assassin bug". That's because, as I wrote back in 2011, "it is controlled by the operator at the scene, and it
worms its way around buildings and into small areas, sending its surveillance imagery to an i-Pad held by the
operator, who can then direct the Switchblade to lunge toward and kill the target (hence the name) by exploding in
his face." AV's website right now proudly touts a February, 2013 Defense News article describing how much the US
Army loves the "Switchblade" and how it is preparing to purchase more. Time Magazine heralded this tiny drone
weapon as "one of the best inventions of 2012", gushing: "the Switchblade drone can be carried into battle in a
backpack. It's a kamikaze: the person controlling it uses a real-time video feed from the drone to crash it into a
precise target - say, a sniper. Its tiny warhead detonates on impact." What possible reason could someone identify
as to why these small, portable weaponized UAS products will not imminently be used by federal, state and local
law enforcement agencies in the US? They're designed to protect their users in dangerous situations and to enable

Police agencies and the increasingly powerful drone industry

will tout their utility in capturing and killing dangerous criminals and their ability to
keep officers safe, and media reports will do the same . The handful of genuinely positive uses
from drones will be endlessly touted to distract attention away from the dangers they pose. One has to be
incredibly nave to think that these "assassin bugs" and other lethal drone products
will not be widely used on US soil by an already para-militarized domestic police
force. As Radley Balko's forthcoming book "Rise of the Warrior Cop" details, the primary trend in US law
a target to be more easily killed.

enforcement is what its title describes as "The Militarization of America's Police Forces". The history of domestic law
enforcement particularly after 9/11 has been the importation of military techniques and weapons into domestic

policing. It would be shocking if these weapons were not imminently used by domestic law enforcement agencies.
In contrast to weaponized drones, even the most nave among us do not doubt the imminent proliferation of
domestic surveillance drones. With little debate, they have already arrived. As the ACLU put it in their recent report:
"US

law enforcement is greatly expanding its use of domestic drones for

surveillance." An LA Times article from last month reported that "federal authorities have stepped
up efforts to license surveillance drones for law enforcement and other uses in US
airspace" and that "the Federal Aviation Administration said Friday it had issued 1,428 permits to domestic drone
operators since 2007, far more than were previously known." Moreover, the agency "has estimated 10,000 drones
could be aloft five years later" and "local and state law enforcement agencies are expected to be among the largest

Concerns about the proliferation of domestic surveillance drones are

typically dismissed with the claim that they do nothing more than police helicopters
and satellites already do. Such claims are completely misinformed. As the ACLU's 2011
comprehensive report on domestic drones explained: " Unmanned aircraft carrying cameras raise
the prospect of a significant new avenue for the surveillance of American life."
Multiple attributes of surveillance drones make them uniquely threatening. Because they are so cheap
and getting cheaper, huge numbers of them can be deployed to create ubiquitous
surveillance in a way that helicopters or satellites never could. How this works can already
customers."

been seen in Afghanistan, where the US military has dubbed its drone surveillance system "the Gorgon Stare",

That
drone surveillance system is "able to scan an area the size of a small town" and "the
most sophisticated robotics use artificial intelligence that [can] seek out and record
certain kinds of suspicious activity". Boasted one US General: "Gorgon Stare will be looking at a whole
named after the "mythical Greek creature whose unblinking eyes turned to stone those who beheld them".

city, so there will be no way for the adversary to know what we're looking at, and we can see everything." The NSA
already maintains ubiquitous surveillance of electronic communications, but the Surveillance State faces serious
limits on its ability to replicate that for physical surveillance. Drones easily overcome those barriers. As the ACLU
report put it: I've spoken previously about why a ubiquitous Surveillance State ushers in unique and deeply harmful
effects on human behavior and a nation's political culture and won't repeat that here (here's the video (also
embedded below) and the transcript of one speech where I focus on how that works). Suffice to say, as the ACLU
explains in its domestic drone report: "routine aerial surveillance would profoundly change the character of public
life in America" because only drone technology enables such omnipresent physical surveillance. Beyond that, the
tiny size of surveillance drones enables them to reach places that helicopters obviously cannot, and to do so
without detection. They can remain in the sky, hovering over a single place, for up to 20 hours, a duration that is
always increasing - obviously far more than manned helicopters can achieve. As AV's own report put it (see page
11), their hovering capability also means they can surveil a single spot for much longer than many military
satellites, most of which move with the earth's rotation (the few satellites that remain fixed "operate nearly 25,000
miles from the surface of the earth, therefore limiting the bandwidth they can provide and requiring relatively
larger, higher power ground stations"). In sum, surveillance drones enable a pervasive, stealth and constantly
hovering Surveillance State that is now well beyond the technological and financial abilities of law enforcement
agencies. One significant reason why this proliferation of domestic drones has become so likely is the emergence of
a powerful drone lobby. I detailed some of how that lobby is functioning here, so will simply note this passage from
a recent report from the ACLU of Iowa on its attempts to persuade legislators to enact statutory limits on the use of
domestic drones: "Drones have their own trade group, the Association for Unmanned Aerial Systems International,
which includes some of the nation's leading aerospace companies. And Congress now has 'drone caucuses' in both
the Senate and House." Howie Klein has been one of the few people focusing on the massive amounts of money
from the drone industry now flowing into the coffers of key Congressional members from both parties in this "drone
caucus". Suffice to say, there is an enormous profit to be made from exploiting the domestic drone market, and as
usual, that factor is thus far driving the (basically nonexistent) political response to these threats. What is most
often ignored by drone proponents, or those who scoff at anti-drone activism, are the unique features of drones: the
way they enable more warfare, more aggression, and more surveillance. Drones make war more likely precisely
because they entail so little risk to the war-making country. Similarly, while the propensity of drones to kill innocent
people receives the bulk of media attention, the way in which drones psychologically terrorize the population simply by constantly hovering over them: unseen but heard - is usually ignored, because it's not happening in the
US, so few people care (see this AP report from yesterday on how the increasing use of drone attacks in Afghanistan
is truly terrorizing local villagers). It remains to be seen how Americans will react to drones constantly hovering over
their homes and their childrens' schools, though by that point, their presence will be so institutionalized that it will
be likely be too late to stop. Notably, this may be one area where an actual bipartisan/trans-partisan alliance can
meaningfully emerge, as most advocates working on these issues with whom I've spoken say that libertarianminded GOP state legislators have been as responsive as more left-wing Democratic ones in working to impose

some limits. One bill now pending in Congress would prohibit the use of surveillance drones on US soil in the

Only the most authoritarian among

us will be incapable of understanding the multiple dangers posed by a domestic
drone regime (particularly when their party is in control of the government and they are incapable of
perceiving threats from increased state police power). But the proliferation of domestic drones
affords a real opportunity to forge an enduring coalition in defense of core privacy
and other rights that transcends partisan allegiance , by working toward meaningful limits on
their use. Making people aware of exactly what these unique threats are from a
domestic drone regime is the key first step in constructing that coalition.
absence of a specific search warrant, and has bipartisan support.

Anonymity is a vital component of American democracy which

is undermined by drones, ushering in a totalitarian state
Burow 2013 (Matthew L [Candidate for JD @ New England School of Law]; The
Sentinel Clouds above the Nameless Crowd: Prosecuting Anonymity from Domestic
Drones; 39 New Eng. J. on Crim. & Civ. Confinement 443; kdf)
Walking down the street. Driving a car. Sitting on a park bench. By themselves, these actions do not exhibit an iota
of privacy. The individual has no intention to conceal their movements; no confidentiality in their purpose. The
individual is in the open, enjoying a quiet day or a peaceful Sunday drive. Yet as Chief Justice Rehnquist
commented,

there is uneasiness if an individual suspected that these innocuous and

benign movements were being recorded and scrutinized for future reference. 119 If
the "uneasy" reaction to which the Chief Justice referred is not based on a sense of
privacy invasion, it stems from something very close to it-a sense that one has a
right to public anonymity. 120 Anonymity is the state of being unnamed. 121 The
right to public anonymity is the assurance that, when in public, one is unremarked and
part of the undifferentiated crowd as far as the government is concerned . 122 That right
is usually surrendered only when one does or says something that merits government attention, which most often

But when that attention is gained by surreptitiously operated

UASs that are becoming more affordable for local law enforcement agencies, 124 "it
evades the ordinary checks that constrain abusive law enforcement practices ... :
includes criminal activity. 123

'limited police resources and community hostility."' 12 5 This association of public anonymity and privacy is not new.
126 Privacy expert and Columbia University Law professor Alan F. Westin points out that "anonymity [] occurs when
the individual is in public places or performing public acts but still seeks, and finds, freedom from identification and
surveillance." 127 Westin continued by stating that: [A person] may be riding a subway, attending a ball game, or
walking the streets; he is among people and knows that he is being observed; but unless he is a well-known
celebrity, he does not expect to be personally identified and held to the full rules of behavior and role that would
operate if he were known to those observing him. In this state the individual is able to merge into the "situational
landscape." 128 While most people would share the intuition of Chief Justice Rehnquist and professor Westin that
we expect some degree of anonymity in public, there is no such right to be found in the Constitution. Therefore ,

with a potentially handcuffed judiciary, the protection of anonymity falls to the

legislature. Based on current trends in technology and a keen interest taken by law
enforcement in the advancement of UAS integration into national airspace, it is
clear that drones pose a looming threat to Americans' anonymity . 129 Even when UASs are
authorized for noble uses such as search and rescue missions, fighting wildfires, and assisting in dangerous tactical

UASs are likely to be quickly embraced by law enforcement for more

controversial purposes. 130 What follows are compelling interdisciplinary reasons why the legislature
police operations,

should take up the call to protect the subspecies of privacy that is anonymity. A. Philosophic: The Panopticon Harm
Between 1789 and 1812, the Panopticon prison was the central obsession of the renowned English philosopher
Jeremy Bentham's life. 131 The Panopticon is a circular building with cells occupying the circumference and the
guard tower standing in the center. 132 By using blinds to obscure the guards located in the tower, "the keeper [is]
concealed from the observation of the prisoners ... the sentiment of an invisible omnipresence."'133 The effect of
such architectural brilliance is simple: the lone fact that there might be a guard watching is enough to keep the

prisoners on their best behavior. 134 As the twentieth-century French philosopher Michel Foucault observed, the
major effect of the Panopticon is "to induce in the inmate a state of conscious and permanent visibility that assures
the automatic functioning of power."'135 In Bentham's vision ,

there is no need for prison bars,

chains or heavy locks; the person who is subjected to the field of visibility of the
omnipresent guard plays both roles and he becomes the subject of his own
subjection. 136 For Foucault, this "panopticism" was not necessarily bad when compared to other methods of
exercising control as this sort of "subtle coercion" could lead people to be more productive and efficient members of

an omnipresent UAS circling above a city may be

similar to a Panopticon guard tower and an effective way of keeping the peace . The
mere thought of detection may keep streets safer and potential criminals at bay.
However, the impact on cherished democratic ideals may be too severe. For
society. 137 Following Foucault's reasoning,

example, in a case regarding the constitutionally vague city ordinance that prohibited "nightwalking," Justice
Douglas commented on the importance of public vitality and locomotion in America: The difficulty is that [walking
and strolling] are historically part of the amenities of life as we have known them. They are not mentioned in the
Constitution or in the Bill of Rights. These unwritten amenities have been in part responsible for giving our people
the feeling of independence and self-confidence, the feeling of creativity. These amenities have dignified the right of
dissent and have honored the right to be nonconformists and the right to defy submissiveness. They have
encouraged lives of high spirits rather than hushed, suffocating silence. 138 As Justice Douglas understood,

government surveillance stifles the cherished ideal of an American society that

thrives on free-spiritedness in public. 39 Without the right to walk the streets in
public, free from the fear of high surveillance, our American values would
dissipate into that resembling a totalitarian state that attacks the idea of
privacy as immoral, antisocial and part of the dissident cult of individualism. 140

This dehumanization justifies the worst atrocities

Burow 2013 (Matthew L [Candidate for JD @ New England School of Law]; The
Sentinel Clouds above the Nameless Crowd: Prosecuting Anonymity from Domestic
Drones; 39 New Eng. J. on Crim. & Civ. Confinement 443; kdf)
29 A
mere suspicion of a UAS flying high in sky can have a chilling effect on democracy
that most Americans would consider intolerable . 230 But what about the psychological changes UASs will
This Note has explored the philosophical and psychological effects of panoptic surveillance and the need for protection.2

bring about in law enforcement? The following is an excerpt from a news report on the mindset of UAS pilots who operate military

Bugsplat is the official term used by US authorities when

humans are killed by drone missiles .... [I]t is deliberately employed as a psychological
tactic to dehumanise targets so operatives overcome their inhibition to kill .... It was
Hitler who coined this phraseology in Nazi Germany during the Holocaust. In Mein Kampf,
drones in overseas combat missions:

Hitler refers to Jews as vermin (volksungeziefer) or parasites (volksschtidling). In the infamous Nazi film, Der ewige Jude, Jews were
portrayed as harmful pests that deserve to die. Similarly,

in the Rwandan genocide, the Tutsis were

described as "cockroaches." This is not to infer genocidal intent in US drone warfare,
but rather to emphasise the dehumanising effect of this terminology in Nazi
Germany and that the very same terms are used by the US in respect of their Pakistani targets.
231 Will John and Jane Doe-the casual saunterer-become part of the next group of
bugs that must be swatted in the name of effective law enforcement? In answering that
question, we should look to the skies once again and pray to the better angels of our
nature for a worthy answer.

The surveillance state makes the collapse of the US likely

Scheer 2015 (Robert [Prof @ USCs School of journalism and communication];
They Know Everything About You; Nation Books; p. 176; kdf)

WE ARE A NATION THAT HAS LONG CELEBRATED DISSIDENTS throughout the world who
dare, often at great risk, to expose the secret actions and challenge the legitimacy of
repressive governments. In some cases, we even provide legal sanctuary or asylum for such people.
However, when Americans dissent in such radical ways, the opposite is often the case-they are vilified as disloyal
and as a threat to our collective security or stability. The assumption, embraced so widely, must be that our system
never requires such a fundamental challenge to its authority, as represented by the actions of a Daniel Ellsberg,

We know, however, from so many historical examplesthe Roman Empire, Nazi Germany, the Soviet Union-that unchallenged authority not
only will violate human rights but also will ultimately sow the seeds of its own ruin,
increasingly blind to its own limitations and flaws . Despite our historically innovative
constitutional checks on government power, we are nevertheless always flirting with
imperial hubris. We see this clearly in the pattern of lies that defined US foreign policy after 9/11 ; it is
quite apparent that leaving those lies largely unchallenged in the name of
classification seriously weakened the position of the United States in the world.
Thomas Drake, Chelsea Manning, or Edward Snowden.

The plan is the catalyst that makes privacy possible

Ahsanuddin et al 2014 (Sadia - principal investigator for the report and MPAC
research fellow; Domestic Drones: Implications for Privacy and Due Process in the
United States; Sep 8; www.mpac.org/publications/policy-papers/domesticdrones.php; kdf)
Simultaneously, the IHSS survey respondents indicated apprehensiveness over any domestic drone operations: twothirds expressed concern over potential surveillance in homes or public areas; 65 percent were concerned about

The rapid pace at

which drone technology is developing, the lack of clear guidelines protecting privacy
and civil liberties, and public concern over these issues indicate an urgent need for
action in Congress and state legislatures. Privacy experts agree. In an article in the Stanford Law
Review Online, Professor Ryan Calo of the University of Washington School of Law states that drones may
be just the visceral jolt society needs to drag privacy law into the twentyfirst century. American privacy law has developed at a slow and uneven pace,
whereas technology has developed at a rapid speed. In spite of the development of computers,
safety; and 75 percent were concerned about the governments ability to regulate use.82

the Internet, Global-Positioning Systems (GPS), biometrics, gigapixel cameras, face recognition technology, and the
widespread use of e-mail and other forms of electronic communication, there has been no attendant development

Because drones threaten to perfect the art of surveillance, they make

for a good catalyst to update privacy law. The need for legislation is clear. With recent
revelations that the federal government has been conducting surveillance of the
American public on an unprecedented level , the threat that unregulated and
immensely capable technologies pose to civil liberties is profound. The law must
catch up with technology.
in privacy law.

Plan
The United States federal government should require law
enforcement agents to receive a probable cause warrant prior
conducting aerial surveillance.

Contention 2 Solvency
The plan is the only way to balance privacy and security
concerns
Rothfuss 2014 (Ian F [George Mason School of Law]; Student Comment: An
Economic Perspective on the Privacy Implications of Domestic Drone Surveillance;
10 J.L. Econ. & Pol'y 441; kdf)
IV. Legislative and Policy Recommendations This section discusses the current policy and legislative
recommendations regarding drone surveillance and applies economic analysis to recommend an optimal way

Developing new laws and policies to address the privacy threats presented by
domestic drone surveillance will involve the difficult balancing of many special
interests and the individual privacy rights of U.S. citizens . n147 Therefore, in drafting a legal
framework for domestic drone surveillance, Congress should consider economic factors and
establish a framework which allows the use of drones with constraints to protect the
privacy interests of U.S. citizens. As an objective methodology, these economic perspectives
should lead lawmakers and policymakers to enact rules that will efficiently
maximize utility while protecting privacy interests. The new framework should address the
forward.

privacy concerns arising out of the domestic use of drones, while still allowing society to realize the technological

Congress must consider many factors when determining how to best

integrate drones into U.S. airspace . n148 In addition, the proposed policies should be compared with
benefits.

the policies in countries such as the United Kingdom, where general surveillance is more commonplace. n149 In July
2012, the Association for Unmanned Vehicle Systems International (AUVSI) issued a code of conduct that attempted
to address concerns associated with the deployment of drones. n150 Among other elements, the code of conduct
requires industry members to "respect the privacy of individuals" and "comply with all federal, state, and local laws,
ordinances, covenants, and restrictions." n151 The code of conduct has been viewed as insufficient since it only
lists broad topics, does not discuss specific privacy concerns, and does not elaborate on how the provisions will be
enforced. n152 Current recommendations address a number of concerns regarding the widespread deployment of
drones in the United States. Among these are recommendations from the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU)
n153 and legislation currently pending in both houses of Congress. n154 The first group of recommendations to
consider is usage restrictions. It is generally accepted that drones and other means of surveillance may be used
when a warrant has been issued because probable cause exists. Therefore, the focus of [*459] pending legislation
and policy recommendations is on when the use of drones should be allowed without a warrant, if at all. The ACLU
proposes that drone

use should be limited to three purposes: (1) "where there are

specific and articulable grounds to believe that the drone will collect evidence
relating to a specific instance of criminal wrongdoing or, if the drone will intrude upon
reasonable expectations of privacy, where the government has obtained a warrant based on
probable cause;" n155 (2) "where there is a geographically confined, time-limited
emergency situation in which particular individuals' lives are at risk;" n156 or (3) "for reasonable nonlaw enforcement purposes . . . where privacy will not be substantially affected ." n157
Similarly, both the House and Senate versions of the Preserving Freedom from Unwanted Surveillance Act of 2013
provide for three exceptions to the warrant requirement: (1) "patrol of borders"; (2) "exigent circumstances"; and
(3) "high risk" of terrorist attack, as determined by the Secretary of Homeland Security. n158 The definition of
exigent circumstances differs in the two bills. The Senate bill defines exigent circumstances to only include action
necessary to "prevent imminent danger to life," n159 while the House bill uses a broader definition that also
includes "serious damage to property, or to forestall the imminent escape of a suspect, or destruction of evidence."

The broader definition of exigent circumstances in the House of Representatives

version of the bill n161 is appropriate since it will give law enforcement more
latitude to protect the American people in addition to providing for civil liability n162
as a check against improper use of this authority. The next recommendation is to consider
n160

whether there should be an exclusionary rule that would make any evidence gathered without a warrant or other
legal authorization inadmissible in a criminal proceeding. The Senate bill also includes an exclusionary rule that
would prohibit evidence collected in violation of the Act from being used in criminal prosecution. n163 Exclusionary

rules can overdeter criminal investigations. n164 Therefore, unless a compelling case can be made as to why it is
necessary, it would be more efficient not to include an exclusionary rule in the legislation. Another consideration is
whether drones operating in the United States should be allowed to carry weapons like drones operating overseas
which [*460] are used to target enemy combatants. One recommendation is to prohibit law enforcement from
arming drones. n165 Drones have the ability to conduct remote precision strikes on suspects, but due process
concerns and the dangers resulting from armed unmanned aircraft preclude the viability of this option within the

domestic drones should be prohibited from carrying weapons of

any kind. Congress should enact rules to govern domestic drone use . One
United States. Therefore,

recommendation is that Congress should require the Department of Transportation to conduct a Privacy Impact
Assessment of the operation of drones domestically. n166 Pending legislation proposes amending the FAA
Modernization and Reform Act of 2012 to address drone privacy concerns. n167 With the proper focus on privacy
concerns, drones may be deployed domestically while still protecting the privacy of American citizens. In addition,

Congress should require a warrant for "extended surveillance of a particular target."

n168 As discussed earlier, the Fourth Amendment would not necessarily require a warrant in these situations. Even

such a requirement extending warrant protections makes sense and will provide a
valuable check against law enforcement abuse of the new technology . Congress
should require authorization from an independent official for generalized
surveillance that collects personally identifiable information such as facial features
and license plate numbers. n169 This recommendation would apply to situations where a warrant was not
so,

required but personally identifiable information was still being gathered, such as surveillance at a public event. This
recommendation should be enacted as a safeguard of the public's privacy interests. To adequately protect privacy
interests, Congress should direct that the independent official, vested with decision-making power on applications
for general surveillance, be a neutral and detached magistrate who is completely separated from any law
enforcement or intelligence agency. As discussed in the previous section, legislation should be crafted to maximize
the social utility from the domestic use of drones. The legislation should be structured according to the three levels
of scrutiny proposed by Song to ensure that the governmental interest in the surveillance outweighs the disutility or
social cost that will result from the loss of privacy. n170 The neutral and detached magistrate discussed above
could determine when a sufficient government interest exists to warrant allowing generalized drone surveillance.
[*461] Additional policy recommendations include an image retention restriction n171 and a requirement to file a
data collection statement to obtain a FAA license to operate a drone. n172 These recommendations should be
incorporated into the legislation. Congress should require a data collection statement with applications for a FAA
license to operate a drone. A key element of the required data collection statement should address the retention of
images and other data obtained. n173 Such a restriction would mandate that all images and other sensory data
gathered through surveillance be deleted unless the information serves a valid, legal purpose that requires
retention. n174 This restriction is necessary to prevent the government or any other entity from amassing an
essentially limitless database of information on the activities of U.S. citizens without a valid and specified purpose.
Collectively,

enacting these recommendations would prevent widespread, general

drone surveillance while allowing drones to be utilized domestically when
reasonably warranted to maintain security or protect the interests of American
citizens. Therefore, these recommendations would adequately protect the privacy
interests of American citizens while allowing law enforcement and other entities to
utilize drones to protect our country and serve other worthwhile endeavors.

Establishing limits on drones is the only method to revitalize

the fourth amendment
San Pedro 2014 (Victoria [J.D. Candidate, Stetson University College of Law];
STUDENT WORK: DRONE LEGISLATION: KEEPING AN EYE ON LAW ENFORCEMENT'S
LATEST SURVEILLANCE TECHNOLOGY; 43 Stetson L. Rev. 679; kdf)
V. CONCLUSION AND RECOMMENDATIONS With the ubiquity of drone licenses among American law enforcement

While
state statutes and proposed federal legislation attempt to limit law enforcement's
ability to use drones in surveillance efforts, those proposals and statutes do not
agencies, n288 the drag-net surveillance that was once a laughable concept n289 is now a reality. n290

adequately address the duration of the sur-veillance or the sophistication of the

technology used by law enforcement to enhance drone capabilities . Therefore, by requiring a warrant and restricting law enforcement from conducting drone surveillance for a period lasting longer than
twenty-four hours, the proposed legislation will best address the issues left open by Fourth Amendment

including the exigent circumstances language into the

legislation will allow law enforcement agencies to better understand the
circumstances that would permit the use of a drone . Because the courts have addressed exigent
circumstances on numerous occasions, n291 law enforcement agencies may already have
protocols and officer training dealing with exigent cir-cumstances. R ather than drafting
jurisprudence. [*720] Further,

legislation that attempts to describe a circumstance meriting the use of a drone, n292 using the exigent
circumstances language will allow law enforcement agen-cies to comply with Fourth Amendment jurisprudence
already defined by the Court. Similarly,

legislation imposing a time restriction on the dura-tion

of the surveillance will provide law enforcement agencies with a bright-line rule that
facilitates application across the board. Since the current Fourth Amendment jurisprudence provides
that one does not have a reasonable expectation of pri-vacy from all observations of one's property, n293 this
statutory lan-guage will provide a reasonable expectation of privacy from prolonged observations of one's property.

This proposal would comply with current Fourth Amendment jurisprudence

regarding fly-over aerial observations and would also be consistent with the mosaic
theory. n294 Further, this proposal limits law enforcement's ability to use any form of drone technology. Given
that the technological advancements in this field will likely continue to progress at a rapid pace, any proposed
legislation should incorporate an objective standard defining the permissible level of technology or an outright
prohibition on the use of all drone surveillance. In this way, we can align the use of this form of technology with
Fourth Amendment protections. Rather than providing vague standards, such as technology that is not in general

this
proposal would allow law enforcement to be exempt from the warrant requirement
for exigent circumstances, while also allowing them to obtain a warrant from a
neutral and detached magistrate when law enforcement intends to conduct longterm surveillance, thereby ensuring that law enforcement agencies comply with the
warrant requirement of the Fourth Amendment and respect citizens' privacy rights.
public use, the general restriction provides a bright-line rule to law enforcement agencies. [*721] Therefore,

Federal action is uniquely key

Harman 2015 (Jane [Former Rep, D-CA]; The undercooked debate on domestic
drones; may 1; thehill.com/opinion/op-ed/240728-the-undercooked-debate-ondomestic-drones; kdf)
Today, lawmakers worldwide are sleepwalking through a privacy and security crisis. How
many secure sites have to be compromised before we wake up to the full challenges posed by commercial and law

The Federal Aviation Administration

unveiled rules this February that would make it much easier to operate drones in
the United States: for law enforcement agencies conducting surveillance, for
commercial firms, and for private individuals. Make no mistake: eventually, the last two groups
enforcement UAVs or, in common parlance, by drones?

could include bad actors, even terrorists. Its hard to overstate how undercooked the debate on this future is. The
stakes are high; our privacy and our security are at risk. The implications for privacy and surveillance are huge. In
2012, the Supreme Court ruled that tracking a car using an attached GPS beacon, without a warrant, is
unconstitutional. But what if police use a roving drone instead? That debate is raging in Virginia now, which two
years ago imposed a two-year moratorium on warrantless drone surveillance. Thats where most of the regulatory

At the federal
level, we have a leadership vacuum. With a technological revolution on its way,
Washington is AWOL. How do you square this new world with our Constitution? As Brookings Institution
action is happening on this issue: in concerned states and municipalities across the country.

senior fellow John Villasenor said in 2012, The FAA, I would imagine, has more aviation lawyers than Fourth
Amendment constitutional lawyers. Then there are the new security challenges. Authorities have a poor track
record detecting small aircraft that fly where they shouldnt. In 2010, a Mexican government drone went down in an

El Paso backyard; though NORAD later said it had been tracking the plane, local officials seem to have been taken
entirely by surprise. This month, a postal employee flew a (manned) gyrocopter to Capitol Hill through some of the
most restricted airspace in the country. Incidents like these severely undermine confidence in our preparedness.
One day, one of the craft slipping under our radar will do us harm. Iran has poured funds into developing a suicide
drone essentially a cheap, nimble cruise missile. Its not hard to imagine terrorists building do-it-yourself versions
of the same device, a pipe bomb or pressure cooker strapped to a small UAV. This is a concern others have raised
for years, but it took a drone landing feet from the White House for the Secret Service to start trying out jamming
technology an issue they should have been thinking about years ago. Many drone countermeasures are still
primitive; some of the solutions are worse than the problem. Popular Science advised the White House, Simple
netting, used often at drone trade shows to keep small drones confident to their exhibitions, could also work, if the

We need a serious policy response that

engages Congress; federal, state, and local government and the private sector. This issue is too big
for the FAA, too urgent to postpone, and too important to leave off the national
agenda. Lately, Congress has devoted impressive attention to new risks in
cyberspace. It should put at least as much effort into understanding drones. One option
President wanted to live inside a net all the time.

is to encourage commercial firmsthrough either voluntary or mandatory standardsto hardwire restrictions into
the drones they build and sell. Some companies already program their drones to stay out of restricted airspace and
away from sensitive sites.

Those efforts need a push and a signal boost from government.

The justifications for data collection are wrought with faulty

logiconly increasing the amount of info available to public
can keep us safe
Scheer 2015 (Robert [Prof @ USCs School of journalism and communication];
They Know Everything About You; Nation Books; p. 208-212; kdf)
WE MUST CHALLENGE THE ASSUMPTION THAT PROTECTING national security
requires sacrificing the constitutional rights of the individual. As pointed out in this book,
the Fourth Amendment does not contain an absolute ban on searches and seizures but, rather, requires
a court-authorized warrant based on probable cause of a crime before invading an
individual's private space. All Yahoo was asking of the court was that the searches of its company's
customers meet this requirement. Instead, the government responded that the so-called War on Terrorism could not
be won on that basis, and the secret FISA court endorsed the view. As Stewart Baker, the former NSA general
counsel and Homeland Security official in the Bush administration, told the Washington Post after the Yahoo case
documents were released: "I'm always astonished how people are willing to abstract these decisions from the actual
stakes." He went on to say that "[w]e're talking about trying to gather information about people who are trying to
kill us and who will succeed if we don't have robust information about their activities. "26 As demonstrated in

there is simply no serious evidence that the mass surveillance

program initiated under President Bush provided the sort of "robust information" Baker claims
was required to identify the people "trying to kill us." Yet, as this book goes to press, we have
been presented with still another case study in the rise of a terrorist movement -the
Islamic State oflraq and Syria (ISIS), whose members are creating considerable mayhem in Iraq and Syria-for
previous chapters, however,

which the mass surveillance techniques of the NSA left us totally unprepared. They appeared suddenly, startlingly
so, these black-clad men of ISIS, beheading journalists and others27 as they formed their proclaimed Sunni

the
fearsome spectacle of a terrorist enemy drove reason from the stage and the chant
of war was in the air. The New York Times carried the text ofObama's speech to the nation on September 10,
Caliphate over a broad swath of Syria and lraq. 28 Once again, as with the al Qaeda attacks of 9/11,

2014, in which he vowed to "destroy the terrorist group."29 Defense Secretary Chuck Hegel said that ISIS poses an

all the arguments for peace and restraint

were cast aside and the defense of privacy and civil liberty seemed an unaffordable
indulgence in the rush to combat an enemy of such awesome power and mystery .
"imminent threat to every interest we have."30 Suddenly,

Lost in the moment of fear-induced passion was the fact that these men of ISIS who so alarmed us, like their cousins
in al Qaeda, were hardly unknown or mysterious beings, but instead monsters partially of our own creation. Adam
Gopnik reinforced this point in an August 2014 article in the New Yorker. "ISIS is a horrible group doing horrible

things, and there are many factors behind its rise," he wrote. "But they came to be a threat and a power less
because of all we didn't do than because of certain things we did do-foremost among them that massive, forward
intervention, the Iraq War. (The historical question to which ISIS is the answer is: What could possibly be worse than

when the public was so illserved with alarmist information about the extent of the terrorist threat-the
president was presumably in possession of that vast trove of intelligence data
collected by the NSA and analyzed with the brilliant software of the best Silicon
Valley datamining companies such as the media-celebrated Palantir. And yet there is no evidence that
this costly and intrusive effort was the least bit useful in predicting the rise of ISIS. Clearly, there is a
disturbing disconnect between the zeal with which big data is collected and the lack
of scientific precision in utilizing that data to make sound policy decisions and to
inform the public as to the necessity of action . It is also difficult to see just how that data, based as
Saddam Hussein?)"31 Now, once again-and this time as compared to 9 I 11,

it is on the minutiae of the lives of much of the world's population, is useful to an understanding of this threat. This
book explains the continued rise of a military-intelligence complex that, through the assertion of a pressing danger
to national security after 9 I 11, made an unfettered and largely unchallenged claim upon the vast amount of
private data collected in a wired world by government and private enterprises. It is a claim based on the
unquestioned assumption that what passes for military intelligence is sufficiently and uniquely productive of useful
insight to warrant the costs to our democracy as well as our federal budget, and that less invasive means of
research such as scholarship, journalism, and traditional shoe-leather spy and detective work are inherently
inadequate to the task of protecting us in a cyberworld. It is a commonly persuasive argument and difficult to
challenge given that the high-tech surveillance is cloaked in such tight secrecy. In the wake of the Snowden
revelations, when there was a much-heightened public awareness of the threat to privacy and a willingness, even

all it took was the appearance of a

renewed terrorist threat to develop anew a consensus that privacy needed to be
surrendered as an unaffordable risk to the nation's security. Just the opposite is the case.
on the part of Congress, to address the issue more vigorously,

What now passes for military intelligence is a tech -driven oxymoron that denies the place of historical
contemplation, cultural and religious study, political complexity, and ethical restraints in assessing dangers to a
nation.

Never has our nation's foreign policy been so poorly served as in the era of
the Internet, with its enormous potential to enlighten us; but the collusions of warmongering fanatics and profiteers are beyond the comprehension of even the most
powerful machines. They must not be beyond the purview of public awareness, however. A fully
informed public is the best safeguard against the hazardous foreign entanglements
that our founders warned were the main threat to the health of the republic. That is
why they enshrined the constitutional protections against unbridled government power they believed would subvert
the American experiment in representative governance. We must heed the wisdom of the EFF's senior attorney Lee
Tien, who as much as any constitutional lawyer has battled on behalf of those rights. As he summed up in an
interview: "We need to fix the national security classification system that has classified so much information that we
don't know what's going on. It's hard to know what we should do, but we should all agree that knowing what's
happening is the first step. It's dangerous to propose a solution when you don't know what the extent of the
problem is. If you asked me before the Snowden revelations, my answer would be different. There are no personal
solutions to this; there is nothing we can do individually." "This is a systemic problem," he continued. "It's an
institutional problem, it's a political problem. There can only be collective action. That's it. That means we need to

organize.
You can't have a democracy if you don't have sufficient information. We're fighting
for the soul of this democracy."
call on all of them-individuals, Internet companies, politicians, the government-to fix it, and we need to

Transparency in data collection is crucial

Scheer 2015 (Robert [Prof @ USCs School of journalism and communication];
They Know Everything About You; Nation Books; p. 157-8; kdf)
OUR GOVERNMENT, LIKE OTHERS THROUGHOUT history, tells us that repressive, invasive, and
paranoid national security policies are for our own good , especially in terms of our safety. Yet
where do the prerogatives of a surveillance state driven by fear and governed by
secrecy really take us? The reality is that these procedures not only are unconstitutional but

all too often lead to bad government policies, both at home and abroad. One need
only review the invasion of Iraq to see the folly of toppling a regime that was an
implacable enemy of al Qaeda-an invasion driven by a fear of weapons of mass destruction that free
access to the available data would have discounted. The direct result, billions of dollars and
hundreds of thousands of deaths later, is a fractured Iraq that, at the time of this writing a
decade later, seems to be in a constant state of bloody division. Or as veteran correspondent
Patrick Cockburn summarized in the London Review of Books in 2014, after the extremist Islamic State of Iraq and
Syria (ISIS) seized huge swaths of both countries: For America, Britain and the Western powers, the rise of lsis and
the Caliphate is the ultimate disaster. Whatever they intended by their invasion oflraq in 2003 and their efforts to
get rid of Assad in Syria since 2011, it was not to see the creation of a jihadi state spanning northern Iraq and Syria
run by a movement a hundred times bigger and much better organised than the al-Qaida of Osama bin Laden. The
war on terror for which civil liberties have been curtailed and hundreds of billions of dollars spent has failed

The obvious lesson of that debacle, and others like it, is that an informed public
with access to accurate information-even when the facts are embarrassing to the
government- is the best safeguard against such errors. Aren't we better off knowing
when our freedoms are threatened or we are being lied to, even by our own leaders,
so that we can rectify such policies? In other words, didn't Edward Snowden, regardless of
the legality of his actions, actually make us safer?
miserably.1

Excuses for surveillance are unmerited

Weiss 2015 (Leonard [visiting scholar at Stanford Universitys Center for
International Security and Cooperation]; On fear and nuclear terror; Mar 3; Bulletin
of the Atomic Scientists 2015, Vol. 71(2) 7587; kdf)
Lowering the risk of terrorism, particularly the nuclear kind,
is the quintessential reason that the mandarins of the national security state have
given for employing the most invasive national surveillance system in history. Finding
The rise of the national surveillance state.

the needle in the haystack is how some describe the effort to discern terrorist plots from telephone metadata and

the haystack keeps expanding, and large elements of the

American population appear willing to allow significant encroachments on the
constitutional protections provided by the Fourth Amendment . The fear of terrorism
has produced this change in the American psyche even though there is no
evidence that the collection of such data has resulted in the discovery of
terrorist plots beyond those found by traditional police and intelligence
methods. It is doubtful that we shall soon (if ever) see a return to the status quo ante regarding constitutional
protections. This reduction in the freedom of Americans from the prying eyes of the
state is a major consequence of the hyping of terrorism, especially nuclear
terrorism. This is exemplified by the blithe conclusion in the previously referenced paper by Friedman and Lewis
intercepted communications. But

(2014), in which readers are advised to be more proactive in supporting our governments actions to ameliorate
potential risks. The National Security Agency should love this.

And, authors have motives to exaggerate the threat of

terrorism
Weiss 2015 (Leonard [visiting scholar at Stanford Universitys Center for
International Security and Cooperation]; On fear and nuclear terror; Mar 3; Bulletin
of the Atomic Scientists 2015, Vol. 71(2) 7587; kdf)

There is a tendency on the part of security policy advocates to hype security threats
to obtain support for their desired policy outcomes. They are free to do so in a democratic society, and
most come by their advocacy through genuine conviction that a real security threat is receiving insufficient attention. But there
is now enough evidence of how such advocacy has been distorted for the purpose
of overcoming political opposition to policies stemming from ideology that careful
public exposure and examination of data on claimed threats should be part of any
such debate. Until this happens, the most appropriate attitude toward claimed threats of nuclear
terrorism, especially when accompanied by advocacy of policies intruding on individual freedom, should be one of
skepticism. Interestingly, while all this attention to nuclear terrorism goes on, the United States and other nuclear nations
have no problem promoting the use of nuclear power and national nuclear programs (only for friends, of course) that end up
creating more nuclear materials that can be used for weapons. The use of civilian nuclear programs to disguise national weapon
ambitions has been a hallmark of proliferation history ever since the Atoms for Peace program (Sokolski, 2001), suggesting that the
real nuclear threat resides where it always has resided-in national nuclear programs; but placing the threat where it properly
belongs does not carry the public-relations frisson currently attached to the word terrorism.

1AC Big Stick

Contention 1 Privacy
The federal government is ramping up its use of drones for
domestic surveillance, this harms the 4th amendment in
unprecedented ways
Gilens 2013 (Naomi [ACLU Speech, Privacy and Technology Project]; New
Documents Reveal U.S. Marshals Drones Experiment, Underscoring Need for
Government Transparency; https://www.aclu.org/blog/new-documents-reveal-usmarshals-drones-experiment-underscoring-need-government-transparency; kdf)
The use of surveillance drones is growing rapidly in the United States , but we know
little about how the federal government employs this new technology. Now, new
information obtained by the ACLU shows for the first time that the U.S. Marshals Service has
experimented with using drones for domestic surveillance. We learned this through
documents we released today, received in response to a Freedom of Information Act request. The documents are
available here. (We also released a short log of drone accidents from the Federal Aviation Administration as well as
accident reports and other documents from the U.S. Air Force.) This revelation comes a week after a bipartisan bill
to protect Americans privacy from domestic drones was introduced in the House. Although the Marshals Service
told us it found 30 pages about its drones program in response to our FOIA request, it turned over only two of those
pagesand even they were heavily redacted. Heres what we know from the two short paragraphs of text we were
able to see. Under a header entitled Unmanned Aerial Vehicle, Man-Portable (UAV) Program, an agency document
overview begins: USMS Technical Operations Group's UAV Program provides a highly portable, rapidly deployable
overhead collection device that will provide a multi-role surveillance platform to assist in [redacted] detection of
targets. Another document reads: This developmental program is designed to provide [redacted] in support of TOG
[presumably the agencys Technical Operations Group] investigations and operations. This surveillance solution can
be deployed during [multiple redactions] to support ongoing tactical operations. These heavily redacted documents
reveal almost no information about the nature of the Marshals drone program. However, the Marshals Service
explained to the Los Angeles Times that they tested two small drones in 2004 and 2005. The experimental program
ended after both drones crashed. It is surprising that what seems like a small-scale experiment remained hidden
from the public until our FOIA unearthed it. Even more surprising is that seven years after the program was

As drone use becomes

more and more common, it is crucial that the governments use of these spying
machines be transparent and accountable to the American people . All too often, though, it
is unclear which law enforcement agencies are using these tools, and how they are doing
so. We should not have to guess whether our government is using these eyes in the
sky to spy on us. As my colleague ACLU staff attorney Catherine Crump told me, Americans have the
right to know if and how the government is using drones to spy on them . Drones are
too invasive a tool for it to be unclear when the public will be subjected to them. The
government needs to respect Americans privacy while using this invasive
technology, and the laws on the books need to be brought up to date to ensure that
America does not turn into a drone surveillance state. All over the U.S., states and localities are
discontinued, the Marshals still refuse to disclose almost any records about it.

trying to figure out through the democratic political process exactly what kind of protections we should put in place
in light of the growing use of what Time Magazine called the most powerful surveillance tool ever devised, on- or

this
production from the Marshals Service underscores the need for a federal law to
ensure that the governments use of drones remains open and transparent. A
number of federal lawmakers are already pushing to bring the law up to date.
Representatives Ted Poe (R-Texas) and Zoe Lofgren (D-Calif.) recently introduced the first
bipartisan legislation to regulate the governments use of drones . The proposed legislation,
which is supported by the ACLU, would enact judicial and Congressional oversight
mechanisms, require government agencies to register all drones and get a warrant
offline. These debates are essential to a healthy democracy, and are heartening to see. However,

when using them for surveillance (except in emergency situations), and prohibit the domestic
use of armed drones. We believe this billand hopefully a future companion bill in the Senatewill provide
a strong foundation for future legislation protecting our privacy rights in the face of proliferating drone surveillance
and government secrecy.

The current legal framework is inadequate at confronting the

privacy concerns posed by drones
Rothfuss 2014 (Ian F [George Mason School of Law]; Student Comment: An
Economic Perspective on the Privacy Implications of Domestic Drone Surveillance;
10 J.L. Econ. & Pol'y 441; kdf)
Introduction A sixteen-hour standoff with police began after a suspect took control of six cows that wandered on to
his farm and "chased police off his land with high powered rifles." n1 Without the suspect's knowledge, police used
a Predator drone to locate and apprehend him on his 3,000-acre farm. n2 In addition to law enforcement, anyone
may buy a handheld drone. The Parrot AR.Drone 2.0, for example, costs less than three hundred dollars and can fly
up to 165 feet from its controller while recording and transmitting live high-definition video from the sky. n3

Unmanned aerial vehicles (drones) have become essential to government surveillance overseas and are
now being deployed domestically for law enforcement and other purposes . The
ability of drones to conduct widespread domestic surveillance has raised serious
privacy concerns. Both government and private actors may use drones. Given the proliferation of this new
technology, Congress has recently directed the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) to expedite the licensing
process and open the domestic airspace to drones. n4 Situations like the one described above will likely become
more common in the near future. n5 Domestic drones [*442] have the potential to allow the government to
effectively and efficiently monitor the activities of people across the nation. Part I of this Comment examines the
capabilities of drones, discusses currently planned drone deployments, and examines recent developments that
have brought the topic of domestic drone surveillance to the forefront of national security law discussions. This

current law does not adequately protect privacy interests from

the widespread surveillance that could result from the unrestricted domestic use of
drones. Part II discusses the sources of the right to privacy and examines the current state of the law. Part III
comment concludes that

applies an economic perspective to determine the optimal level of domestic drone surveillance that the law should
allow. This analysis is based upon a general economic model of surveillance developed by Andrew Song following
the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks. n6 Economic analysis shows that the uncontrolled domestic deployment
of drones would lead to an inefficient and unproductive loss of social utility. Prompt legislative action is therefore
necessary to address the fundamental privacy challenges presented by the use of drones. Part IV concludes by
proposing a legal framework to balance security and other interests while safeguarding the privacy rights of U.S.
citizens. As discussed in this comment, such legislation should allow constructive use of the technology within a
framework that protects individual privacy rights. I. Background: Domestic Deployment of Drones Recent
congressional legislation has directed the FAA to expedite its current licensing process and allow the private and
commercial use of drones in U.S. airspace by October 2015. n7 The FAA has streamlined the authorization process
to "less than 60 days" for nonemergency drone operations. n8 Among other requirements, the recent legislation
directs the FAA to allow government agencies to operate small drones weighing less than 4.4 pounds. n9 The use of
drones can be expected to increase dramatically in the coming years. [*443] The FAA has already authorized many
police departments and other agencies to use drones. n10 As of November 2012, the FAA oversaw 345 active
Certificates of Waiver or Authorization that allow public entities to operate drones in civil airspace. n11 Customs and
Border Protection uses Predator drones along the nation's borders "to search for illegal immigrants and smugglers"
n12 and "the FBI and Drug Enforcement Administration have used Predators for other domestic investigations." n13
Predators owned by Customs and Border Protection and based at U.S. Air Force bases have been deployed on
numerous occasions to assist local law enforcement. n14 One law enforcement agency has even deployed a drone
capable of being armed with lethal and non-lethal weapons. n15 Drones also have applications beyond government
law enforcement. Drones may be used to provide live video coverage of events without the need to use piloted
helicopters and by paparazzi chasing after pictures of celebrities and other public figures. n16 Individuals may use
drones to spy on their neighbors, to keep an eye on their children, or to keep tabs on a potentially unfaithful spouse.
n17 The possibilities for corporate espionage and the theft of trade secrets are also endless. Drones range in size
from handheld units to units the size of large aircraft and have a wide variety of capabilities. n18 Nearly fifty
companies are reported to be developing an estimated 150 varieties of drone systems. n19 Users of drones may
include the military, federal and local law enforcement agencies, business entities, and private individuals. Drones
have many diverse domestic uses including surveillance of dangerous disaster sites, patrolling borders, helping law

enforcement locate suspects, monitoring traffic, crop dusting, aerial mapping, media coverage, and many others.

Drones represent an unprecedented convergence of surveillance

technologies that could lead to increased security but could also jeopardize the
privacy of U.S. citizens. Drones may be equipped with a variety of technologies including high-resolution
n20 [*444]

cameras, n21 face-recognition technology, n22 video-recording capability, n23 heat sensors, n24 radar systems,
n25 night vision, n26 infrared sensors, n27 thermal-imaging cameras, n28 Wi-Fi and communications interception

Drones
will soon be able to recognize faces and track the movement of subjects with only
minimal visual-image data [*445] obtained from aerial surveillance. n32 Drones have the ability
to break into wireless networks, monitor cell-phone calls, and monitor entire towns
while flying at high altitude. n33 These rapid technological advancements present
privacy challenges that were not contemplated when our existing laws were
developed.
devices, n29 GPS, n30 license-plate scanners, n31 and other systems designed to aid in surveillance.

Anonymity is a vital component of American democracy which

is undermined by drones, ushering in a totalitarian state
Burow 2013 (Matthew L [Candidate for JD @ New England School of Law]; The
Sentinel Clouds above the Nameless Crowd: Prosecuting Anonymity from Domestic
Drones; 39 New Eng. J. on Crim. & Civ. Confinement 443; kdf)
Walking down the street. Driving a car. Sitting on a park bench. By themselves, these actions do not exhibit an iota
of privacy. The individual has no intention to conceal their movements; no confidentiality in their purpose. The
individual is in the open, enjoying a quiet day or a peaceful Sunday drive. Yet as Chief Justice Rehnquist
commented,

there is uneasiness if an individual suspected that these innocuous and

benign movements were being recorded and scrutinized for future reference. 119 If
the "uneasy" reaction to which the Chief Justice referred is not based on a sense of
privacy invasion, it stems from something very close to it-a sense that one has a
right to public anonymity. 120 Anonymity is the state of being unnamed. 121 The
right to public anonymity is the assurance that, when in public, one is unremarked and
part of the undifferentiated crowd as far as the government is concerned . 122 That right
is usually surrendered only when one does or says something that merits government attention, which most often

But when that attention is gained by surreptitiously operated

UASs that are becoming more affordable for local law enforcement agencies, 124 "it
evades the ordinary checks that constrain abusive law enforcement practices ... :
includes criminal activity. 123

'limited police resources and community hostility."' 12 5 This association of public anonymity and privacy is not new.
126 Privacy expert and Columbia University Law professor Alan F. Westin points out that "anonymity [] occurs when
the individual is in public places or performing public acts but still seeks, and finds, freedom from identification and
surveillance." 127 Westin continued by stating that: [A person] may be riding a subway, attending a ball game, or
walking the streets; he is among people and knows that he is being observed; but unless he is a well-known
celebrity, he does not expect to be personally identified and held to the full rules of behavior and role that would
operate if he were known to those observing him. In this state the individual is able to merge into the "situational
landscape." 128 While most people would share the intuition of Chief Justice Rehnquist and professor Westin that
we expect some degree of anonymity in public, there is no such right to be found in the Constitution. Therefore ,

with a potentially handcuffed judiciary, the protection of anonymity falls to the

legislature. Based on current trends in technology and a keen interest taken by law
enforcement in the advancement of UAS integration into national airspace, it is
clear that drones pose a looming threat to Americans' anonymity . 129 Even when UASs are
authorized for noble uses such as search and rescue missions, fighting wildfires, and assisting in dangerous tactical

UASs are likely to be quickly embraced by law enforcement for more

controversial purposes. 130 What follows are compelling interdisciplinary reasons why the legislature
police operations,

should take up the call to protect the subspecies of privacy that is anonymity. A. Philosophic: The Panopticon Harm
Between 1789 and 1812, the Panopticon prison was the central obsession of the renowned English philosopher

Jeremy Bentham's life. 131 The Panopticon is a circular building with cells occupying the circumference and the
guard tower standing in the center. 132 By using blinds to obscure the guards located in the tower, "the keeper [is]
concealed from the observation of the prisoners ... the sentiment of an invisible omnipresence."'133 The effect of
such architectural brilliance is simple: the lone fact that there might be a guard watching is enough to keep the
prisoners on their best behavior. 134 As the twentieth-century French philosopher Michel Foucault observed, the
major effect of the Panopticon is "to induce in the inmate a state of conscious and permanent visibility that assures
the automatic functioning of power."'135 In Bentham's vision ,

there is no need for prison bars,

chains or heavy locks; the person who is subjected to the field of visibility of the
omnipresent guard plays both roles and he becomes the subject of his own
subjection. 136 For Foucault, this "panopticism" was not necessarily bad when compared to other methods of
exercising control as this sort of "subtle coercion" could lead people to be more productive and efficient members of

an omnipresent UAS circling above a city may be

similar to a Panopticon guard tower and an effective way of keeping the peace . The
mere thought of detection may keep streets safer and potential criminals at bay.
However, the impact on cherished democratic ideals may be too severe. For
society. 137 Following Foucault's reasoning,

example, in a case regarding the constitutionally vague city ordinance that prohibited "nightwalking," Justice
Douglas commented on the importance of public vitality and locomotion in America: The difficulty is that [walking
and strolling] are historically part of the amenities of life as we have known them. They are not mentioned in the
Constitution or in the Bill of Rights. These unwritten amenities have been in part responsible for giving our people
the feeling of independence and self-confidence, the feeling of creativity. These amenities have dignified the right of
dissent and have honored the right to be nonconformists and the right to defy submissiveness. They have
encouraged lives of high spirits rather than hushed, suffocating silence. 138 As Justice Douglas understood,

government surveillance stifles the cherished ideal of an American society that

thrives on free-spiritedness in public. 39 Without the right to walk the streets in
public, free from the fear of high surveillance, our American values would
dissipate into that resembling a totalitarian state that attacks the idea of
privacy as immoral, antisocial and part of the dissident cult of individualism. 140

This dehumanization justifies the worst atrocities

Burow 2013 (Matthew L [Candidate for JD @ New England School of Law]; The
Sentinel Clouds above the Nameless Crowd: Prosecuting Anonymity from Domestic
Drones; 39 New Eng. J. on Crim. & Civ. Confinement 443; kdf)
29 A
mere suspicion of a UAS flying high in sky can have a chilling effect on democracy
that most Americans would consider intolerable . 230 But what about the psychological changes UASs will
This Note has explored the philosophical and psychological effects of panoptic surveillance and the need for protection.2

bring about in law enforcement? The following is an excerpt from a news report on the mindset of UAS pilots who operate military

Bugsplat is the official term used by US authorities when

humans are killed by drone missiles .... [I]t is deliberately employed as a psychological
tactic to dehumanise targets so operatives overcome their inhibition to kill .... It was
Hitler who coined this phraseology in Nazi Germany during the Holocaust. In Mein Kampf,
drones in overseas combat missions:

Hitler refers to Jews as vermin (volksungeziefer) or parasites (volksschtidling). In the infamous Nazi film, Der ewige Jude, Jews were
portrayed as harmful pests that deserve to die. Similarly,

in the Rwandan genocide, the Tutsis were

described as "cockroaches." This is not to infer genocidal intent in US drone warfare,
but rather to emphasise the dehumanising effect of this terminology in Nazi
Germany and that the very same terms are used by the US in respect of their Pakistani targets.
231 Will John and Jane Doe-the casual saunterer-become part of the next group of
bugs that must be swatted in the name of effective law enforcement? In answering that
question, we should look to the skies once again and pray to the better angels of our
nature for a worthy answer.

Contention 2 Drone Warfare

Covert surveillance is just the beginningbest to block it now
Murline 2013 (Anna; Drones over America: public safety benefit or 'creepy'
privacy threat?; Marc 13; www.csmonitor.com/USA/Society/2013/0313/Drones-overAmerica-public-safety-benefit-or-creepy-privacy-threat; kdf)
WASHINGTON Shortly after Alan Frazier became a part-time deputy sheriff in Grand Forks, N.D., the police began
looking into the possibility of buying some aircraft to boost their law enforcement capabilities. They wanted some
help doing things like finding missing people or carrying out rescues in a region dotted by farmsteads threatened by
flooding that wipes out access to roads. Buying a turbine engine helicopter, however, would cost $25 million, a
prohibitive price tag even with 11 law enforcement agencies eight from North Dakota and three in western
Minnesota willing to share the cost. So Mr. Frazier, also an assistant professor of aviation at the University of North
Dakota (UND), began looking into unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) as a possible alternative. Recommended: Drone

But what appears, on one level, to be a sensible,

practical, and affordable solution for local law enforcement the price tag for a small UAV is
about the cost of a tricked-out new police cruiser at $50,000 has run smack into public concerns
about yet another high-tech invasion of privacy and the popular image of drones as
stealthy weapons used against terrorists. Nonetheless, the technology's potential
benefits in pursuing a raft of public safety measures at relatively low cost have
enormous appeal for law enforcement agencies across the country , since President Obama
warfare: top 3 reasons it could be dangerous for US

signed a bill last year directing the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) to further open US airspace to drones for
both public and private use. Even before that, the number of permits, known as certificates of authorization (COAs),
that the FAA issued to organizations to fly UAVs more than doubled from 146 in 2009 to 313 in 2011. As of February
2013 there were 327 active COAs. The bulk of these permits go to the US military for training, and the Pentagon
expects their numbers to grow considerably in the years to come. According to a March 2011 Pentagon estimate,

The US Border Patrol has the

country's largest fleet of UAVs for domestic surveillance, including nine Predator
drones that patrol regions like the Rio Grande, searching for illegal immigrants and drug smugglers. Unlike the
the Department of Defense will have 197 drones at 105 US bases by 2015.

missile-firing Predators used by the Central Intelligence Agency to hunt Al Qaeda operatives and their allies, the
domestic version of the aircraft say, those used by the border patrol is more typically equipped with night-vision
technology and long-range cameras that can read license plates. Groups like the American Civil Liberties Union

drones have see-through imaging technology similar to

those used in airports, as well as facial recognition software tied to federal
databases. The growth in drones is big business. Some 50 companies are developing roughly 150 systems,
(ACLU) also complain that these

according to The Wall Street Journal, ranging from miniature flying mechanical bugs to "Battlestar Galactica"-type
hovering unmanned airplanes. It's an industry expected to reach some $6 billion in US sales by 2016. Those
forecasts notwithstanding, neither the FAA nor the association of UAV operators says it knows how many

The growth in
the development of UAVs by both private companies and the US government has
not gone unnoticed, creating a backlash in some communities. In Seattle last month, community members
nonmilitary drones are operating in the United States. The ACLU is seeking that information.

quashed their city's drone program before it even got started. The program was being considered for search-andrescue operations and some criminal investigations, but was referred to by protesters as "flying government robots
watching their every move." Mayor Mike McGinn spoke with Police Chief John Diaz, "and we agreed that it was time
to end the unmanned aerial vehicle program," the mayor wrote in a statement. The drones were returned to the
manufacturer. Just days earlier, Charlottesville, Va., had become the first city in the country to pass a "no-drone
zone" resolution, putting in place a two-year moratorium on the use of drones within Charlottesville limits. "The big
concern for us is that they're going to be everywhere," says John Whitehead, an attorney and president of The
Rutherford Institute, a civil liberties organization in Charlottesville, which launched a preemptive fight against
drones before the city council. The move followed an Obama administration memo justifying the use of drones

"The president says you can

take out American citizens in foreign countries ," Mr. Whitehead says. "Well, if you can do
that, you can take out somebody here as well." On March 6, Attorney General Eric Holder may
have reinforced such fears in testimony before the Senate Judiciary Committee
overseas to kill US citizens suspected of taking part in terrorist activities.

when he refused to rule out the use of armed drones on US soil in an emergency "to
protect the homeland." If it all has an air of hysteria about it Mr. Holder said there are no plans for the
domestic use of armed drones and called the scenario "entirely hypothetical" and unlikely privacy groups point to
California's Alameda County, where officials insisted they wanted drones for search-and-rescue missions. An internal

drones could be used for

"investigative and tactical surveillance, intelligence gathering, suspicious persons,
and large crowd-control disturbances." The county dropped its plans. The first and only known use of
memo that surfaced from the sheriff's department, however, noted the

a drone in the arrest of a US citizen occurred in December 2011 in North Dakota, when the Nelson County Sheriff's
Department asked to borrow one of the US Customs and Border Protection UAVs. The drone provided a good view of
the three sons of the owner of a 3,000-acre farm who were involved in a standoff with law enforcement officers. As
a result, police were able to tell that the brothers were unarmed, allowing them to enter the farm and arrest the

drones equipped
with sound cannons, which release painful high-decibel sound waves that cause
crowds to disperse, could be dispatched by the government to political protests and
used as well to "effectively stifle free speech." The concern that such technologies can be misused
to invade privacy and suppress free speech "is a legitimate fear," says UND's Frazier. " Anytime we increase
the technological capabilities of the government there's a justifiable concern there.
brothers without the confrontation turning into a shootout. Whitehead imagines a day when

But I think these fears can be offset by the fact that the drones we're using have very limited capabilities."
Nevertheless, privacy concerns are what have prompted groups including the nonprofit Electronic Frontier
Foundation (EFF) to use the Freedom of Information Act to obtain hundreds of documents from the FAA outlining
who has been requesting to use drones in America's skies, and why. Roughly 40 percent of the drone flight requests
submitted to the FAA are from the US military. "They are flying drones pretty regularly eight hours a day, five days
a week to train pilots so that they will be able to fly drones," says Jessica Lynch, a staff attorney for EFF. These
drones are equipped with infrared scanning capabilities and other surveillance gadgets. " Drones

have quite
a number of technologies on board, including thermal cameras and the ability to
intercept communications," Ms. Lynch says. "If they are training pilots, they are training them in these
surveillance tools." FAA regulations stipulate that weaponized drones cannot fly in unrestricted US airspace. The
agency also has specific parameters for law enforcement drones. Law enforcement groups, for example, must
maintain visual contact with the drone at all times and must also fly at relatively low altitudes. These are
regulations with which the Grand Forks Sheriff's Department has become familiar in the three years since it began
looking into using drones, first establishing an Unmanned Aerial Systems unit as part of the department and then
applying for COAs to use the drones. The unit, which went fully operational Feb. 1, has conducted 250 simulated
missions, but has yet to use a drone in an operation. Certification tends to be a lengthy and arduous process,
Frazier says, adding that there are also some parameters for usage that are meant to promote safety, but can make
it tricky for law enforcement to do its jobs. One provision, for example, is that the drones can fly only by day.
Another early rule was that the police had to give 48 hours' notice if they were going to use the drones. "It's tough
to predict if there is going to be a fire tomorrow, or a bank robbery the day after tomorrow," he says. The
department was able to convince the FAA to let it fly the drones on one-hour notice instead. That said, Frazier
understands the public's concerns about the use of drones. For that reason, Grand Forks established a 15-member
committee made up of one-third public safety officials, one-third UND faculty, and one-third community residents
to evaluate the use of drones and to troubleshoot questions and concerns of the public. Every law enforcement
action involving the drones is to be reviewed by the committee. Frazier told committee members that the
department did not intend to ask for the ability to use the drones for covert surveillance. "We will not use them to,
quote, spy on people," Frazier says. Even if that were the intention, he adds, "These small drones are not
particularly robust platforms for covert surveillance. I think the public can't understand that my little UAV can only
fly for 15 minutes, can't fly out of my line of sight, and can't fly in greater than 15-knot winds." Out of concern that
average citizens could be filmed by sensors on the aircraft, one of the committee's first acts was to instruct police
to post road signs warning the public when UAVs are in use. Yet some of the conversations EFF's Lynch has had with
other law enforcement agencies haven't been as reassuring about privacy, she says. "We've talked to police about
this, and they've said, 'Well, we're going to fly the drones in public airspace, and if you walk around in public you
don't have an expectation of privacy in your movements.' "While that might be true for a police officer following you
down the street, I don't know if that applies when a drone can fly over and surveil everybody walking down that
street for an extended period of time," Lynch says. "You can make the case that drones are helping law enforcement
better do their jobs for less [cost] and we should incorporate it," she adds. "As technology becomes cheaper and
easier to use, it's tempting to use it all the time." That is the fear of Texas state lawmaker Lance Gooden, who in
February proposed some of the toughest anti-drone legislation in the country. It would prevent drone operators from
collecting images, sounds, and smells or hovering over any home without permission. "Two to four years from
now, it'll be impossible to get legislation passed because every law enforcement agency will want drones," says Mr.
Gooden. While the drone lobby is growing, it is not as powerful as it will become, he adds. Currently, his bill has the

support of 101 of the 150 members of the state Legislature. But some longtime drone experts say such laws are
overkill and could impede growth of technology that is useful and relatively inexpensive. "The ordinances that have
been passed are absolutely absurd," says retired Lt. Gen. David Deptula, the first deputy chief of staff for
Intelligence, Reconnaissance, and Surveillance for the US Air Force. "And what's precluded are the very valuable
civilian applications in terms of traffic control, firefighting, disaster response, border security, the monitoring of
power lines the list goes on and on." As for privacy concerns, "I can't think of another way of saying it, but that
they are unfounded," Deptula adds. "All you have to do is look up in any major metropolitan city and see the
cameras all around. And have they ever heard of satellites? Where do they think Google maps come from?" Frazier
concurs. People with a good zoom lens have better cameras than do his small drones, he adds, pointing out that

The average GPSenabled cellphone can now track people and their movements to within a few feet ,
he notes. That said, "I understand what people mean when they say it's 'creepy,' " Frazier says . "I value my
privacy as much as anyone does it's very sacred in this country. " Even if they could do it
legally, law enforcement agencies would be making a big mistake using drones for
covert surveillance for the time being, he adds. "It would be a fatal mistake at this point. We really need to
one of the Grand Forks Sheriff's Department's drones has a simple off-the-shelf Panasonic.

take a crawl, walk, run approach. To go to covert surveillance brings us to a run," Frazier says of the law
enforcement community. "If that means we're not Buck Rogers in the 21st century, we're comfortable with that."

Domestic drones will become weaponized posing unique risks

to civil liberties
Greenwald 2013 (Glenn [former columnist on civil liberties and US national
security issues for the Guardian. An ex-constitutional lawyer]; The US Needs To
Wake Up To Threat Of Domestic Drones; Mar 30;
http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2013/mar/29/domestic-drones-uniquedangers; kdf)
The use of drones by domestic US law enforcement agencies is growing rapidly , both
in terms of numbers and types of usage. As a result, civil liberties and privacy groups led by the
ACLU - while accepting that domestic drones are inevitable - have been devoting increasing efforts to publicizing

These efforts are being impeded by those

who mock the idea that domestic drones pose unique dangers (often the same people who
mock concern over their usage on foreign soil). This dismissive posture is grounded not only in
soft authoritarianism (a religious-type faith in the Goodness of US political leaders and state power
generally) but also ignorance over current drone capabilities, the ways drones are now
being developed and marketed for domestic use, and the activities of the
increasingly powerful domestic drone lobby. So it's quite worthwhile to lay out the key undertheir unique dangers and agitating for statutory limits.

discussed facts shaping this issue. I'm going to focus here most on domestic surveillance drones, but I want to say a

The belief that weaponized drones won't be used on US

soil is patently irrational. Of course they will be. It's not just likely but inevitable. Police
departments are already speaking openly about how their drones "could be equipped to
carry nonlethal weapons such as Tasers or a bean-bag gun." The drone industry has already
developed and is now aggressively marketing precisely such weaponized drones for
domestic law enforcement use. It likely won't be in the form that has received the most media
attention: the type of large Predator or Reaper drones that shoot Hellfire missiles which destroy homes
few words about weaponized drones.

and cars in Pakistan, Yemen, Somalia, Afghanistan and multiple other countries aimed at Muslims (although US law
enforcement agencies already possess Predator drones and have used them over US soil for surveillance). Instead,
as I detailed in a 2012 examination of the drone industry's own promotional materials and reports to their

domestic weaponized drones will be much smaller and cheaper , as well as

more agile - but just as lethal. The nation's leading manufacturer of small "unmanned aircraft systems"
shareholders,

(UAS), used both for surveillance and attack purposes, is AeroVironment, Inc. (AV). Its 2011 Annual Report filed with
the SEC repeatedly emphasizes that its business strategy depends upon expanding its market from foreign wars to
domestic usage including law enforcement: AV's annual report added: "Initial likely non-military users of small UAS

." These domestic marketing

efforts are intensifying with the perception that US spending on foreign wars will
decrease. As a February, 2013 CBS News report noted, focusing on AV's surveillance drones: "Now, drones are
include public safety organizations such as law enforcement agencies. . .

headed off the battlefield. They're already coming your way. "AeroVironment, the California company that sells the
military something like 85 percent of its fleet, is marketing them now to public safety agencies." Like many drone
manufacturers, AV is now focused on drone products - such as the "Qube" - that are so small that they can be
"transported in the trunk of a police vehicle or carried in a backpack" and assembled and deployed within a matter
of minutes. One news report AV touts is headlined "Drone technology could be coming to a Police Department near
you", which focuses on the Qube. But another article prominently touted on AV's website describes the tiny UAS
product dubbed the "Switchblade", which, says the article, is "the leading edge of what is likely to be the broader,
even wholesale, weaponization of unmanned systems." The article creepily hails the Switchblade drone as "the
ultimate assassin bug". That's because, as I wrote back in 2011, "it is controlled by the operator at the scene, and it
worms its way around buildings and into small areas, sending its surveillance imagery to an i-Pad held by the
operator, who can then direct the Switchblade to lunge toward and kill the target (hence the name) by exploding in
his face." AV's website right now proudly touts a February, 2013 Defense News article describing how much the US
Army loves the "Switchblade" and how it is preparing to purchase more. Time Magazine heralded this tiny drone
weapon as "one of the best inventions of 2012", gushing: "the Switchblade drone can be carried into battle in a
backpack. It's a kamikaze: the person controlling it uses a real-time video feed from the drone to crash it into a
precise target - say, a sniper. Its tiny warhead detonates on impact." What possible reason could someone identify
as to why these small, portable weaponized UAS products will not imminently be used by federal, state and local
law enforcement agencies in the US? They're designed to protect their users in dangerous situations and to enable

Police agencies and the increasingly powerful drone industry

will tout their utility in capturing and killing dangerous criminals and their ability to
keep officers safe, and media reports will do the same . The handful of genuinely positive uses
from drones will be endlessly touted to distract attention away from the dangers they pose. One has to be
incredibly nave to think that these "assassin bugs" and other lethal drone products
will not be widely used on US soil by an already para-militarized domestic police
force. As Radley Balko's forthcoming book "Rise of the Warrior Cop" details, the primary trend in US law
a target to be more easily killed.

enforcement is what its title describes as "The Militarization of America's Police Forces". The history of domestic law
enforcement particularly after 9/11 has been the importation of military techniques and weapons into domestic
policing. It would be shocking if these weapons were not imminently used by domestic law enforcement agencies.
In contrast to weaponized drones, even the most nave among us do not doubt the imminent proliferation of
domestic surveillance drones. With little debate, they have already arrived. As the ACLU put it in their recent report:
"US

law enforcement is greatly expanding its use of domestic drones for

surveillance." An LA Times article from last month reported that "federal authorities have stepped
up efforts to license surveillance drones for law enforcement and other uses in US
airspace" and that "the Federal Aviation Administration said Friday it had issued 1,428 permits to domestic drone
operators since 2007, far more than were previously known." Moreover, the agency "has estimated 10,000 drones
could be aloft five years later" and "local and state law enforcement agencies are expected to be among the largest

Concerns about the proliferation of domestic surveillance drones are

typically dismissed with the claim that they do nothing more than police helicopters
and satellites already do. Such claims are completely misinformed. As the ACLU's 2011
comprehensive report on domestic drones explained: " Unmanned aircraft carrying cameras raise
the prospect of a significant new avenue for the surveillance of American life."
Multiple attributes of surveillance drones make them uniquely threatening. Because they are so cheap
and getting cheaper, huge numbers of them can be deployed to create ubiquitous
surveillance in a way that helicopters or satellites never could. How this works can already
customers."

been seen in Afghanistan, where the US military has dubbed its drone surveillance system "the Gorgon Stare",

That
drone surveillance system is "able to scan an area the size of a small town" and "the
most sophisticated robotics use artificial intelligence that [can] seek out and record
certain kinds of suspicious activity". Boasted one US General: "Gorgon Stare will be looking at a whole
named after the "mythical Greek creature whose unblinking eyes turned to stone those who beheld them".

city, so there will be no way for the adversary to know what we're looking at, and we can see everything." The NSA
already maintains ubiquitous surveillance of electronic communications, but the Surveillance State faces serious

limits on its ability to replicate that for physical surveillance. Drones easily overcome those barriers. As the ACLU
report put it: I've spoken previously about why a ubiquitous Surveillance State ushers in unique and deeply harmful
effects on human behavior and a nation's political culture and won't repeat that here (here's the video (also
embedded below) and the transcript of one speech where I focus on how that works). Suffice to say, as the ACLU
explains in its domestic drone report: "routine aerial surveillance would profoundly change the character of public
life in America" because only drone technology enables such omnipresent physical surveillance. Beyond that, the
tiny size of surveillance drones enables them to reach places that helicopters obviously cannot, and to do so
without detection. They can remain in the sky, hovering over a single place, for up to 20 hours, a duration that is
always increasing - obviously far more than manned helicopters can achieve. As AV's own report put it (see page
11), their hovering capability also means they can surveil a single spot for much longer than many military
satellites, most of which move with the earth's rotation (the few satellites that remain fixed "operate nearly 25,000
miles from the surface of the earth, therefore limiting the bandwidth they can provide and requiring relatively
larger, higher power ground stations"). In sum, surveillance drones enable a pervasive, stealth and constantly
hovering Surveillance State that is now well beyond the technological and financial abilities of law enforcement
agencies. One significant reason why this proliferation of domestic drones has become so likely is the emergence of
a powerful drone lobby. I detailed some of how that lobby is functioning here, so will simply note this passage from
a recent report from the ACLU of Iowa on its attempts to persuade legislators to enact statutory limits on the use of
domestic drones: "Drones have their own trade group, the Association for Unmanned Aerial Systems International,
which includes some of the nation's leading aerospace companies. And Congress now has 'drone caucuses' in both
the Senate and House." Howie Klein has been one of the few people focusing on the massive amounts of money
from the drone industry now flowing into the coffers of key Congressional members from both parties in this "drone
caucus". Suffice to say, there is an enormous profit to be made from exploiting the domestic drone market, and as
usual, that factor is thus far driving the (basically nonexistent) political response to these threats. What is most
often ignored by drone proponents, or those who scoff at anti-drone activism, are the unique features of drones: the
way they enable more warfare, more aggression, and more surveillance. Drones make war more likely precisely
because they entail so little risk to the war-making country. Similarly, while the propensity of drones to kill innocent
people receives the bulk of media attention, the way in which drones psychologically terrorize the population simply by constantly hovering over them: unseen but heard - is usually ignored, because it's not happening in the
US, so few people care (see this AP report from yesterday on how the increasing use of drone attacks in Afghanistan
is truly terrorizing local villagers). It remains to be seen how Americans will react to drones constantly hovering over
their homes and their childrens' schools, though by that point, their presence will be so institutionalized that it will
be likely be too late to stop. Notably, this may be one area where an actual bipartisan/trans-partisan alliance can
meaningfully emerge, as most advocates working on these issues with whom I've spoken say that libertarianminded GOP state legislators have been as responsive as more left-wing Democratic ones in working to impose
some limits. One bill now pending in Congress would prohibit the use of surveillance drones on US soil in the

Only the most authoritarian among

us will be incapable of understanding the multiple dangers posed by a domestic
drone regime (particularly when their party is in control of the government and they are incapable of
perceiving threats from increased state police power). But the proliferation of domestic drones
affords a real opportunity to forge an enduring coalition in defense of core privacy
and other rights that transcends partisan allegiance , by working toward meaningful limits on
their use. Making people aware of exactly what these unique threats are from a
domestic drone regime is the key first step in constructing that coalition.
absence of a specific search warrant, and has bipartisan support.

Domestic armed drones in border regions is setting an

international precedent- legislation key to establish a
framework for modeling
Barry 2013 (Tom Barry, senior policy analyst and director of CIP's TransBorder Project,
Barry specializes in immigration policy, homeland security, border security, and the
outsourcing of national security. He co-founded the International Relations Center (IRC), and
joined CIP in 2007. He has authored or co-authored more than twenty books on Mexico,
Central America, the Caribbean, food aid, the United Nations, free trade and U.S. foreign
policy. These include The Great Divide: Challenge of U.S.-Mexico Relations in the 1990s
(Grove Press), Feeding the Crisis: U.S. Food Aid and Farm Policy in Central America
(University of Nebraska), The Next Fifty Years: The United Nations and the United States, and
the award-winning Zapatas Revenge: Free Trade and the Farm Crisis in Mexico (South End
Press). He has also edited volumes on foreign policy such as Global Focus: U.S. Foreign

policy at the Turn of the Millennium (St. Martins Press), Center for International Policy,
Drones Over the Homeland, http://stratrisks.com/geostrat/16739, April 23, 2013)

Drones are proliferating at home and abroad . A new high-tech realm is emerging, where remotely controlled and
autonomous unmanned systems do our bidding. Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) and Unmanned Aerial Systems (UAS) commonly known as drones

the
emergence of the homeland security apparatus have put border
drones at the forefront of the intensifying public debate about the proper
are already working for us in many ways. This new CIP International Policy Report reveals how the military-industrial complex and

role of drones domestically. Drones Over the Homeland focuses on the deployment
of drones by the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), which is developing a drone
fleet that it projects will be capable of quickly responding to homeland security
threats, national security threats and national emergencies across the entire nation. In addition, DHS
says that its drone fleet is available to assist local law-enforcement agencies. Due to a surge in U.S. military contracting since 2001, the United States is
the world leader in drone production and deployment. Other nations, especially China, are also rapidly gaining a larger market share of the international
drone market. The United States, however, will remain the dominant driver in drone manufacturing and deployment for at least another decade. The
central U.S. role in drone proliferation is the direct result of the Pentagons rapidly increasing expenditures for UAVs. Also fueling drone proliferation is UAV
procurement by the Department of Homeland Security, by other federal agencies such as NASA, and by local police, as well as by individuals and
corporations. Drones are also proliferating among state-level Air National Guard units.

Despite its lead role in the

proliferation of drones, the U.S. government has failed to take the lead in
establishing appropriate regulatory frameworks and oversight processes.
Without this necessary regulatory infrastructure at both the national and
international levels drone proliferation threatens to undermine constitutional
guarantees, civil liberties and international law. This policy report begins with a brief overview of the development
and deployment of UAVs, including a summary of the DHS drone program. The second section details and critically examines the role of Congress and
industry in promoting drone proliferation. In the third part, we explore the expanding scope of the DHS drone program, extending to public safety and
national security. The reports fourth section focuses on the stated objectives of the homeland security drone program. It debunks the dubious assertions
and myths that DHS wields in presentations to the public and Congress to justify this poorly conceived, grossly ineffective and entirely nonstrategic border
program. The reports final section summarizes our conclusions, and then sets forward our recommendations. I. UAV OVERVIEW AND ORIGIN OF
HOMELAND SECURITY DRONES UAVs are ideal instruments for what the military calls ISR (intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance) missions. Yet, with
no need for an onboard crew and with the capacity to hover unseen at high altitudes for long periods, drones also have many nonmilitary uses. Whether
deployed in the air, on the ground or in the water, unmanned drones are ideally suited for a broad range of scientific, business, public-safety and even
humanitarian tasks. That is due to what are known as the three Ds capabilities Dull (they can work long hours, conducting repetitive tasks), Dirty
(drones are impervious to toxicity) and Dangerous (no lives lost if a drone is destroyed). Indicative of the many possibilities for UAV use, some human
rights advocates are now suggesting drones can be used to defend human rights, noting their ISR capabilities could be used to monitor human rights
violations by repressive regimes and non-state actors in such countries as Syria.1 Manufacturers, led by the largest military contractors, are rapidly
producing drones for a boom market, whose customers include governments (with the U.S. commanding dominant market share), law enforcement
agencies, corporations, individual consumers and rogue forces. Drones are proliferating so rapidly that a consensus about their formal name has not yet
formed. The most common designation is Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs), although Unmanned Aerial Systems (UAS) is also frequently used. Other less
common terms include Unmanned Systems (US) and Remotely Piloted Aircraft (RPA). The more inclusive Unmanned Systems term covers ground and
marine drones , while highlighting the elaborate control and communications systems used to launch, operate and recover drones. However, because
most drones require staffed command-and-control centers, Remotely Piloted Aircraft may be the best descriptive term. DRONES TAKE OFF Although the
U.S. military and intelligence sectors had been promoting drone development since the early 1960s,2 it was the Israeli Air Force in the late 1970s that led
the way in drone technology and manufacture. However, after the Persian Gulf War in 1991, the U.S. intelligence apparatus and the U.S. Air Force became
the major drivers in drone development and proliferation.3 Because the intelligence budget is classified, there are no hard figures publicly available that
quantify the intelligence communitys contributions to drone development in the United States. It has been credibly estimated that prior to 2000, such
contributions made up about 40% of total drone research and development (R&D) expenditures, with the U.S. Air Force being the other major source of
development funds for drone research by U.S. military contractors.4 In the early 1990s, as part of a classified weapons project, the U.S. Air Force and the
CIA underwrote and guided the development and production of what became the Predator UAV, the first war-fighting drones that were initially deployed in
ISR missions during the Balkan wars in 1995. General Atomics Aeronautical Systems (GA-SI), an affiliate of privately held, San Diego-based company
General Atomics, produced the first Predator UAVs now known as Predator A with research and development funding from Pentagon, the Air Force and a
highly secret intelligence organization called the National Reconnaissance Organization.5 The 1995 deployment of the unarmed Predator A by the CIA and
Air Force sparked new interest within the U.S. military and intelligence apparatus, resulting in at least $600 million in new R&D contracting for drones with
General Atomics. According to a U.S. Air Force study, The CIAs UAV program that existed in the early 1990s and that still exists today gave Predator and
GA-ASI an important opportunity that laid the foundation for Predators success. The study goes on to document what is known of the collaboration
between the intelligence community and General Atomics.6 General Atomics is a privately held firm, owned by brothers Neal and Linden Blue. The Blue
brothers bought the firm (which was originally a start-up division of General Dynamics) in 1986 for $50 million and the next year hired Ret. Rear Admiral
Thomas J. Cassidy to run GA-SI. The Blue brothers are well connected nationally and internationally with arch-conservative, anti-communist networks.
These links stem in part from their past associations with right-wing leaders; one such example being the 100,000-acre banana and cocoa farm Neal Blue
co-owned with the Somoza family in Nicaragua, another being Linden Blues 1961 imprisonment in Cuba shortly before the Bay of Pigs for flying into
Cuban airspace, and especially their record of providing substantial campaign support for congressional hawks.7 In 1997, the U.S. Air Forces high-tech
development and procurement divisions took the first steps toward weaponizing the Predator. This push led to the Air Forces Big Safari rapid high-tech
acquisitions program, which proved instrumental in having an armed Predator ready for deployment in 2000. The newly weaponized MQ Predator-B was in
action from the first day of the invasion of Afghanistan on October 21, 2001, when a Hellfire missile was fired from a remote operator sitting in an
improvised command and control center situated in the parking lot of the CIA headquarters in Langley, Virginia.8 The post-9/11 launch of the global war
on terrorism opened the floodgates for drone R&D funding and procurement by the CIA and all branches of the U.S. military, led by the Air Force. Starting
in Afghanistan, and later in Iraq, the Predator transitioned from an unmanned surveillance aircraft to what General Atomics proudly called a Hunter-Killer.
Since 2004, the CIA and the Joint Special Operations Command, a covert unit of the U.S. military, have routinely made clandestine strikes in Pakistan and
more recently in Yemen and Somalia. These clandestine strikes increased during the first Obama Administration and continued into the second amid

The rise of the Predators along with

later drone models produced by General Atomics the Reaper, Guardian and
Avenger drones can be attributed to aggressive marketing, influence-peddling and
lobbying initiatives by General Atomics and General Atomics Aeronautical Systems
(GA-SI). The selling of the Predator could also count on the close personal ties forged over decades in the military-industrial complex, which resulted
in key R&D grants from the military and intelligence sectors. Another important factor in the Predators
increasing popularity has been General Atomics willingness to adapt models to
meet varying demands from DOD, DHS and the intelligence community for different
armed and unarmed variants. Also working in General Atomics favor is its ongoing commitment to curry favor in Congress with
growing criticism that drone strikes were unconstitutional and counterproductive.9

substantial campaign contributions and special favors. Speaking at the Citadel on December 11, 2001, President George W. Bush underscored the
Predators central role in U.S. global counterterrorism missions: Before the war, the Predator had skeptics because it did not fit the old ways. Now it is
clear the military does not have enough unmanned vehicles.10 At the time, there was widespread public, media and congressional enthusiasm for UAVs

where suspected terrorists were purportedly killed with surgical precision while UAV pilots sat
in front of video screens out of harms way drinking coffee. Little was known then about the high-accident rates for the UAVs or the shocking collateral
damage from their targeted strikes. Nor was it well known that the Predators were being piloted from command and control centers at the CIA and at

PREDATORS ALIGHT ON THE BORDER

Creech Air Force Base in Nevada.

In the late-1990s, about the same
time that the U.S. Border Patrol started contracting for ground-based electronic surveillance, the agency also began planning to integrate drone
surveillance into ground-based electronic surveillance systems. It is also when it began the practice of entering into sole-source contracts with high-tech
firms.11 The Border Patrols grand high-tech plan was to integrate drone ISR operations with its planned Integrated Surveillance Intelligence System
(ISIS).12 The plan, albeit never detailed in the project proposal, was to integrate geospatial images from yet-to-be acquired Border Patrol UAVs into an
elaborate command, control and communications systems managed by the Border Patrol an agency not known for its high-level technical or
management skills.13 Soon after the CIA and the U.S. Air Force began flooding General Atomics with procurement contracts for armed Predators in 2001,
disarmed Predator UAVs were summoned for border security duty. In 2003, the Border Patrol with funding not from the Customs and Border Protection
(CBP) budget but rather from the Homeland Securitys newly created Science and Technology Directorate began testing small, relatively inexpensive

In 2005, CBP took full control over the DHS drone program, with
the launch of its own Predator drone program under the supervision of
the newly created Office of Air and Marine (OAM). OAM was a CBP division that united all the aerial and marine
assets of the Office of the Border Patrol and Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). According to the CBP, The UAV program
focuses operations on the CBP priority mission of anti-terrorism by helping to
identify and intercept potential terrorists and illegal cross-border activity. Tens of
billions of dollars began to flow into the Department of Homeland Security for
border security the term that superseded border control in the aftermath of 9/11
and the DHS drone program was propelled forward. To direct OAM, DHS appointed Michael C. Kostelnik, a
UAVs for border surveillance.

retired Air Force major general. During his tenure in the Air Force, Kostelnik supervised weapons acquisitions and was one of the leading players in
encouraging General Atomics to quickly equip the Predator with bombs or missiles.14

The more expensive, armed

Predator drones and their variants became the preferred border

drone as a result of widespread enthusiasm for the surge in Predator operations in
Iraq and Afghanistan and the close collaborative relationship that developed
between General Atomics Aeronautical Systems and CBP. CBP began using its first Predator for operations
in October 2005, but the drone crashed in April 2006 in the Arizona desert near Nogales due an error made by General Atomics contracted pilot. Crash
investigators from the National Transportation Safety Board found the pilot had shut off the drones engine when he thought he was redirecting the drones
camera. As Kostelnik explained to the Border and Marine Subcommittee of the House Homeland Security Committee, There was a momentary loss link

By early 2013, CBP had a fleet of

seven Predator drones and three Guardians drones, all stationed at military bases.
Two Guardians Predators modified for marine surveillance are based at the Naval
Air Station in Corpus Christi, Texas, while another patrols the Caribbean as part of a
drug war mission from its base at the Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida. Four
that switched to the second control and the Predator fell out of the sky.15 The Fleet

of the seven Predators are stationed at Libby Army Airfield, part of Fort Huachuca near the Mexican border in southeastern Arizona, while two have homes
at the Grand Forks Air Force Base in North Dakota. The tenth Predator drone will also be based at Cape Canaveral. According to the CBP Strategic Air and
Marine Plan of 2010, OAM intends to deploy a fleet of 24 Guardians and Predators. In 2008, as part of its acquisition strategy, CBP planned to have the 24drone fleet ready by 2016, boasting that OAM would then be capable of deploying drones anywhere in national airspace in three hours or less.16 In late
2012, CBP signed a major new five-drone contract with General Atomics. The $443.1 million five-year contract includes $237.7 million for the prospective
purchase of up to 14 additional Predators and Predator variations, and $205.4 million for operational costs and maintenance by General Atomics crews.17
This new contract was signed, despite increasing budget restrictions, a series of critical reports by the Congressional Research Service (CRS), Government
Accountability Office and the DHS Office of Inspector General, and continuing technical failures and poor results. Only One Source CBP insists that General
Atomics Aeronautical Systems is the only responsible source for its drone needs and that no other suppliers or servicers can satisfy agency requirements
for these $18-20 million drones. According to CBPs justification for sole-source contracting, U.S. national security would be put at risk if DHS switched
drone contractors. In a November 1, 2012 statement titled Justification for Other than Full and Open Competition, DHS contends that The PredatorB/Guardian UAS combination is unmatched by any other UAS available. To procure an alternative systemor support serviceswould detrimentally impact

national security, most notably due to decreased interdictions of contraband (e.g., illegal narcotics, undocumented immigrants). Furthermore, CBP
claimed, The GA-ASI MQ-9 UAS provides the best value to OAMs documented and approved operational requirements and programmatic constraints.
With 38% of planned systems on-online, MQ-9 operations are mature, well-understood, and a critical component of DHSs daily Homeland Security
campaign. When asked by this author for information documenting specific data, comparative studies, cost-benefit evaluations, record of the
achievements of the drone program, or threat assessment to support such conclusions, CBP simply responded: CBP deploys and operates the UAS only
after careful examination where the UAS can most responsibly aid in countering threats of our Nations security. As threats change, CBP adjusts its
enforcement posture accordingly and may consider moving the location of assets.18

II. MORE DRONE BOOSTERISM THAN

OVERSIGHT IN CONGRESS

The Pentagon, military, intelligence agencies and military contractors are longtime proponents of UAVs
for intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance (ISR) missions. Following President Bushs declaration of a global war on terrorism, the White House
became directly involved in expanding drone deployment in foreign wars especially in directing drone strikes.

The most unabashed

advocates of drone proliferation, however, are in Congress . They claim drones can solve many of
Americas most pressing problems from eliminating terrorists to keeping the homeland safe from unwanted immigrants. However,

there has

been little congressional oversight of drone deployments, both at home and

abroad. Since the post-9/11 congressional interest in drone issues budgets, role in national airspace, overseas sales, border deployment and UAVs by law

drone

enforcement agencies
legislation would increase the number of unmanned aerial vehicles and surveillance equipment.19 Drone
promotion by U.S. representatives and senators in Congress pops up in what at first may seem the unlikeliest of places. Annually, House members join
with UAS manufacturers to fill the foyer and front rooms of the Rayburn House Office Building with displays of the latest drones an industry show
introduced in glowing speeches by highly influential House leaders, notably Buck McKeon, the Southern California Republican who chairs the House Armed
Service Committee and co-chairs the Congressional Unmanned Systems Caucus (CUSC). Advances in communications, aviation and surveillance
technology have all accelerated the coming of UAVs to the home front. Yet drones are not solely about technological advances. Money flows and political
influence also factor in. Congressional Caucus on Unmanned Systems At the forefront of the money/politics nexus is the Congressional Caucus on
Unmanned Systems (CCUS). Four years ago, the CCUS (then known as the House Unmanned Aerial Vehicle Caucus) was formed by a small group of
congressional representatives mainly Republicans and mostly hailing from districts with drone industries or bases. By late 2012, the House caucus had
60 members and had changed its name to encompass all unmanned systems whether aerial, marine or ground-based.20 This bipartisan caucus,
together with its allies in the drone industry, has been promoting UAV use at home and abroad through drone fairs on Capitol Hill, new legislation and
drone-favored budgets. CCUS aims to educate members of Congress and the public on the strategic, tactical, and scientific value of unmanned systems;
actively support further development and acquisition of more systems, and to more effectively engage the civilian aviation community on unmanned
system use and safety.21 In late 2012, the caucus comprised a collection of border hawks, immigration hardliners and leading congressional voices for
the military contracting industry. The two caucus co-chairs, Howard Buck McKeon, R-California, and Henry Cuellar, D-Texas, are well positioned to
accelerate drone proliferation. McKeon, whose southern California district includes major drone production facilities, notably General Atomics, is the
caucus founder and chair of the House Armed Services Committee. Cuellar, who represents the Texas border district of Laredo, is the ranking member
(and former chairman) of the House Subcommittee on Border and Maritime Security. Other caucus members include Brian Bilbray (R-Calif.), who heads the
House Immigration Reform Caucus; Candice Miller (R-Minn.), who heads the Homeland Security subcommittee that reviews the air and marine operations
of DHS; Joe Wilson (R-SC); Jerry Lewis (R-Calif.); Dana Rohrabacher (R-Calif.); Loretta Sanchez (D-Calif.); and Duncan Hunter (R-Calif.). Eight caucus
members were also members of the powerful House Appropriations Committee in the 112th Congress. The caucus and its leading members (along with
drone proponents in the Senate) have played key roles in drone proliferation at home and abroad through channeling earmarks to Predator manufacturer
General Atomics, prodding the Department of Homeland Security to establish a major drone program, adding amendments to authorization bills for the
Federal Aviation Administration and Department of Defense to ensure the more rapid integration of UAVs into the national airspace, and increasing annual
DOD and DHS budgets for drone R&D and procurements. To accelerate drone acquisitions and deployment at home, Congress has an illustrative track
record of legislative measures (see accompanying box). Congressional support for the development and procurement of Predators dates back to 1996, and
is reflected in the defense and intelligence authorization acts. An Air Force-sponsored study of the Predators rise charted the increases mandated by the
House Armed Service and the House Intelligence committees over the Predator budget requests made by the Air Force in its budgets requests. Between
1996 and 2006 (ending date of study), Congress has recommended an increase, over and above USAF requests, in the Predator budget for nearly 10
years in a row. This has resulted in a sum total increase of over a half a billion dollars over the years.22 Association of Unmanned Vehicle Systems CCUS
cosponsors the annual drone fete with the Association of Unmanned Vehicle Systems International (AUVSI), an industry group that brings together the
leading drone manufacturers and universities with UAV research projects. AUVSI represents the interests in the expansion of unmanned systems expressed
by many of the estimated 100 U.S. companies and academic institutions involved in developing and deploying the some 300 of the currently existing UAV
models.23 The drone association has a $7.5-million annual operating budget, including $2 million a year for conferences and trade shows to encourage
government agencies and companies to use unmanned aircraft.24 AUVSI also has its own congressional advocacy committee that is closely linked to the
caucus. The keynote speaker at the drone associations annual conference in early 2012 was Representative McKeon. The congressman was also the
featured speaker at AUVSIs AIR Day 2011, in recognition, says AUVSIs president, that Congressman McKeon has been one of the biggest supporters of
the unmanned systems community. The close relationship between the congressional drone caucus and AUVSI was reflected in a similar relationship
between CBP/OAM and AUVSI. Tom Faller, the CBP official who directed the UAV program at OAM, joined the AUVSI 23-member board-of-directors in August
2011, a month before the association hosted a technology fair in the foyer of the Rayburn House Office Building. OAM participated in the fair. Faller
resigned from the unpaid position on Nov. 23, 2011 after the Los Angeles Times queried DHS about Fallers unpaid position in the industry association.
Faller is currently subject of a DHS internal ethics-violation investigation.25 Contracts, contributions, earmarks and favors Once a relatively insignificant
part of the military-industrial complex, the UAV development and manufacturing sector is currently expanding faster than any other component of military
contracting. Drone orders from various federal departments and agencies are rolling in to AUVSI corporate members, including such leading military
contractors as General Atomics, Lockheed Martin and Northrop Grumman.26 (Unlike most major military contractors, General Atomics is not a corporation
but a privately held firm, whose two major figures are Linden and Neal Blue, both of whom have high security clearances) U.S. government drone
purchases not counting contracts for an array of related UAV services and payloads rose from $588 million to $1.3 billion over the past five years.27
The FY2013 DOD budget includes $5.8 billion for UAVs, which does not include drone spending by the intelligence community, DHS or other federal
entities. The Pentagon says that its high-priority commitment to expenditures for drone defense and warfare has resulted in strong funding for
unmanned aerial vehicles that enhance intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance capabilities.29 While the relationship between increasing drone
contracts and the increasing campaign contributions received by drone caucus members can only be speculated, caucus members are favored recipients
of contributions by AUVSI members. In the 2010 and 2012 election cycles, political action committees associated with companies that produce drones
donated more than $2.4 million to members of the congressional drone caucus.30 The leading recipient was McKeon, with Representative Silvestre Reyes,
the influential Democrat from El Paso (who lost his seat in the 2012 election), coming in a close second.31 General Atomics counted among McKeons top
five contributors in the last election. (See Figure 1) Frank W. Pace, the director of General Atomics Aeronautical Systems, contributed to two candidates
Buck McKeon and Jerry Lewis during the 2012 electoral campaign. (See Figure 2) Who were the top recipients of the General Atomics campaign
contributions in the 2012 cycle? Four of the top five recipients were not surprising Buck McKeon, Jerry Lewis, Duncan Hunter and Brian Bilbray given
their record of support for UAVs, and their position among the most influential drone caucus members. (See Figure 3) The relationship that has been
consolidating between General Atomics and the U.S. Air Force since the early 1990s has been mediated and facilitated in Congress by influential
congressional representatives, led by southern Californian Republican Rep. Jerry Lewis, a member of the House Appropriations Defense Committee and
vice-chairman of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence. Lewis, a favored recipient of General Atomics campaign contributions, used his
appropriations influence to ensure that the Air Force gained full control of the UAV program by 1998. Lewis, a prominent member of the Drone Caucus,
has received at least $10,000 every two years in campaign contributions from General Atomics political action committee $80,000 since 1998,
according to OpenSecrets.org. During the 2012 campaign cycle, General Atomics was the congressmans top campaign donor.32 The top ranking recipient
of General Atomics campaign contributions is not a CUSC member. Senator Diane Feinsteins (D-Calif.) contributions from General Atomics easily placed

her at the top of the list. Feinstein, who chairs the powerful Senate Intelligence Committee, was also favored in campaign contributions by Linden Blue, the
president of General Atomics. (See Figure 4) Senator Feinstein has been a highly consistent supporter of the intelligence community and military budgets.
Her failure to oppose the clandestine drone strikes ordered by the White House and CIA have sparked widespread criticism by those who argue the strikes
are unconstitutional, illegal under international law and counterproductive as a counterterrorism tactic.33 In 2012, General Atomics was Feinsteins third
largest campaign contributor, while other leading contributors were the military contractors General Dynamics (from which General Atomics emerged),
BAE Systems and Northrup Grumman.34 Feinsteins connections to General Atomics extend beyond being top recipient of their campaign contributions.
Rachel Miller, a former (2003-2007) legislative assistant for Feinstein, has served as a paid lobbyist for General Atomics, both working directly for the firm
(in 2011) and as a General Atomics lobbyist employed by Capitol Solutions (2009 - present), one of the leading lobbying firms contracted by General
Atomics.35 And did you know that Linden Blue plans to marry Retired Rear Adm. Ronne Froman? Few others knew about the engagement of this highsociety San Diego couple until Senator Feinstein announced the planned marriage at a mid-November 2012 meeting of the downtown San Diego business
community news that quickly appeared in the Society pages of the San Diego Union-Tribune. There has been no explanation offered why Feinstein broke
this high-society news, but the announcement certainly did point to the senators likely personal connections to Blue and Froman (who was hired by
General Atomics as senior vice-president in December 2007 and has since left the firm).36 Campaign contributions and personal connections create
goodwill and facilitate contracts. General Atomics also counts on the results produced by a steady stream of lobbying dollars which have risen
dramatically since 2003, and been averaging $2.5 million annually since 2005. In 2012, General Atomics spent $2,470,000 lobbying Congress.37
Congressional earmarks were critical to the rise of the Predator, both its earlier unarmed version as well as the later Hunter-Killer. The late senator
Daniel K. Inouye, the Hawaii Democrat who chaired the Senate Appropriations Committee, told the New York Times that if the House ban on commercial
earmarks that was introduced in 2010 had been in effect earlier, we would not have the Predator today. Tens of millions of dollars in congressional
earmarks in the 1990s went to General Atomics and other military contractors for the early development of what became the Predator program, reported
the New York Times.38 Inouye was a source of a number of these multimillion earmarks for General Atomics, whose large campaign contributions to the
influential Hawaii senator from 1998 to 2012 ($5000 in this last campaign) could be regarded as thank-you notes since Inouye faced insignificant political
opposition. Besides campaign contributions, General Atomics routinely hands out favors to congressional representatives thought likely to support drone
proliferation. A 2006 report by the Center for Public Integrity identified Jerry Lewis as one of two congressional members and more than five dozen
congressional staffers who traveled overseas courtesy of General Atomics. The centers report, The Top Gun of Travel, observed this little-known
California defense contractor [has] far outspent its industry competitors on travel for more than five years and in 2005 landed promises of billions of
dollars in federal business. Most of this business was in the form of drone development and procurement by the Pentagon and DHS. Questioned about
this pattern of corporate-sponsored trips, Thomas Cassidy, founder of General Atomics Aeronautical Systems, said, [Its] useful and very helpful, in fact,
when you go down and talk to the government officials to have congressional people go along and discuss the capabilities of [the plane] with them, A
follow-up investigation by the San Diego Union-Tribune reported, Most of that was spent on overseas travel related to the unmanned Predator spy plane
made by General Atomics Aeronautical Systems, an affiliated company.39 Looking desperately for oversight In practice, theres more boosterism than
effective oversight in the House Homeland Security Committee and its Subcommittee on Border and Maritime Security, which oversees DHSs rush to
deploy drones to keep the homeland secure. The same holds true for most of the more than one hundred other congressional committees that purportedly
oversee the DHS and its budget.40 Since DHSs creation, Congress has routinely approved annual and supplementary budgets for border security that
have been higher than those requested by the president and DHS. CCUS member and chair of the House Border and Maritime Security subcommittee,
Representative Candice Miller, R-Michigan, is effusive and unconditional in her support of drones. Miller described her personal conviction that drones are
the answer to border insecurity at the July 15, 2010 subcommittee hearing on UAVs.41 You know, my husband was a fighter pilot in Vietnam theater, so
from another generation, but I told him, I said, Dear, the glory days of the fighter jocks are over. The UAVs, the Unmanned Aerial Vehicles are coming,
continued Miller, and now you see our military siting in a cubicle sometimes in Nevada, drinking a Starbucks, running these things in theater and being
incredibly, incredibly successful. The uncritical drone boosterism in Congress was underscored in a Washington Post article on the use of drones for
border security. In his trips to testify on Capitol Hill, Kostelnik said he had never been challenged in Congress about the appropriate use of homeland
security drones. Instead, the question is: Why cant we have more of them in my district? remarked the OAM chief.42 Since 2004, the DHSs UAV
program has drawn mounting concern and criticism from the governments own oversight and research agencies, including the Congressional Research
Service, the Government Accountability Office and the DHSs own Office of Inspector General.43 These government entities have repeatedly raised
questions about the cost-efficiency, strategic focus and performance of the homeland security drones. Yet, rather than subjecting DHS officials to sharp
questioning, the congressional committees overseeing homeland security and border security operations have, for the most part, readily and often
enthusiastically accepted the validity of undocumented assertions by testifying CBP officials. The House Subcommittee on Border and Maritime Security
has been especially notorious for its lack of critical oversight. As part of the budgetary and oversight process, the House and Senate committees that
oversee DHS have not insisted that CBP undertake cost-benefit evaluations, institute performance measures, implement comparative evaluations of its
high-tech border security initiatives, or document how its UAV program responds to realistic threat assessments. Instead of providing proper oversight and
ensuring that CBP/OAMs drone program is accountable and transparent, congressional members from both parties seem more intent on boosting drone
purchases and drone deployment. As CBP was about to begin its first drone deployments in 2005 as part of the Operation Safeguard pilot project, the
Congressional Research Service observed: Congress will likely conduct oversight of Operation Safeguard before considering wider implementation of this
technology. Unfortunately, Congress never reviewed the results of Operation Safeguard pilot project, and CBP declined requests by this writer to release
the report of this UAV pilot project.44 Congress has been delinquent in its oversight duties. In addition to the governmental research and monitoring
institutions, it has been mainly the nongovernmental sector including the American Civil Liberties Union, Electronic Frontier Foundation, Center for
Constitutional Rights, and the Center for International Policy that has alerted the public about the lack of transparency and accountability in the DHS
drone program and the absence of responsible governance over the domestic and international proliferation of UAVs. In September 2012, the Senate
formed its own bipartisan drone caucus, the Senate Unmanned Aerial Systems Caucus, co-chaired by Jim Inhofe (R-Okla.) and Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.). This
caucus will help develop and direct responsible policy to best serve the interests of U.S. national defense and emergency response, and work to address
any concerns from senators, staff and their constituents, said Inhofe.45 It is still too early to ascertain if the Senates drone caucus will follow its
counterpart in the House in almost exclusively focusing on promoting drone proliferation at home and abroad. It is expected, however, that caucus
members will experience increased flows of campaign contributions from the UAS industry. While Senator Manchin just won his first full-term in the 2012
election, Senator Inhofe has been favored by campaign contributions from military contractors, including General Atomics ($14,000 in 2012), since he took
office in 2007. His top campaign contributor was Koch Industries. For its part, AUVSI, the drone industry association, gushed in its quickly offered
commendation. I would like to commend Senators Inhofe and Manchin for their leadership and commitment in establishing the caucus, which will enable
AUVSI to work with the Senate and stakeholders on the important issues that face the unmanned systems community as the expanded use of the
technology transitions to the civil and commercial markets, said AUVSI President and CEO Michael Toscano. It is our hope to establish the same open
dialogue with the Senate caucus as we have for the past three years with the House Unmanned Systems Caucus, the AUVSI executive added.46 There is
rising citizen concern about drones and privacy and civil rights violations. The prospective opening of national airspace to UAVs has sparked a surge of
concern among many communities and states eleven of which are considering legislation in 2013 that would restrict how police and other agencies
would deploy drones. But paralleling new concern about the threats posed by drone proliferation is local and state interest in attracting new UAV testing
facilities and airbases for the FAA and other federal entities. FAA and industry projections about the number of UAVs (15,000 by 2020, 30,000 by 2030)
that may be using national airspace the same space used by all commercial and private aircraft have sparked a surge of new congressional activism,
with several new bills introduced by non-drone caucus members in the new Congress that respond to the new fears about drone proliferation. Yet there is
no one committee in the House or the Senate that has assumed the responsibility for UAV oversight to lead the way toward creating a foundation of laws

there is no federal agency or

congressional committee that is providing oversight over drone proliferation
whether in regard to U.S. drone exports, the expanding drone program of DHS,
drone-related privacy concerns, or UAV use by private or public firms and agencies.
and regulations establishing a political framework for UAV use going forward. At this point,

Gerald Dillingham, top official of the Government Accountability Office, testified in Congress about this oversight conundrum. When asked which part of
the federal government was responsible for regulating drone proliferation in the interest of public safety and civil rights, the GAO director said, At best, we

Homeland security drones are expanding their

range beyond the border, crossing over to local law enforcement agencies, other
federal civilian operations, and into national security missions. BORDER SECURITY TO LOCAL
can say its unknown at this point.47 III. CROSSOVER DRONES

SURVEILLANCE The rapid advance of drone technology has sparked interest by police and sheriff offices in acquiring drones. The federal government has
closely nurtured this new eagerness. Through grants, training programs and centers of excellence, the Departments of Justice and Homeland Security
have been collaborating with the drone industry and local law enforcement agencies to introduce unmanned aerial vehicles to the homeland. One example
is DHSs Urban Areas Security Initiative (UASI), a Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) program established to assist communities with
counterterrorism projects that provides grants to enable police and sheriffs departments to launch their own drone programs. In 2011, a DHS UASI grant of
$258,000 enabled the Montgomery County Sheriffs Office in Texas to purchase a ShadowHawk drone from Vanguard Defense Industries. DHS UASI grants
also allowed the city of Arlington, Texas to buy two small drones.48 Miami also counted on DHS funding to purchase its UAV. According to DHS, UASI
provides funding to address the unique planning, organization, equipment, training, and exercise needs of high-threat, high-density urban areas, and
assists them in building an enhanced and sustainable capacity to prevent, protect against, respond to, and recover from acts of terrorism.49 However, in
the UASI project proposals there is little or no mention of terrorism or counterterrorism. Instead, local police forces want drones to bolster their
surveillance capabilities and as an adjunct to their SWAT teams and narc squads. DHS is not the only federal department promoting drone deployment in
the homeland. Over the past four decades, the Department of Justices criminal-justice assistance grants have played a central role in shaping the
priorities and operations of state and local law enforcement.50 Through its National Institute of Justice, the Department of Justice (DOJ) has been working
closely with industry and local law enforcement to develop and evaluate low-cost unmanned aircraft systems.51 In 2011, National Institute of Justice
grants went to such large military contractors and drone manufacturers as Lockheed Martin, ManTech and L-3 Systems to operate DOJ-sponsored centers
of excellence devoted to the use of technology by local law enforcement for surveillance, communications, biometrics and sensors.53 In an October 4,
2012 presentation to the National Defense Industrial Association, OAM chief Kostelnik explained that the CBP drones were not limited to border control
duties. The OAM was, he said, the leading edge of deployment of UAS in the national airspace. This deployment wasnt limited to what are commonly
understood homeland security missions but extended to rapid contingency supports for Federal/State/Local missions. According to CBP: OAM provides
investigative air and marine support to Immigration and Customs Enforcement, as well as other federal, state, local, and international law enforcement
agencies.53 Incidents involving CBP drones in local law enforcement operations have surfaced in media reports, but CBP has thus far not released a record

DHS and CBP/OAM in

particular have failed to define the legal and constitutional limits of its drone
operations. Rather than following strict guidelines about the scope of its mission
and the range of homeland security drones, Kostelnik argued before the association of military contractors that CBP
operations [are] shaping the UAS policy debate in the United States. According to Kostelnik, the CBPs drones are on the
leading edge in homeland security. This cutting edge role of the CBP/OAM drones not only extends to local and state
of its support for local and state police, despite repeated requests by media and research organizations.

operations, including support for local law enforcement, but also to national security. [The] CBP UAS deployment vision strengthens the National Security
Response Capability. Border Security to National Security Most of the concern about the domestic deployment of drones by DHS has focused on the
crossover to law-enforcement missions that threaten privacy and civil rights and without more regulations in place will accelerate the transition to what
critics call a surveillance society. Also worth public attention and congressional review is the increasing interface between border drones and national
security and military missions. The prevalence of military jargon used by CBP officials such as defense in depth and situational awareness points to
at least a rhetorical overlapping of border control and military strategy. Another sign of the increasing coincidence between CBP/OAM drone program and
the military is that the commanders and deputies of OAM are retired military officers. Both Major General Michael Kostelnik and his successor Major
General Randolph Alles, retired from U.S. Marines, were highly placed military commanders involved in drone development and procurement. Kostelnik
was involved in the development of the Predator by General Atomics since the mid-1990s and was an early proponent of providing Air Force funding to
weaponize the Predator. As commander of the Marine Corps Warfighting Laboratory, Alles was a leading proponent of having each military branch work

In
promoting and justifying the DHS drone program, Kostelnik routinely alluded to
the national security potential of drones slated for border security duty . On several occasions
with military contractors to develop their own drone breeds, including near replicas of the Predator manufactured for the Army by General Atomics.57

Kostelnik pointed to the seamless interoperability with DOD UAV forces. At a moments notice, Kostelnik said that OAM could be CHOPed meaning a
Change in Operational Command from DHS to DOD.58 DHS has not released operational data about CBP/OAM drone operations. Therefore, the extent of
the participation of DHS drones in domestic and international operations is unknown. But statements by CBP officials and media reports from the
Caribbean point to a rapidly expanding participation of DHS Guardian UAVs in drug-interdiction and other unspecified operations as far south as Panama.
CBP states that OAM routinely provides air and marine support to other federal, state, and local law enforcement agencies and works with the U.S.
military in joint international anti-smuggling operations and in support of National Security Special Events [such as the Olympics]. According to Kostelnik,
CBP planned a Spring 2011 deployment of the Guardian to a Central American country in association with Joint Interagency Task Force South (JIATF-South)
based at the naval station in Key West, Florida.59 JIATF-South is a subordinate command to the United States Southern Command (USSOUTHCOM), whose
geographical purview includes the Caribbean, Central America and South America. In mid-2012, CBP/OAM participated in a JIATF-South collaborative
venture called Operation Caribbean Focus that involved flight over the Caribbean Sea and nations in the region with the Dominican Republic acting as
the regional host for the Guardian operations, which CBP/OAM considers a prototype for future transit zone UAS deployments. CBP says that OAM drones
have not been deployed within Mexico, but notes that OAM works in collaboration with the Government of Mexico in addressing border security issues,
without specifying the form and objectives of this collaboration.60 As part of the U.S. global drug war and as an extension of border security, unarmed

The U.S. Northern Command has acknowledged that the

U.S. military does fly a $38-million Global Hawk drone into Mexico to assist the
Mexicos war against the drug cartels.61 Communities, state legislatures and even some congressional members are
drones are also crossing the border into Mexico.

proceeding to enact legislation and revise ordinances to decriminalize or legalize the consumption of drugs, especially marijuana, targeted by the federal
governments drug war of more than four decades. At the same time, DHS has been escalating its contributions to the domestic and international drug war
in the name of both homeland security and national security. Drug seizures on the border and drug interdiction over coastal and neighboring waters are
certainly the top operative priorities of OAM. Enlisting its Guardian drones in SOUTHCOMs drug interdiction efforts underscores the increasing emphasis
within the entire CBP on counternarcotic operations. CBP is a DHS agency that is almost exclusively focused on tactics. While CBP as the umbrella agency
and the Office of the Border Patrol and OAM all have strategic plans, these plans are marked by their rigid military frameworks, their startling absence of
serious strategic thinking, and the diffuse distinctions between strategic goals and tactics. As a result of the border security buildup, south-north drug
flows (particularly cocaine and more high-value drugs) have shifted back to marine smuggling, mainly through the Caribbean, but also through the Gulf of

CBP/OAM has
rationalized the procurement of more UAVs on the shifts in the geographical arenas
of the drug war albeit couching the tactical changes in the new drug war language of transnational criminal organizations and
Mexico and the Pacific.62 Rather than reevaluating drug prohibition and drug control frameworks for border policy,

The overriding framework for CBP/OAM operations is evolving from border

security and homeland security to national security, as recent CBP presentations
about its Guardian deployments illustrates. Shortly before retiring after seven years as OAM first chief, Major General
narcoterrorism.

Kostelnik told a gathering of military contractors: CPBs UAS Deployment Vision strengthens the National Security Response Capability.63 He may well be
right, but the U.S. public and Congress need to know if DHS plans to institute guidelines and limits that regulate the extent of DHS operational

IV. No Transparency, No Accountability, No Defined Limits to

Homeland Security Drone Missions The UAV program of CBPs Office of Air and Marine is not top secret there are no secret
collaboration with DOD and the CIA.

ops, no targeted killings, no signature strikes against suspected terrorists, no clandestine bases like the CIA and U.S. military UAV operations overseas.
While the UAV program under DHS isnt classified, information about the program is scarce shielded by evasive program officials, the classification of key
documents, and the failure of CBP/OAM to share information about the number, objectives and performance of its UAV operations. DHS has also not been
forthcoming about its partnerships and shared missions with local law enforcement, foreign governments and the U.S. military and intelligence sectors.

CBP has kept a tight lid on its drone program. Over the past nine years, CBP has
steadily expanded its UAV program without providing any detailed information
about the programs strategic plan, performance and total costs. Information about the homeland security drones has been
limited, for the most part, to a handful of CBP announcements about new drone purchases and a series of unverifiable CBP statistics about drone-related
drug seizures and immigrant arrests.

Domestic drones in the US are unique other countries use

them as a justification for their own programs
Gucciardi 2013 (Anthony Gucciardi, creator of Storyleak, accomplished writer,
producer, and seeker of truth. His articles have been read by millions worldwide and
are routinely featured on major alternative news websites like the infamous Drudge
Report, Infowars, NaturalNews, G Edward Griffin's Reality Zone, and many others,
NEW PRECEDENT: ARMED DOMESTIC DRONE STRIKES WILL SOON BE REALITY,
http://www.storyleak.com/armed-domestic-drone-strikes-reality/, May 23, 2013)

A new precedent has been set.

Despite extensive denial that drone strikes would endanger Americans, Attorney
General Eric Holder has now openly admitted that four US citizens were killed through overseas drone strikes since 2009. While not on United States soil,

Yemen and Pakistan highlight the new precedent

being set by US government heads who wish to use drones as a
form of lethal enforcement on US soil. With Holder admitting that Americans have already died via drone
the deaths of the US citizens in nations like

following his statements that Obama can already initiate drone strikes on US soil , we
are now seeing the way paved to go ahead and announce armed drones to fight
terrorism here in the US. We all remember the initial rhetoric that drones were no real threat, and that they were simply unarmed
strikes

scouting machines used to save lives overseas. Then, we saw them rapidly enter the nation, and we heard the same tired reassurances. We saw them
killing innocents overseas with the high powered weaponry being attached to these scouting drones, and we see them still doing so today. But, once
again, were told not to worry. Political talking heads like Eric Holder assure us that domestic drones, for which over 1,400 permits have been issued, are
not meant to be used as weapons. Well, that is unless Obama decides to use the drones as a weapon of war on US soil. ARMED DOMESTIC DRONES IN THE
NEAR FUTURE Despite the message of assurance regarding the promise that domestic drones would never turn into government-controlled war machines,

Holder decided to go ahead and announce that it would actually be entirely legal for Obama
to issue a drone strike on a US citizen on domestic soil . In fact, CNN reports that Holder
does not rule out the possibility of domestic drone strikes , and that a scenario could
occur in the future. And to strike someone with a drone, of course, you would need weaponry. You would need an armed drone. In other
words, Holder is going against the major promise by the FAA official who promised
that no armed drones will be flying on domestic soil . But dont worry, Holder says the government has no
Eric

intention right now of issuing drone strikes on US soil. Just like the government never targeted Constitution and conservative-based groups through the
IRS and would never use domestic drones to spy on you. Quite simply, if any power is given to these individuals in government, be sure of one thing: they

drone strikes on US soil

against citizens is an even more serious threat. The 3,000 plus deaths from drone strikes overseas in Pakistan
will use it. And knowing the track record of drone strikes overseas and how they greatly affect the innocent,

alone, which vastly affect the innocent and non-threatening, have even prompted Google employees and big firms alike to develop charts and interactive
maps to detail the deaths in a manner that portrays the reality of the situation. One design firm known as Pitch recently went and created an interactive
chart that, along with detailing how less than 2% of strike victims are high priority targets, documents the drone strike deaths throughout recent years.

We continue to hear these major announcements from Holder regarding drone

strikes, and each time it pushes the precedent further. Each time, he warps the law to
justify what is being done with drone attacks, and each time we come closer to the announcement that we need to use armed drones against domestic

Just wait for the next terrorist hunt in the US for a high profile crime case to
hear more from Holder and the gang on why we need armed domestic drones to
keep us safe. It already happened with Dorner and others.
terrorists.

Those norms set a dangerous precedent leads to global

conflict escalation especially in Asia
Taylor 2013 [Guy, U.S. intelligence warily watches for threats to U.S. now that
87 nations possess drones,
http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2013/nov/10/skys-the-limit-for-wide-wildworld-of-drones/?page=all]

intelligence agencies are warily monitoring their proliferation

around the globe. China uses them to spy on Japan near disputed islands in Asia. Turkey uses
them to eyeball Kurdish activity in northern Iraq. Bolivia uses them to spot coca fields in the Andes. Iran
reportedly has given them to Syria to monitor opposition rebels. The U.S., Britain and Israel are the only nations to
The age of the drone is here, and U.S.

have fired missiles from remote-controlled drones, but the proliferation of unmanned aerial vehicles has become so prevalent that

it is merely a matter of time before other countries

use the technology. People in Washington like to talk about this as if the supposed American monopoly on drones might
U.S. intelligence sources and private analysts say

end one day. Well, the monopoly ended years ago, said Peter W. Singer, who heads the Center for 21st Century Security and

clandestine strikes carried out by Washington in

have set a precedent that could be ugly. Mr. Singer said as many as 87
nations possess some form of drones and conduct various kinds of surveillance either over their own territories
Intelligence at the Brookings Institution. Whats worse,
far-flung corners of the world

or beyond. Among those 87, he said, 26 have either purchased or developed drones equivalent in size to the MQ-1 Predator the
model made by San Diego-based General Atomics. While American Predators and their updated sister, the MQ-9 Reaper, are capable
of carrying anti-armor Hellfire missiles, the clandestine nature of foreign drone programs makes it difficult to determine how many
other nations have armed drones. Defense industry and other sources who spoke with The Washington Times said 10 to 15 nations
are thought to be working hard on doing just that, and China and Iran are among those with the most advanced programs. Global
developments in the UAV arena are being tracked closely, said one U.S. intelligence official, who spoke with The Times on the
condition of anonymity. Efforts by some countries to acquire armed UAV systems are concerning, not least because of the
associated proliferation risk. Other sources said that while the international media have focused on the controversy and political

Washingtons
unprecedented success with the technology both in targeting and killing suspected terrorists has
inspired a new kind of arms race. Its natural that other nations and non-state
actors, seeing the many ways the U.S. has leveraged the technology, are keen to
acquire remotely piloted aircraft, said Lt. Gen. Robert P. Otto, Air Force deputy chief of staff for
backlash associated with civilian casualties from U.S. drone strikes in Pakistan, Yemen and Somalia,

intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance. Race to the skies The number of nations possessing drones nearly doubled from 41 to
76 from 2005 to 2011, according to a report last year by the Government Accountability Office, which highlighted the fact that U.S.
companies are no longer alone in manufacturing and marketing the technology. Many countries acquired their UAVs from Israel,
said the report. It said Germany, France, Britain, India, Russia and Georgia have either leased or purchased Israeli drones, including
the Heron, a model that many foreign militaries see as a good alternative to the American-made Predators and Reapers. A report
this year by Teal Group, a Virginia-based aerospace and defense industry analysis corporation, said UAVs have come to represent
the most dynamic growth sector of the global aerospace industry, with spending on drones projected to more than double from
roughly $5.2 billion a year today to more than $11 billion in 2022. China is widely seen as a potential powerhouse in the market.
Chinese companies have marketed both armed drones and weapons specifically designed for UAV use, said Steven J. Zaloga, a top
analyst at Teal Group. Its a case where if they dont have the capability today, theyll have it soon. Although there is concern in
Washington that China will sell the technology to American adversaries, sources say, the U.S. also is pushing ahead with
development of its own secretive next generation drones. Todays models emerged in the post-9/11 era of nonconventional conflict
a time when American use of both weaponized and surveillance-only drones has been almost exclusively over chaotic patches of
the planet void of traditional anti-aircraft defenses. With little or no need to hide, relatively bulky drones such as the MQ-1 Predator
dominated the market. But the big secret, Mr. Zaloga said, is that the U.S. is already working on both armed and unarmed UAVs
that can operate in defended airspace. Another factor likely to fuel the proliferation of armed drones, he said, centers on a global
push to make very small weapons that can be tailored to fit smaller aircraft. This matters because of the roughly 20,000 drones
now in existence, only about 350 are large enough to carry the slate of weapons on the current market. What the new munitions

will do is mean that if youre operating the smaller UAVs, youll be able to put weapons on them, said Mr. Zaloga. And those

One serious concern in

Washington is that smaller drones could be used by groups such as al Qaeda or
Hezbollah, the Iran-backed militant and political organization based in Lebanon that is engaged in a protracted war with Israel.
smaller UAVs are being manufactured now by quite a few countries. In the wrong hands?

The U.S. intelligence official who spoke with The Times on the condition of anonymity said it is getting easier for non-state actors to
acquire this technology. Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah made headlines by claiming his group flew a drone into Israeli airspace
last year, after Israel announced that it had shot a UAV out of the sky. Although Mr. Nasrallah said the drone was made in Iran and
assembled in Lebanon, little is known about precisely what type it was or whether it was armed. Armed or not, U.S. officials are
wary. No one is turning a blind eye to the growing use of surveillance-only UAV systems including by non-state actors even if
these systems have a host of beneficial civil applications, said the official who spoke with The Times. One

problem is
that countries may perceive these systems as less provocative than armed
platforms and might use them in cross-border operations in a way that actually
stokes regional tension. That appears to be happening in Asia, where Japan
recently threatened to shoot down Chinese drones flying near the disputed Senkaku
Islands in the East China Sea. Northeast Asian countries are likely to invest heavily
in drone technology, said Patrick M. Cronin, senior director of the Asia-Pacific Security
Program at the Center for a New American Security in Washington. But even before these
investments are manifested in wider deployments, Japan will be relying on UAVs for wider and better surveillance, particularly
around its southwest island chain, while China will be using them to variably challenge Japanese administrative control and,
indirectly, pressure the United States to restrain its ally, said Mr. Cronin. This vital new technology is improving situational

if used more offensively the same technology may also

accelerate a maritime crisis in the East or even South China Sea. U.S.
awareness. But, paradoxically,

precedents Others say the U.S. and its closest allies have set a precedent with clandestine drone strikes in foreign lands. Although
British forces have carried out hundreds of drone strikes in Afghanistan and Israel has used drone-fired missiles to kill suspected
terrorists in Egypts Sinai Peninsula, as well as Islamic militants in Gaza, the most widespread use has been directed by the U.S.
military and CIA. In addition to strikes in Libya and Somalia, the U.S. has carried out more than 375 strikes in Pakistan and as many
as 65 in Yemen over the past nine years, according to the London-based Bureau of Investigative Journalism. The concern, said the

adversaries will point to U.S. behavior as an excuse for

carrying out cross-border targeting of high-value individuals. Thats where you
have the problem, he said. Turkey carries out a strike in northern Iraq and then cites U.S. precedent in Pakistan to justify
Brookings Institutions Mr. Singer, is that

it. Or Iran carries out a drone strike inside Syria that the Syrian government says its fine with because its a lawless area where

they throw the precedent back at the U.S.

That would make it sticky for us, said Mr. Singer. Thats not the broader norm we
want out there.
what they call terrorists are hanging out, and then

Only regulation of domestic drones can prevent warfare on

citizens and bolster the industry
Ahsanuddin et al 2014 (Sadia - principal investigator for the report and MPAC
research fellow; Domestic Drones: Implications for Privacy and Due Process in the
United States; Sep 8; www.mpac.org/publications/policy-papers/domesticdrones.php; kdf)
Drones also impact due process rights. Drones

are perhaps best known for the role they play in

conducting signature strikes against suspected militants abroad. Will civilians on American soil ever be
subjected to drone attacks? Should civilians fear the weaponization of drones or their use in
delivering lethal payloads? Although the Fifth and Fourteenth Amendments assure individuals
of the right to due process before the deprivation of life, liberty, or property, these rig hts have already
begun to erode due to the global war on terror and the use of drones to conduct
signature strikes by virtue of executive decisions that are devoid of judicial review.
With the mass introduction of domestic drones, there remains a threat and
real fear that drones may be used to deprive individuals of life, liberty, or property

with no opportunity to dispute the charges brought against them.

Americans of all
ethnicities and creeds are likely to be affected by the domestic deployment of drones. American Muslims have a
special contribution to make to this discussion. Having been subjected to special law enforcement attention and

American Muslims find themselves particularly susceptible to infractions of

civil liberties. As representatives of the American Muslim population and with the expertise to ground our
scrutiny,

analysis, the Muslim Public Affairs Council (MPAC) proposes the following guidelines to address the issues of law
enforcement use of drones, data collection, weaponization of drones, due process, oversight, and transparency:
Law enforcement use of drones should be restricted. Data collection should be strictly monitored. The FAA
should require, not merely recommend, that test sites incorporate the Fair Information Principles into their privacy
policies. The weaponization of drones should be prohibited. The right to due process should be preserved.
States and individuals should have the ability to bring a cause of action against an entity that, in operating a drone,
violates their rights. Drone deployment by federal agents must be subjected to Congressional oversight and local
public drone use should be subjected to local city council oversight. The general public should be engaged in the
development of policy guidelines by a public body intending to operate drones. In keeping with the principle of
transparency, the FAA should make available to the public the names of drone applicants, the holders of Certificates

Adequate protection of
privacy is necessary to allow the public to take advantage of drone technology
without becoming a society in which every movement is monitored by the
authorities. Simultaneously, drone developers need regulations so that they can conduct
research and development unimpeded by protests and news reports. Additionally, the
of Authorization, other licensees, and privacy policies of drone-operating agencies.

weaponization of drones on domestic soil poses a threat to due process rights and public safety. This was
acknowledged by Sen. Dianne Feinstein, who called for a total prohibition on the weaponization of domestic
drones.13 Indeed, politicians and policymakers representing a broad spectrum of political views advocate
regulations for domestic drones.

Plan
The United States federal government should require law
enforcement agents to receive a probable cause warrant prior
conducting aerial surveillance.

Contention 2 Solvency
The plan is the only way to balance privacy and security
concerns
Rothfuss 2014 (Ian F [George Mason School of Law]; Student Comment: An
Economic Perspective on the Privacy Implications of Domestic Drone Surveillance;
10 J.L. Econ. & Pol'y 441; kdf)
IV. Legislative and Policy Recommendations This section discusses the current policy and legislative
recommendations regarding drone surveillance and applies economic analysis to recommend an optimal way

Developing new laws and policies to address the privacy threats presented by
domestic drone surveillance will involve the difficult balancing of many special
interests and the individual privacy rights of U.S. citizens . n147 Therefore, in drafting a legal
framework for domestic drone surveillance, Congress should consider economic factors and
establish a framework which allows the use of drones with constraints to protect the
privacy interests of U.S. citizens. As an objective methodology, these economic perspectives
should lead lawmakers and policymakers to enact rules that will efficiently
maximize utility while protecting privacy interests. The new framework should address the
forward.

privacy concerns arising out of the domestic use of drones, while still allowing society to realize the technological

Congress must consider many factors when determining how to best

integrate drones into U.S. airspace . n148 In addition, the proposed policies should be compared with
benefits.

the policies in countries such as the United Kingdom, where general surveillance is more commonplace. n149 In July
2012, the Association for Unmanned Vehicle Systems International (AUVSI) issued a code of conduct that attempted
to address concerns associated with the deployment of drones. n150 Among other elements, the code of conduct
requires industry members to "respect the privacy of individuals" and "comply with all federal, state, and local laws,
ordinances, covenants, and restrictions." n151 The code of conduct has been viewed as insufficient since it only
lists broad topics, does not discuss specific privacy concerns, and does not elaborate on how the provisions will be
enforced. n152 Current recommendations address a number of concerns regarding the widespread deployment of
drones in the United States. Among these are recommendations from the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU)
n153 and legislation currently pending in both houses of Congress. n154 The first group of recommendations to
consider is usage restrictions. It is generally accepted that drones and other means of surveillance may be used
when a warrant has been issued because probable cause exists. Therefore, the focus of [*459] pending legislation
and policy recommendations is on when the use of drones should be allowed without a warrant, if at all. The ACLU
proposes that drone

use should be limited to three purposes: (1) "where there are

specific and articulable grounds to believe that the drone will collect evidence
relating to a specific instance of criminal wrongdoing or, if the drone will intrude upon
reasonable expectations of privacy, where the government has obtained a warrant based on
probable cause;" n155 (2) "where there is a geographically confined, time-limited
emergency situation in which particular individuals' lives are at risk;" n156 or (3) "for reasonable nonlaw enforcement purposes . . . where privacy will not be substantially affected ." n157
Similarly, both the House and Senate versions of the Preserving Freedom from Unwanted Surveillance Act of 2013
provide for three exceptions to the warrant requirement: (1) "patrol of borders"; (2) "exigent circumstances"; and
(3) "high risk" of terrorist attack, as determined by the Secretary of Homeland Security. n158 The definition of
exigent circumstances differs in the two bills. The Senate bill defines exigent circumstances to only include action
necessary to "prevent imminent danger to life," n159 while the House bill uses a broader definition that also
includes "serious damage to property, or to forestall the imminent escape of a suspect, or destruction of evidence."

The broader definition of exigent circumstances in the House of Representatives

version of the bill n161 is appropriate since it will give law enforcement more
latitude to protect the American people in addition to providing for civil liability n162
as a check against improper use of this authority. The next recommendation is to consider
n160

whether there should be an exclusionary rule that would make any evidence gathered without a warrant or other
legal authorization inadmissible in a criminal proceeding. The Senate bill also includes an exclusionary rule that
would prohibit evidence collected in violation of the Act from being used in criminal prosecution. n163 Exclusionary

rules can overdeter criminal investigations. n164 Therefore, unless a compelling case can be made as to why it is
necessary, it would be more efficient not to include an exclusionary rule in the legislation. Another consideration is
whether drones operating in the United States should be allowed to carry weapons like drones operating overseas
which [*460] are used to target enemy combatants. One recommendation is to prohibit law enforcement from
arming drones. n165 Drones have the ability to conduct remote precision strikes on suspects, but due process
concerns and the dangers resulting from armed unmanned aircraft preclude the viability of this option within the

domestic drones should be prohibited from carrying weapons of

any kind. Congress should enact rules to govern domestic drone use . One
United States. Therefore,

recommendation is that Congress should require the Department of Transportation to conduct a Privacy Impact
Assessment of the operation of drones domestically. n166 Pending legislation proposes amending the FAA
Modernization and Reform Act of 2012 to address drone privacy concerns. n167 With the proper focus on privacy
concerns, drones may be deployed domestically while still protecting the privacy of American citizens. In addition,

Congress should require a warrant for "extended surveillance of a particular target."

n168 As discussed earlier, the Fourth Amendment would not necessarily require a warrant in these situations. Even

such a requirement extending warrant protections makes sense and will provide a
valuable check against law enforcement abuse of the new technology . Congress
should require authorization from an independent official for generalized
surveillance that collects personally identifiable information such as facial features
and license plate numbers. n169 This recommendation would apply to situations where a warrant was not
so,

required but personally identifiable information was still being gathered, such as surveillance at a public event. This
recommendation should be enacted as a safeguard of the public's privacy interests. To adequately protect privacy
interests, Congress should direct that the independent official, vested with decision-making power on applications
for general surveillance, be a neutral and detached magistrate who is completely separated from any law
enforcement or intelligence agency. As discussed in the previous section, legislation should be crafted to maximize
the social utility from the domestic use of drones. The legislation should be structured according to the three levels
of scrutiny proposed by Song to ensure that the governmental interest in the surveillance outweighs the disutility or
social cost that will result from the loss of privacy. n170 The neutral and detached magistrate discussed above
could determine when a sufficient government interest exists to warrant allowing generalized drone surveillance.
[*461] Additional policy recommendations include an image retention restriction n171 and a requirement to file a
data collection statement to obtain a FAA license to operate a drone. n172 These recommendations should be
incorporated into the legislation. Congress should require a data collection statement with applications for a FAA
license to operate a drone. A key element of the required data collection statement should address the retention of
images and other data obtained. n173 Such a restriction would mandate that all images and other sensory data
gathered through surveillance be deleted unless the information serves a valid, legal purpose that requires
retention. n174 This restriction is necessary to prevent the government or any other entity from amassing an
essentially limitless database of information on the activities of U.S. citizens without a valid and specified purpose.
Collectively,

enacting these recommendations would prevent widespread, general

drone surveillance while allowing drones to be utilized domestically when
reasonably warranted to maintain security or protect the interests of American
citizens. Therefore, these recommendations would adequately protect the privacy
interests of American citizens while allowing law enforcement and other entities to
utilize drones to protect our country and serve other worthwhile endeavors.

Establishing limits on drones is the only method to revitalize

the fourth amendment
San Pedro 2014 (Victoria [J.D. Candidate, Stetson University College of Law];
STUDENT WORK: DRONE LEGISLATION: KEEPING AN EYE ON LAW ENFORCEMENT'S
LATEST SURVEILLANCE TECHNOLOGY; 43 Stetson L. Rev. 679; kdf)
V. CONCLUSION AND RECOMMENDATIONS With the ubiquity of drone licenses among American law enforcement

While
state statutes and proposed federal legislation attempt to limit law enforcement's
ability to use drones in surveillance efforts, those proposals and statutes do not
agencies, n288 the drag-net surveillance that was once a laughable concept n289 is now a reality. n290

adequately address the duration of the sur-veillance or the sophistication of the

technology used by law enforcement to enhance drone capabilities . Therefore, by requiring a warrant and restricting law enforcement from conducting drone surveillance for a period lasting longer than
twenty-four hours, the proposed legislation will best address the issues left open by Fourth Amendment

including the exigent circumstances language into the

legislation will allow law enforcement agencies to better understand the
circumstances that would permit the use of a drone . Because the courts have addressed exigent
circumstances on numerous occasions, n291 law enforcement agencies may already have
protocols and officer training dealing with exigent cir-cumstances. R ather than drafting
jurisprudence. [*720] Further,

legislation that attempts to describe a circumstance meriting the use of a drone, n292 using the exigent
circumstances language will allow law enforcement agen-cies to comply with Fourth Amendment jurisprudence
already defined by the Court. Similarly,

legislation imposing a time restriction on the dura-tion

of the surveillance will provide law enforcement agencies with a bright-line rule that
facilitates application across the board. Since the current Fourth Amendment jurisprudence provides
that one does not have a reasonable expectation of pri-vacy from all observations of one's property, n293 this
statutory lan-guage will provide a reasonable expectation of privacy from prolonged observations of one's property.

This proposal would comply with current Fourth Amendment jurisprudence

regarding fly-over aerial observations and would also be consistent with the mosaic
theory. n294 Further, this proposal limits law enforcement's ability to use any form of drone technology. Given
that the technological advancements in this field will likely continue to progress at a rapid pace, any proposed
legislation should incorporate an objective standard defining the permissible level of technology or an outright
prohibition on the use of all drone surveillance. In this way, we can align the use of this form of technology with
Fourth Amendment protections. Rather than providing vague standards, such as technology that is not in general

this
proposal would allow law enforcement to be exempt from the warrant requirement
for exigent circumstances, while also allowing them to obtain a warrant from a
neutral and detached magistrate when law enforcement intends to conduct longterm surveillance, thereby ensuring that law enforcement agencies comply with the
warrant requirement of the Fourth Amendment and respect citizens' privacy rights.
public use, the general restriction provides a bright-line rule to law enforcement agencies. [*721] Therefore,

Federal action is uniquely key

Harman 2015 (Jane [Former Rep, D-CA]; The undercooked debate on domestic
drones; may 1; thehill.com/opinion/op-ed/240728-the-undercooked-debate-ondomestic-drones; kdf)
Today, lawmakers worldwide are sleepwalking through a privacy and security crisis. How
many secure sites have to be compromised before we wake up to the full challenges posed by commercial and law

The Federal Aviation Administration

unveiled rules this February that would make it much easier to operate drones in
the United States: for law enforcement agencies conducting surveillance, for
commercial firms, and for private individuals. Make no mistake: eventually, the last two groups
enforcement UAVs or, in common parlance, by drones?

could include bad actors, even terrorists. Its hard to overstate how undercooked the debate on this future is. The
stakes are high; our privacy and our security are at risk. The implications for privacy and surveillance are huge. In
2012, the Supreme Court ruled that tracking a car using an attached GPS beacon, without a warrant, is
unconstitutional. But what if police use a roving drone instead? That debate is raging in Virginia now, which two
years ago imposed a two-year moratorium on warrantless drone surveillance. Thats where most of the regulatory

At the federal
level, we have a leadership vacuum. With a technological revolution on its way,
Washington is AWOL. How do you square this new world with our Constitution? As Brookings Institution
action is happening on this issue: in concerned states and municipalities across the country.

senior fellow John Villasenor said in 2012, The FAA, I would imagine, has more aviation lawyers than Fourth
Amendment constitutional lawyers. Then there are the new security challenges. Authorities have a poor track
record detecting small aircraft that fly where they shouldnt. In 2010, a Mexican government drone went down in an

El Paso backyard; though NORAD later said it had been tracking the plane, local officials seem to have been taken
entirely by surprise. This month, a postal employee flew a (manned) gyrocopter to Capitol Hill through some of the
most restricted airspace in the country. Incidents like these severely undermine confidence in our preparedness.
One day, one of the craft slipping under our radar will do us harm. Iran has poured funds into developing a suicide
drone essentially a cheap, nimble cruise missile. Its not hard to imagine terrorists building do-it-yourself versions
of the same device, a pipe bomb or pressure cooker strapped to a small UAV. This is a concern others have raised
for years, but it took a drone landing feet from the White House for the Secret Service to start trying out jamming
technology an issue they should have been thinking about years ago. Many drone countermeasures are still
primitive; some of the solutions are worse than the problem. Popular Science advised the White House, Simple
netting, used often at drone trade shows to keep small drones confident to their exhibitions, could also work, if the

We need a serious policy response that

engages Congress; federal, state, and local government and the private sector. This issue is too big
for the FAA, too urgent to postpone, and too important to leave off the national
agenda. Lately, Congress has devoted impressive attention to new risks in
cyberspace. It should put at least as much effort into understanding drones. One option
President wanted to live inside a net all the time.

is to encourage commercial firmsthrough either voluntary or mandatory standardsto hardwire restrictions into
the drones they build and sell. Some companies already program their drones to stay out of restricted airspace and
away from sensitive sites.

Those efforts need a push and a signal boost from government.

The justifications for data collection are wrought with faulty

logiconly increasing the amount of info available to public
can keep the homeland safe
Scheer 2015 (Robert [Prof @ USCs School of journalism and communication];
They Know Everything About You; Nation Books; p. 208-212; kdf)
WE MUST CHALLENGE THE ASSUMPTION THAT PROTECTING national security
requires sacrificing the constitutional rights of the individual. As pointed out in this book,
the Fourth Amendment does not contain an absolute ban on searches and seizures but, rather, requires
a court-authorized warrant based on probable cause of a crime before invading an
individual's private space. All Yahoo was asking of the court was that the searches of its company's
customers meet this requirement. Instead, the government responded that the so-called War on Terrorism could not
be won on that basis, and the secret FISA court endorsed the view. As Stewart Baker, the former NSA general
counsel and Homeland Security official in the Bush administration, told the Washington Post after the Yahoo case
documents were released: "I'm always astonished how people are willing to abstract these decisions from the actual
stakes." He went on to say that "[w]e're talking about trying to gather information about people who are trying to
kill us and who will succeed if we don't have robust information about their activities. "26 As demonstrated in

there is simply no serious evidence that the mass surveillance

program initiated under President Bush provided the sort of "robust information" Baker claims
was required to identify the people "trying to kill us." Yet, as this book goes to press, we have
been presented with still another case study in the rise of a terrorist movement -the
Islamic State oflraq and Syria (ISIS), whose members are creating considerable mayhem in Iraq and Syria-for
previous chapters, however,

which the mass surveillance techniques of the NSA left us totally unprepared. They appeared suddenly, startlingly
so, these black-clad men of ISIS, beheading journalists and others27 as they formed their proclaimed Sunni

the
fearsome spectacle of a terrorist enemy drove reason from the stage and the chant
of war was in the air. The New York Times carried the text ofObama's speech to the nation on September 10,
Caliphate over a broad swath of Syria and lraq. 28 Once again, as with the al Qaeda attacks of 9/11,

2014, in which he vowed to "destroy the terrorist group."29 Defense Secretary Chuck Hegel said that ISIS poses an

all the arguments for peace and restraint

were cast aside and the defense of privacy and civil liberty seemed an unaffordable
indulgence in the rush to combat an enemy of such awesome power and mystery .
"imminent threat to every interest we have."30 Suddenly,

Lost in the moment of fear-induced passion was the fact that these men of ISIS who so alarmed us, like their cousins
in al Qaeda, were hardly unknown or mysterious beings, but instead monsters partially of our own creation. Adam
Gopnik reinforced this point in an August 2014 article in the New Yorker. "ISIS is a horrible group doing horrible

things, and there are many factors behind its rise," he wrote. "But they came to be a threat and a power less
because of all we didn't do than because of certain things we did do-foremost among them that massive, forward
intervention, the Iraq War. (The historical question to which ISIS is the answer is: What could possibly be worse than

when the public was so illserved with alarmist information about the extent of the terrorist threat-the
president was presumably in possession of that vast trove of intelligence data
collected by the NSA and analyzed with the brilliant software of the best Silicon
Valley datamining companies such as the media-celebrated Palantir. And yet there is no evidence that
this costly and intrusive effort was the least bit useful in predicting the rise of ISIS. Clearly, there is a
disturbing disconnect between the zeal with which big data is collected and the lack
of scientific precision in utilizing that data to make sound policy decisions and to
inform the public as to the necessity of action . It is also difficult to see just how that data, based as
Saddam Hussein?)"31 Now, once again-and this time as compared to 9 I 11,

it is on the minutiae of the lives of much of the world's population, is useful to an understanding of this threat. This
book explains the continued rise of a military-intelligence complex that, through the assertion of a pressing danger
to national security after 9 I 11, made an unfettered and largely unchallenged claim upon the vast amount of
private data collected in a wired world by government and private enterprises. It is a claim based on the
unquestioned assumption that what passes for military intelligence is sufficiently and uniquely productive of useful
insight to warrant the costs to our democracy as well as our federal budget, and that less invasive means of
research such as scholarship, journalism, and traditional shoe-leather spy and detective work are inherently
inadequate to the task of protecting us in a cyberworld. It is a commonly persuasive argument and difficult to
challenge given that the high-tech surveillance is cloaked in such tight secrecy. In the wake of the Snowden
revelations, when there was a much-heightened public awareness of the threat to privacy and a willingness, even

all it took was the appearance of a

renewed terrorist threat to develop anew a consensus that privacy needed to be
surrendered as an unaffordable risk to the nation's security. Just the opposite is the case.
on the part of Congress, to address the issue more vigorously,

What now passes for military intelligence is a tech -driven oxymoron that denies the place of historical
contemplation, cultural and religious study, political complexity, and ethical restraints in assessing dangers to a
nation.

Never has our nation's foreign policy been so poorly served as in the era of
the Internet, with its enormous potential to enlighten us; but the collusions of warmongering fanatics and profiteers are beyond the comprehension of even the most
powerful machines. They must not be beyond the purview of public awareness, however. A fully
informed public is the best safeguard against the hazardous foreign entanglements
that our founders warned were the main threat to the health of the republic. That is
why they enshrined the constitutional protections against unbridled government power they believed would subvert
the American experiment in representative governance. We must heed the wisdom of the EFF's senior attorney Lee
Tien, who as much as any constitutional lawyer has battled on behalf of those rights. As he summed up in an
interview: "We need to fix the national security classification system that has classified so much information that we
don't know what's going on. It's hard to know what we should do, but we should all agree that knowing what's
happening is the first step. It's dangerous to propose a solution when you don't know what the extent of the
problem is. If you asked me before the Snowden revelations, my answer would be different. There are no personal
solutions to this; there is nothing we can do individually." "This is a systemic problem," he continued. "It's an
institutional problem, it's a political problem. There can only be collective action. That's it. That means we need to

organize.
You can't have a democracy if you don't have sufficient information. We're fighting
for the soul of this democracy."
call on all of them-individuals, Internet companies, politicians, the government-to fix it, and we need to

Inherency

Inherency Current Regs Fail

Current regs have loopholes that allow for warrantless
invasions of privacy
New York Times 2015 (Editorial Board; Regulating the Drone Economy; Feb
19; www.nytimes.com/2015/02/19/opinion/regulating-the-drone-economy.html; kdf)
Obamas action on drone use by government agencies is much more problematic. For
the presidents memorandum says the government should not retain
personally identifiable information collected by drones for more than 180 days . But
agencies can keep the data for longer if it is determined to be necessary to an
authorized mission of the retaining agency a standard that grants officials far too
much latitude. Moreover, the administration says agencies have to provide only a general summary of how
they use drones, and only once a year. Law enforcement agencies like the F.B.I. and local police
departments are already using drones and manned aircraft for surveillance, often
without obtaining warrants, but they have said little publicly about what they are doing with the
information collected. The use of drones is likely to grow , and the devices could become as common as
utility and delivery trucks. At the dawn of this technology, its appropriate to set sound safety and
privacy rules.
Mr.

example,

Inherency Yes Border drones

Unwarranted drones are proliferating on the borders now
Kayyali 2015 (Nadia; Secure Our Borders First Act Would Ensure Proliferation of
Drones at the Border; Feb 3; https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2015/02/secure-ourborders-first-act-would-ensure-proliferation-drones-border; kdf)
Secure Our Borders First Act Would Ensure Proliferation of Drones at the Border
Security shouldnt be a synonym for giving up civil liberties. But bills like HR 399 show that lawmakers think it is.
The

Secure Our Borders First Act is an ugly piece of legislation thats clearly intended
to strongarm the Department of Homeland Security into dealing with the border in a
very particular waywith drones and other surveillance technology. The bill appears to
have stalled in the Houseit was on the calendar for last week but wasnt voted on, and it's not on the schedule for
this week. But its not dead yet. And even if it does die, this isnt the first time Congress has tried to increase the
use of drones at the border. In 2013, the Senate passed S.744, the Border Security, Economic Opportunity, and
Immigration Modernization Act. The bill called for the use of drones 24 hours per day and for 7 days per week.
The House of Representatives did not pass the legislation, but the drone mandate in HR 399 is eerily similarand it
demonstrates that the idea that drones should be used at the border is persistent. The 72-page piece of legislation,
authored by Rep. Michael McCaul from Texas, gives the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) an incredibly
specific mandate. It requires DHS to gain operational control of high traffic areas within 2 years, and the entire
southern border within 5 years. Operational control means the prevention of all unlawful entries into the United
States. It prescribes exactly how that should be done, and even includes penalties for failure to do so, including
pay freezes for government officials. The bill also prescribes how operational control should be obtained. It does this
by prescribing what equipment 11 specific border points should use. At several of the points, that equipment
includes drones. Additionally, the bill includes the following mandate: The Office of Air and Marine of U.S. Customs
and Border Protection [CBP] shall operate unmanned aerial systems not less than 16 hours per day, seven days per
week. As the ACLU notes, its a little shocking that the bill includes such mandates only weeks after a damning
DHS Inspector General (DHS IG) report titled CBP Drones are Dubious Achievers. And thats just the most recent
report. In June of 2012, EFF called attention to another DHS IG report that faulted the DHS for wasting time, money,
and resources using drones that were ineffective and lacked oversight. To put it in perspective, Predator drones cost
$3,000 per hour to fly. Thats certainly part of the reason that HR 399 authorizes $1 billion in appropriations. Of
course, the waste of money in this bill pales in comparison to its potential negative impact on civil liberties .

Drones pose a multitude of privacy concerns. Drones can be equipped with, among
other capabilities, facial recognition technology, live-feed video cameras, thermal
imaging, fake cell phone towers to intercept phone calls, texts and GPS locations, as
well as backend software tools like license plate recognition, GPS tracking, and facial recognition. They are capable
of highly advanced and near-constant surveillance, and can amass large amounts of data on private citizens, which

Lest it seem
that this will only affect communities directly adjacent to the border, or individuals being
investigated or pursued by CBP, its important to note that the government considers the
border to extend 100 miles in, and CBP has certain powers to conduct activities like searches that would
can then be linked to data collected by the government and private companies in other contexts.

be unconstitutional elsewhere. Furthermore, according to documents obtained by the EFF as part of a Freedom of
Information Act lawsuit against the agency,

CBP appears to be flying drones well within the

Southern and Northern US borders for a wide variety of non-border patrol reasons.

In
fact, the documents showed that between 2010-2012, the number of missions CBP flew for state, local and non-CBP
federal agencies increased eight-fold. The silver lining? The legislation hasnt passed yet. Theres still time to
contact your elected representatives and tell them to vote no.

AT: New FAA Regs Solve

Those regs expand the power of the state
Fulton 2015 (Deirdre; Surveillance, Privacy Concerns Raised as FAA Gives
Domestic Drones a Nod; Feb 15;
www.commondreams.org/news/2015/02/15/surveillance-privacy-concerns-raisedfaa-gives-domestic-drones-nod; kdf)
Domestic non-military drone use took one step closer to widespread implementation
on Sunday, as the Federal Aviation Administration issued proposed regulations for small
unmanned aircraft systems in the U.S. According to an FAA press release, the rule would limit flights
to daylight and visual-line-of-sight operations. It also addresses height restrictions, operator certification, aircraft
registration and marking, and operational limits. In a blow to Google and Amazon, it does not permit drone delivery.
Also on Sunday, the White House issued an Executive Order requiring every federal agency to develop "a
framework regarding privacy, accountability, and transparency for commercial and private [Unmanned Aircraft
Systems] use" within 90 days and with an eye toward protecting personal privacy, civil rights, and civil liberties.

the FAA regulations and the White House order provide some basic rules of
the sky that will govern who can fly drones in the United States and under what
conditions, while attempting to prevent aviation disasters and unrestrained
government surveillance," the Washington Post declared. But civil liberties experts warned
that the FAA rules and presidential memo leave the door open for invasions of
privacy by the government and corporations. "The proposed rules do absolutely
nothing to address privacy, except perhaps require some identifying markings displayed in the 'largest
"Together,

practicable manner' such that you may be able to identify who owns the drone that is spying on you," Ryan Calo
wrote at Forbes. "I was on the conference call announcing the new rules and the Secretary of Transportation
mentioned the importance of privacy and civil liberties, but this commitment is not reflected in the proposed rules."
The Center for Democracy and Technology called on Congress to raise the bar on domestic drone standards.
"Drones have the potential for significant societal, scientific, and economic benefits, but also pose new and
intrusive privacy problems," CDT senior counsel Harley Geiger said in a press statement. "The White Houses memo
requires government agencies to enhance transparency and develop clear rules to protect the privacy of
Americans. This is an important and welcome step in advancing drone technology, while protecting civil liberties."
Still, he added, "the

White House memo itself does not establish strong privacy and
transparency drone standards for agencies, leaving it up to the agencies to develop
these standards. Because the memos requirements are not specific, the drone policies the agencies set for
themselves will be key to how individuals privacy is actually protected. Congress still has a role to play in setting
strong privacy and transparency standards for drone use." One of the most promising applications for domestic
drone use is also one of the most troubling: as an internet service platform, giving operators access to vast
quantities of data and threatening net neutrality, Drew Mitnick and Jack Bussell note at the blog for Access, a global
human rights organization focused on digital freedom. " Drones

also increase the opportunities for

governments to conduct first-hand surveillance of users electronic communications
by intercepting signals and information," they write. "Official documents demonstrate that
government agencies are already exploring aerial platforms for surveillance technologies, like Stingray technology,
which conducts bulk surveillance of user location information... The potential for drones to violate individual rights
supports the need for legislation and regulations for government uses of drones as well as commercial vehicles."

Privacy Advantage

AT: Alt Causes

The plan is the catalyst that makes privacy possible
Ahsanuddin et al 2014 (Sadia - principal investigator for the report and MPAC
research fellow; Domestic Drones: Implications for Privacy and Due Process in the
United States; Sep 8; www.mpac.org/publications/policy-papers/domesticdrones.php; kdf)
Simultaneously, the IHSS survey respondents indicated apprehensiveness over any domestic drone operations: twothirds expressed concern over potential surveillance in homes or public areas; 65 percent were concerned about

The rapid pace at

which drone technology is developing, the lack of clear guidelines protecting privacy
and civil liberties, and public concern over these issues indicate an urgent need for
action in Congress and state legislatures. Privacy experts agree. In an article in the Stanford Law
Review Online, Professor Ryan Calo of the University of Washington School of Law states that drones may
be just the visceral jolt society needs to drag privacy law into the twentyfirst century. American privacy law has developed at a slow and uneven pace,
whereas technology has developed at a rapid speed. In spite of the development of computers,
safety; and 75 percent were concerned about the governments ability to regulate use.82

the Internet, Global-Positioning Systems (GPS), biometrics, gigapixel cameras, face recognition technology, and the
widespread use of e-mail and other forms of electronic communication, there has been no attendant development

Because drones threaten to perfect the art of surveillance, they make

for a good catalyst to update privacy law. The need for legislation is clear. With recent
revelations that the federal government has been conducting surveillance of the
American public on an unprecedented level , the threat that unregulated and
immensely capable technologies pose to civil liberties is profound. The law must
catch up with technology.
in privacy law.

AT: If you have nothing to hide

The idea that only those with something to hide should worry
trivializes the importance of privacy concerns
Scheer 2015 (Robert [Prof @ USCs School of journalism and communication];
They Know Everything About You; Nation Books; p. 81-82; kdf)
An even darker defense of the end-of-privacy doctrine had been offered a month earlier by Google's Eric

Schmidt, who impugned the innocence of consumers who worry about snooping by Google and other
companies. "If you have something that you don't want anyone to know, maybe you
shouldn't be doing it in the first place, " Schmidt stated in an interview for a December 2009 CNBC
Special, "Inside the Mind of Google."5 The ability of the fast-growing Internet data-mining
companies to trivialize privacy concerns succeeded because the target audience of
younger consumers was either indifferent to invasions of their privacy or ignorant of
the extent and depth of that data collection . It was remarkable that an American social culture that
had for so long been moored to a notion of individual sovereignty predicated on the ability to develop one's identity,

Americans had
fought and died for the right to have privately developed papers,
conversations, friendships, and diaries, especially in our homes. Yet here we were as a
society voluntarily moving so much of that into digital spaces owned and managed
by corporations we have no control over. This relinquishing of the most private
information about one's essence and aspirations became the norm in a shockingly
short period, examined only lightly and in passing. As we shared more and more with everideas, and mores in private, had, in a wink, become willing to surrender any such notion.

widening social networks, it seemed okay as long as the companies securely stored this precious data, to be used
only to enhance the consumer experience. We counted on the self-interest of the corporation not to harm us, not to
bite the hand that feeds. But the Snowden revelations changed all that by exposing how easily the government
could access-and indeed was accessing our personal info. That troubling confluence between the corporate world
and the state caught the public's attention in a way that Internet companies feared might be game changing,

Also straining global confidence

in Internet commerce was the shock of those outside the country who had bought
into the myth that US-based multinationals were international in their obligations,
but who now found them to be subservient to the whims of Washington. 6 That was a
threatening the culture of trust needed to continue gathering that data.

message that US companies, up against a saturated domestic market for their products, found particularly
alarming, since they depend on global.growth to please shareholders.

AT: Nazism example=hyperbole

The risk is real
Scheer 2015 (Robert [Prof @ USCs School of journalism and communication];
They Know Everything About You; Nation Books; p. 176; kdf)
WE ARE A NATION THAT HAS LONG CELEBRATED DISSIDENTS throughout the world who
dare, often at great risk, to expose the secret actions and challenge the legitimacy of
repressive governments. In some cases, we even provide legal sanctuary or asylum for such people.
However, when Americans dissent in such radical ways, the opposite is often the case-they are vilified as disloyal
and as a threat to our collective security or stability. The assumption, embraced so widely, must be that our system
never requires such a fundamental challenge to its authority, as represented by the actions of a Daniel Ellsberg,

We know, however, from so many historical examplesthe Roman Empire, Nazi Germany, the Soviet Union-that unchallenged authority not
only will violate human rights but also will ultimately sow the seeds of its own ruin,
increasingly blind to its own limitations and flaws . Despite our historically innovative
constitutional checks on government power, we are nevertheless always flirting with
imperial hubris. We see this clearly in the pattern of lies that defined US foreign policy after 9/11 ; it is
quite apparent that leaving those lies largely unchallenged in the name of
classification seriously weakened the position of the United States in the world.
Thomas Drake, Chelsea Manning, or Edward Snowden.

AT: Law enforcement turns

Many law enforcement agents refuse drones the plan
provides them with an effective and constitutional method to
do so
Sommadossi 2014 (Tiffany; Domestic Surveillance Drones: To Fear or Not to
Fear?; Aug 4; www.legislationandpolicy.com/1425/domestic-surveillance-dronesfear-fear/; kdf)
federal legislation is an excellent sign that Congress is taking steps to
address privacy concerns related to drone surveillance , the question of what to do until federal
laws pass remains. The absence of drone privacy restrictions represents a gaping hole in
American privacy protections, and also puts law enforcement offices in a
predicament. A growing number of law enforcement offices , like the LAPD, are voluntarily
refusing to integrate drone technology into its investigations because of public disapproval. The
While pending

public has made clear that unless strict privacy rules are in place to govern surveillance drones, the benefits they
can provide are not worth the significant privacy implications. Therefore ,

the lack of federal drone law

focused on privacy is simultaneously threatening American privacy interests and
preventing law enforcement from taking advantage of new technologies . As the Supreme
Courts interpretation of the Fourth Amendment slowly transforms and Congress remains suspicious of government
surveillance programs, it will be interesting to see where the pendulum settles on what constitutes a reasonable
expectation of privacy in the United States when it comes to government surveillance, particularly from the air.

Drones Advantage

AT: Drones Good

The plan doesnt eliminate all drones, just puts limits on
surveillance
Galizio 2014 (Gregory; NOTE: A DIGITAL ALBATROSS: NAVIGATING THE LEGAL
FRAMEWORK OF DOMESTIC POLICE DRONE TECHNOLOGY VERSUS PRIVACY RIGHTS
IN MASSACHUSETTS AND BEYOND; 20 Suffolk J. Trial & App. Adv. 117; kdf)
While law enforcement drones need to be strictly restrained by [*143]
statute, the courts, and government agencies, this emerging technology need not be
universally condemned as the advent of George Orwell's dystopian world. American legislatures and
courts should legally discourage all dragnet surveillance conducted with drones. If
sensible legislation, along with strict judicial review, can be established, domestic drones
should be integrated into American skies . The courts must evolve and confront the
rapid pace of technology with more stringent approaches to protecting privacy
rights. On the practical side, civil libertarians should not unconditionally reject law
enforcement's operation of drones if used in the same manner as existing police
technology. The arrival of domestic drones offers a new battle within the dichotomy of privacy and security
V. CONCLUSION

interests. Just as drones may benefit domestic security interests, they burden the right of privacy. As drone and
other technologies further complicate this legal clash of competing interests, it will be up to lawmakers and judges

While drones possess benefits to public safety, the

failure to adapt our Fourth Amendment jurisprudence to the digital age will create a
digital albatross upon the privacy interests of us all . n156
to offer reasonable and balanced solutions.

AT: Drones Save Lives

Current tech make drones more dangerous than helpful
Guma 2014 (Greg; Drones and Law Enforcement in America: The Unmanned
Police Surveillance State; Feb 18; www.globalresearch.ca/drones-and-lawenforcement-in-america-the-unmanned-police-surveillance-state/5330984; kdf)
The Defense Committees legislative models are designed to satisfy diverse interests. One creates a drone-free
zone, while another establishes strict requirements limiting their use by law enforcement agencies and other public
officials. The model regulating drone use (rather than outlawing it) allows them to be used with a judicially issued
warrant or for limited non-law enforcement purposes like fire detection, hazardous material response, search &
rescue, and natural disasters. Beyond constitutional concerns, p roposed

legislation also addresses

some safety issues. According to Buttar, many of the drones currently available to law
enforcement have limited flying time, cant be flown in bad weather, must be flown
in sight of an operator, and can only be used during daylight hours, making them
ill-suited to search and rescue missions and best suited for pervasive surveillance.
On the other hand, AP points to some of the attractions driving the rush to drone use. Unmanned aircraft vary
widely in size and capability. They can be as small as a bird or look like a childrens remote-controlled toy, and yet
can be equipped with high-powered cameras, microphones, heat sensors, facial recognition technology or license
plate readers. Similar technology has been used by the US military and CIA to track down Al-Qaida operatives
abroad. Law enforcement likes drones because theyre relatively cheap; they reportedly keep down the price by
cutting fuel and maintenance costs, as well as reducing manpower. Look at it this way: A police helicopter can cost
from $500,000 to $3 million, and about $400 an hour to fly. It can be affordable snooping for those with the
means of surveillance.

AT: Drones Kills ISIS

ISIS is structurally incapable of being a threat
Matthews and Preble 2015 (Dylan and Christopher [Cato's vice president
for defense and foreign policy studies]; Ignore the headlines. The world is getting
safer all the time.; Jan 15; www.vox.com/2015/1/14/7546165/world-getting-safer;
kdf)
DM: Did ISIS change your thinking on this at all? ISIS fighter An ISIS fighter in Syria.
(AFP/Getty Images) CP: Not really, for a couple reasons. ISIS may be a terrorist
organization, and may be an insurgency, and may be a quasi-nation-state or
attempting to become a quasi-nation-state, but it's hard to be all of those things
simultaneously. Austin Long writes about this in his chapter, about the differences
between insurgents and terrorists. Most terrorists operate in the shadows. The hard
part is not killing them, it's finding them. That's why traditional counterterrorism is
an intelligence and information-gathering process. It's a lot like police work. By
declaring itself a state and raising a flag over territory it seizes and holds, ISIS is
trading away one of its key advantages, and opening itself up to more traditional
military attacks. It's a virulent, reprehensible state, but it's not clear to me that it's a
greater terrorist threat than other organizations that are continuing to operate in
the shadows.

xt No ISIS Terror
No threat of ISIS terrorism litany of reasons
Byman and Shapiro 2015 (Daniel L [research director @ Center for Middle
East Policy, Brookings] and Jeremy [Fellow @ Brookings]; Be Afraid. Be A Little
Afraid: The Threat of Terrorism from Western Foreign Fighters in Syria and Iraq;
January; www.brookings.edu/research/papers/2015/01/western-foreign-fighters-insyria-and-iraq-byman-shapiro?rssid=LatestFromBrookings; kdf)
Despite these fears and the real danger that motivates them, the Syrian and Iraqi
foreign fighter threat can easily be exaggerated . Previous cases and information emerging from Syria
suggest several mitigating effects that may reduce but hardly eliminatethe potential terrorist
threat from foreign fighters who have gone to Syria. Those mitigating factors include: Many die, blowing
themselves up in suicide attacks or perishing quickly in firefights with opposing forces.
Many never return home, but continue fighting in the conflict zone or at the next battle for jihad. Many of the
foreign fighters quickly become disillusioned , and a number even return to their home country without
engaging in further violence. Others are arrested or disrupted by intelligence services. Indeed, becoming a
foreign fighterparticularly with todays heavy use of social mediamakes a terrorist far more likely to come to the attention of

American and European security

services have tools that they can successfully deploy to mitigate the threat . These tools
security services. The danger posed by returning foreign fighters is real, but

will have to be adapted to the new context in Syria and Iraq, but they will remain useful and effective. Key Policy Recommendations
The model below shows how the various mitigating factors and effective policies can (though not necessarily will) lessen the danger
presented by foreign fighters. Complex Model of Foreign Fighter Radicalization Complex Model of Foreign Fighter Radicalization
Decide First is the decision stage. It makes sense to reduce the numbers of those going to the conflict zone in the first place by
interfering in the decision to go. After all, those who do not go cannot be radicalized by foreign fighting. Western countries should
push a counter-narrative that stresses the brutality of the conflict and the internecine violence among jihadists. However, in general,
governments are poor at developing counter-narratives and lack community credibility. It is usually better to elevate existing voices
of community leaders who already embrace the counter-narrative than to try to handle this directly through government channels.
Also vital is developing peaceful alternatives for helping the people affected by the conflicts in the Middle East. Some fighters
certainly not all but a significant portionwere originally motivated by a genuine desire to defend the Syrian people against the
brutality of the Assad regime. Encouraging charitable activities, identifying legitimate channels for assistance, and otherwise
highlighting what concerned individuals can do to help alleviate the suffering of the Syrian people may siphon off some of the supply
of foreign fighters. Local programs for providing assistance can also improve domestic intelligence gathering capabilities in two
ways, according to Western security service officials. First, simply being out and about in the community gives government officials
more access to information about potential radicals. Families become comfortable with intelligence services, as do community
leaders. Second, such programs allow intelligence officials to gain access to individuals who can potentially be recruited to inform on
other would-be jihadists. Desired Results: Talked out of joining the foreign militias by family or community intervention. Choose
peaceful alternative to fighting. Travel The second stage in the foreign fighter radicalization process is the travel to Syria. Disrupting
the transit route via Turkey is one of the most promising ways of reducing the threat of foreign fighters to Europe and the United
States. Doing so will primarily require better cooperation between Western governments and Turkish authorities, who have not
always seen stopping the flow of fighters as their highest priority. But as Turkish authorities are now becoming more worried about
the jihadist threat to Turkey, Western security services should establish channels with Turkish intelligence and police to warn them of
the presence of specific individuals headed to Syria through Turkey and to encourage Turkey to turn them away from the Turkish
border or stop them at the Syrian border and deport them. Though there are other ways into Syria, all are far harder and more costly
for Western fighters. Security cooperation among European services and between European and American services is also essential.
Intelligence collected from the communications of foreign fighters, shared open source monitoring, and other information from one
service can prove vital for discovering transnational networks. Cooperation within Europe is indispensable for stopping travel as
jihadists from one European country often try to travel to Turkey and then on to Syria via another European country in an effort to
avoid detection. Desired Results: Arrested en route. Stopped at border and deported. Train and Fight In the third stage of the
process, the foreign fighters receive training and fight in Syria or Iraq, mostly out of the reach of European or American influence.
But even here, there are subtle ways of influencing the terrorist indoctrination process. Western security agencies should do
everything they can to sow doubt in the minds of extremist leaders in Iraq and Syria about the true loyalties of Western Muslim
volunteers. Highlighting information gained from recruits and even disinformation about the degree of infiltration by security
services can heighten fears. If jihadist organizations come to view foreigners as potential spies or as corrupting influences, they
might assign them to non-combat roles, test their allegiances by offering them the one-way ticket of suicide bombings, or even
avoid recruiting them altogether. Desired Results: Die in the combat zone. Stay abroad and fight. Become disillusioned with the
struggle. Return Upon the foreign fighters return, the fourth stage, it is critical to turn them away from violence and jihad. Western
services report that they usually know when individuals return and that many return with doubts. As a first step, security services
must triage returnees, identifying which ones deserve the most attention: our interviews indicate triaging is done inconsistently (and
in some cases not at all) among the Western security services. Inevitably, some dangerous individuals will be missed, and some
individuals identified as not particularly dangerous might later become a threat, but a first look is vital for prioritization. Efforts to
promote a counter-narrative are valuable, particularly if they involve parents, preachers and community leaders. Community
programs deserve considerable attention. The goal should be to move potential terrorists towards non-violence; since many are in

that category already, hounding them with the threat of arrest or otherwise creating a sense of alienation can backfire. In the past,
family and community members have at times been successful in steering returned fighters toward a different path, even getting
them to inform on their former comrades. Indeed, sending returnees to jail for relatively minor crimes such as going abroad to fight
with a foreign terrorist organization against a distant enemy may simply put them in prison for a few years and expose them to the
radicalizing elements present in many European prisons, where many minor players become exposed to hardened jihadists and
integrate into broader networks. Desired Results: Arrested and jailed. De-radicalized and reintegrated. No desire to attack at
home. Plot To disrupt foreign fighters in the fifth and final stage of plotting terrorist attacks, security services must remain focused
on the returnee problem and have sufficient resources to monitor the problem as it emerges in their countries. The good news is
that going to Syria and Iraq and returning home usually does bring one to the attention the security services. But maintaining
vigilance as the numbers increase will be difficult purely for reasons of resources. Marc Hecker, a French expert on terrorism,
commented that France could handle the dozens who returned from Iraq but would be over-whelmed by the hundreds who may
come back from Syria. Keeping track of that many suspects, is exceptionally resource intensive, particularly if it involves full-time
surveillance. For intelligence services, often the problem is not in accessing or gathering the data, but in processing, analyzing, and
following up on it in a timely manner. At the same time, their own effectiveness can work against them: by reducing the problem
considerably, they decrease the danger, thereby creating the impression that they need fewer resources. One way to mitigate this
effect is for security services to spread the burden of responsibility around by training and sharing information with local police and
other law-enforcement and community organizations. Security cooperation among European services and between European and
American services is absolutely necessary. Intelligence from the communications of foreign fighters, shared open-source monitoring,
and other information obtained by one service can prove crucial for discovering transnational networks. As noted earlier,
cooperation within Europe is critical for stopping travel, as jihadists from one European country often try to travel to Turkey and then
on to Syria via another European country in order to avoid detection. Desired Results: Attack foiled by law enforcement. Attack

The United States and Europe already have

effective measures in place to greatly reduce the threat of terrorism from jihadist
returnees and to limit the scale of any attacks that might occur. Those measures can and should
be improvedand, more importantly, adequately resourced. But the standard of success cannot be
perfection. If it is, then Western governments are doomed to fail, and, worse, doomed
to an overreaction which will waste resources and cause dangerous policy mistakes.
fails due to lack of training or wrong skills. Conclusion

AT: Plan doesnt solve foreign drones

The plan helps shed light on other drone programs aff is a
critical first step
Selinger and Kaag 2015 (Evan and John [Associate prof of philosophy @ U of
Massachusetts Lowell]; Why domestic drones stir more debate than ones used in
warfighting abroad; Mar 9; http://www.csmonitor.com/World/Passcode/PasscodeVoices/2015/0309/Why-domestic-drones-stir-more-debate-than-ones-used-inwarfighting-abroad kdf)
Selinger: Do you think its wrong that were more concerned about domestic uses of drones than foreign ones?

Yes. This attitude reflects a disturbing mix of provincialism and exceptionalism

We need to come to grips with the wars that
are being fought in our name and critically evaluate their justifications. And we need to
Kaag:

that Americans should acknowledge and oppose.

put pressure on the media to continue to cover the stories that allow us to make this crucial evaluation. The

its true that domestic drone

surveillance might erode civil liberties, and degrade the political fabric of the United States. To some
extent the American public knows this is the case and is invested in moving forward carefully. But its equally
true in the case of an abuse of drones in the targeted killing program abroad . Drones
asymmetry suggests a strange political and moral myopia. Yes,

keep boots off the ground and allow political leaders to execute military strikes without the fear of losing troops.
This is mixed blessing.

It also allows leaders to circumvent the traditional safeguards that

protect against illegitimate military actions. The American public tends to become more interested
in armed conflict its execution and justification when it faces the traditional sacrifices associated with war. I fear
weve entered an era of continual warfare where the American public has little incentive to monitor the actions of
its leaders.

This means we risk losing our democratic hold on an important political

issue, shifting power back to leaders who were , at least originally, supposed to be
checked by the will of the people. The issue of moral myopia is a bit simpler. Just because it may be
true, psychologically, that its easier to turn a blind eye to injustice far away, does not mean that its morally

Many drone strikes are in fact legitimate. But certain signature strikes , I
are not. And the American public should be aware of this difference.

justified to do so.
would argue,

AT: Exigent circumstances bad

The Supreme Court defines exigent circumstances
San Pedro 2014 (Victoria [J.D. Candidate, Stetson University College of Law];
STUDENT WORK: DRONE LEGISLATION: KEEPING AN EYE ON LAW ENFORCEMENT'S
LATEST SURVEILLANCE TECHNOLOGY; 43 Stetson L. Rev. 679; kdf)
4. Exigent Circumstances The Court also defined exceptions to the warrant
requirement, n107 including the exigent circumstances exception. n108 [*694]
Exigent circumstances have been described as "situations where ""real immediate
and serious consequences" will "certainly occur" if a police officer postpones action
to obtain a warrant.'" n109 Among the situations that the Court described as
constituting an exigent circumstance was the instance of "hot pursuit," which occurs
when police officers pursue a fleeing felon. n110 Additionally, the Court held that
rendering emergency assistance constituted an exigent circumstance. n111
Additionally, in Wayne v. United States, n112 the United States Court of Appeals for
the District of Columbia Circuit held that exigent circumstances existed when law
enforcement entered "a burning home to rescue occupants or extinguish a fire, to
prevent a shooting or to bring emergency aid to an injured person."

Police are already trained, adaptation towards drones will be

easy
San Pedro 2014 (Victoria [J.D. Candidate, Stetson University College of Law];
STUDENT WORK: DRONE LEGISLATION: KEEPING AN EYE ON LAW ENFORCEMENT'S
LATEST SURVEILLANCE TECHNOLOGY; 43 Stetson L. Rev. 679; kdf)
[*718] Similar to language in currently proposed legislation, n279 exclusionary
provisions should be incorporated into the enacted legislation. However, this Article
suggests that the exclusionary provisions should be directly tied to Fourth
Amendment exceptions that have been addressed by the Supreme Court. For
example, instead of providing an exception for "emergency situations" n280 it
would be best to use the "exigent circumstances" phraseology that has been
previously defined by the Court. n281 This will provide an easy transition for law
enforcement agencies that prepare their training and manuals according to existing
jurisprudence. If police officers are already trained on what constitutes an "exigent
circumstance," that knowledge can be applied to drone surveillance, rather than
tasking law enforcement agencies with interpreting anew what constitutes
"emergency situations."

Time limits good

Drones are unique in their ability to capture information, time
limits are critical
San Pedro 2014 (Victoria [J.D. Candidate, Stetson University College of Law];
STUDENT WORK: DRONE LEGISLATION: KEEPING AN EYE ON LAW ENFORCEMENT'S
LATEST SURVEILLANCE TECHNOLOGY; 43 Stetson L. Rev. 679; kdf)
Congress
should enact legislation that prescribes a time limit on the duration of surveillance.
The appropriateness of the time limitation could be determined through a
comparison to [*716] another form of surveillance that has been highly regulated by
Congress - wiretapping. After the Supreme Court determined the constitutionality of wiretapping in
E. Proposal for Future Legislation To address the legitimate concerns raised by drone surveillance,

Olmstead, n269 the Court then required law enforcement to obtain a valid warrant before conducting wiretap
surveillance. n270 A year after Olmstead, Congress enacted legis-lation codifying the warrant requirement. n271
Along with the codification of the warrant requirement, Congress developed a comprehensive framework for

wiretap legislation provides that a warrant

must prescribe the duration of allowable surveillance. n273 However, the legislation also
states that the surveillance may not extend for more than thirty days. n274 Continuing
regulating wiretap surveillance. n272 For example,

with the presumption that law enforcement will not seek to obtain a warrant before conducting drone surveillance,
imposing a requirement similar to the wiretap requirement will prohibit law enforcement from conducting its
surveillance for extended periods. A statutory, bright-line rule requiring a warrant for long-term drone sur-veillance defining an acceptable period for such surveillance - removes law enforcement's discretion from the equation and
ensures that law enforcement receives the proper guidance to determine situations requiring a warrant. Further,
such rules limit law enforcement's ability to use drones to conduct long-term surveillance at the expense of an

Congress is best suited to determine what distinguishes longterm surveillance from short-term surveillance, as Fourth Amendment jurisprudence lacks a
individual's privacy rights.

description of long-term sur-veillance. Moreover, the thirty-day period prescribed by the wiretap legislation n275
permits law enforcement to gain too much informa-tion about an individual's daily routine and lifestyle. As
cautioned [*717] by the mosaic theory, visual surveillance over an extended period reveals far more about the
individual than an isolated observa-tion. n276 While law enforcement can admittedly learn vast amounts of
information by tapping one's telephone, n277 the amount and nature of information available from drone
surveillance is distinguishable. For example, if a police officer were to conduct wiretap surveillance of John Doe's
home to intercept information regarding a drug purchase, the officer would also be privy to Doe's conversations,
including a call in which Doe's conversation with his partner turns extremely intimate. On the other hand, if the
police officer were conducting surveillance with a drone, he may actually be able to view Doe engaging in
intercourse with his partner. Drone use would allow the officer to view such intimate moments countless times

wiretapping's thirty-day limitation period

inadequately protects citizens from drone surveillance because of the nature and
amount of information available through drone surveillance - a more serious infringement on
privacy rights than intercepting telephone communications. Thus, the time limitation for drone
surveillance should certainly be less than thirty days . Moreover, considering that previous
during the course of the surveillance. For these reasons,

jurisprudence concerning aerial surveillance discussed fly-over observations that were relatively short in duration,

An hourly limit
provides law enforcement with a bright-line rule regarding the permissible scope of
surveillance and also limits the impermissi-ble discovery of the patterns, habits, and
preferences of an individual's life. To provide some flexibility to law enforcement, the time permitted
n278 using an hourly component to prescribe the time limitation would be beneficial.

should not be so limited as to prevent brief aerial observations such as those used in Ciraolo and Riley, but rather
the time limitation should be directed at striking a balance between law enforcement's needs and society's

the legislation should define long-term sur-veillance as

a surveillance lasting longer than twenty-four hours.
expectations of privacy. Thus,

AT: Warrants PIC

2AC
Permutation do the plan and counterplanThe exigent circumstances plank of the plan takes out the link
Yang 2014 (Y. Douglas [JD Boston U]; BIG BROTHER'S GROWN WINGS: THE
DOMESTIC PROLIFERATION OF DRONE SURVEILLANCE AND THE LAW'S RESPONSE;
23 B.U. Pub. Int. L.J. 343; kdf)
Rule 1 embodies the desire of both federal and state
legislatures to exclude certain situations from the burden of a warrant requirement.
a. Rule 1: Warrantless Drone Use

n228 Common examples of non-law enforcement operations include, but are not limited to, land surveying, n229
weather and climate observation and scientific research, n230 wildlife management and protection, n231 and
search and rescue missions. n232 In addition to Rule 1's exemption of non-law enforcement uses of drones ,

Rule
1 also exempts situations where a high risk of terrorist attack or imminent danger to
life or property exists. This specific provision finds its inspiration in Virginia's [*377] warrant
exception that allows drone use for responses to Amber Alerts, n233 Senior Alerts,
n234 and search-and-rescue missions." n235 While the Fourth Amendment covers all government
intrusions of privacy, government activity that does not involve criminal investigation tends to involve "a less
hostile intrusion than the typical policeman's search for the fruits and instrumentalities of crime." n236 Moreover,

drones can be a potent tool to assist in searching for missing persons and in police
emergencies, much in the same way that police helicopters and aircraft currently
provide aerial support, albeit at a much higher cost and with less flexibility . n237 Rule 1
reflects a desire by federal and state legislative proposals to exempt exigent circumstances from restrictions on

where a law enforcement agency believes that a particular area,

event, or situation poses a high risk of attack by terrorist s; or that there is an imminent and
articulable threat to a specific person's life or property, substantial legal obstacles should not
hamper that agency. Rule 1's first paragraph is a compromise measure that allows
the government to promptly respond to urgent situations, while ensuring that the
government, and particularly law enforcement agencies, adhere to the privacy
protections of the Rule by demonstrating that probable cause of a high risk of
terrorist attack existed or that an imminent danger to life or property existed at the
time and general location of the drone's operation. n239
drone use. n238 Thus,

Drones will be used to perpetuate racism

Cyril 2015 (Malkia Amala [under and executive director of the Center for Media
Justice (CMJ) and co-founder of the Media Action Grassroots Network]; Black
America's State of Surveillance; Mar 30;
www.progressive.org/news/2015/03/188074/black-americas-state-surveillance; kdf)
media reporting on government surveillance is laser-focused on the revelations
by Edward Snowden that millions of Americans were being spied on by the NSA. Yet my mothers visit from the
Today,

FBI reminds me that, from the slave pass system to laws that deputized white civilians as enforcers of Jim Crow,

black people and other people of color have lived for centuries with surveillance
practices aimed at maintaining a racial hierarchy. Its time for journalists to tell a new story that
does not start the clock when privileged classes learn they are targets of surveillance. We need to understand that
data has historically been overused to repress dissidence, monitor perceived criminality, and perpetually maintain
an impoverished underclass. In an era of big data, the Internet has increased the speed and secrecy of data
collection. Thanks to new surveillance technologies, law enforcement agencies are now able to collect massive

amounts of indiscriminate data. Yet legal protections and policies have not caught up to this technological advance.
Concerned advocates see mass surveillance as the problem and protecting privacy as the goal. Targeted
surveillance is an obvious answerit may be discriminatory, but it helps protect the privacy perceived as an earned
privilege of the inherently innocent. The trouble is,

targeted surveillance frequently includes the

indiscriminate collection of the private data of people targeted by race but not
involved in any crime. For targeted communities, there is little to no expectation of
privacy from government or corporate surveillance. Instead, we are watched, either as
criminals or as consumers. We do not expect policies to protect us. Instead, weve birthed a complex and
coded culturefrom jazz to spoken dialectsin order to navigate a world in which spying, from AT&T and Walmart
to public benefits programs and beat cops on the block, is as much a part of our built environment as the streets
covered in our blood. In a recent address, New York City Police Commissioner Bill Bratton made it clear: 2015 will
be one of the most significant years in the history of this organization. It will be the year of technology, in which we
literally will give to every member of this department technology that wouldve been unheard of even a few years
ago. Predictive policing, also known as Total Information Awareness, is described as using advanced
technological tools and data analysis to preempt crime. It utilizes trends, patterns, sequences, and affinities found
in data to make determinations about when and where crimes will occur. This model is deceptive, however, because
it presumes data inputs to be neutral. They arent. In a racially discriminatory criminal justice system, surveillance
technologies reproduce injustice. Instead of reducing discrimination, predictive policing is a face of what author
Michelle Alexander calls the New Jim Crowa de facto system of separate and unequal application of laws, police
practices, conviction rates, sentencing terms, and conditions of confinement that operate more as a system of
social control by racial hierarchy than as crime prevention or punishment. In New York City, the predictive policing
approach in use is Broken Windows. This approach to policing places an undue focus on quality of life crimeslike
selling loose cigarettes, the kind of offense for which Eric Garner was choked to death. Without oversight,
accountability, transparency, or rights, predictive policing is just high-tech racial profilingindiscriminate data
collection that drives discriminatory policing practices. As local law enforcement agencies increasingly adopt
surveillance technologies, they use them in three primary ways: to listen in on specific conversations on and offline;
to observe daily movements of individuals and groups; and to observe data trends. Police departments like
Brattons aim to use sophisticated technologies to do all three. They will use technologies like license plate readers,
which the Electronic Frontier Foundation found to be disproportionately used in communities of color and
communities in the process of being gentrified. They will use facial recognition, biometric scanning software, which
the FBI has now rolled out as a national system, to be adopted by local police departments for any criminal justice
purpose. They intend to use body and dashboard cameras, which have been touted as an effective step toward
accountability based on the results of one study, yet storage and archiving procedures, among many other issues,
remain unclear. They will use Stingray cellphone interceptors. According to the ACLU, Stingray technology is an
invasive cellphone surveillance device that mimics cellphone towers and sends out signals to trick cellphones in the
area into transmitting their locations and identifying information. When used to track a suspects cellphone, they
also gather information about the phones of countless bystanders who happen to be nearby. The same is true of

domestic drones, which are in increasing use by U.S. law enforcement to conduct
routine aerial surveillance. While drones are currently unarmed, drone manufacturers
are considering arming these remote-controlled aircraft with weapons like rubber
bullets, tasers, and tear gas. They will use fusion centers. Originally designed to increase interagency
collaboration for the purposes of counterterrorism, these have instead become the local arm of the intelligence
community. According to Electronic Frontier Foundation, there are currently seventy-eight on record. They are the
clearinghouse for increasingly used suspicious activity reportsdescribed as official documentation of observed
behavior reasonably indicative of pre-operational planning related to terrorism or other criminal activity. These
reports and other collected data are often stored in massive databases like e-Verify and Prism. As anybody whos
ever dealt with gang databases knows, its almost impossible to get off a federal or state database, even when the

Predictive policing doesnt just lead to racial and

religious profilingit relies on it. Just as stop and frisk legitimized an initial, unwarranted contact
between police and people of color, almost 90 percent of whom turn out to be innocent of any crime, suspicious
activities reporting and the dragnet approach of fusion centers target communities
of color. One review of such reports collected in Los Angeles shows approximately 75 percent were of people of
data collected is incorrect or no longer true.

color. This is the future of policing in America, and it should terrify you as much as it terrifies me. Unfortunately, it
probably doesnt, because my life is at far greater risk than the lives of white Americans ,
especially those reporting on the issue in the media or advocating in the halls of power. One of the most terrifying

The NSA and FBI

have engaged local law enforcement agencies and electronic surveillance
aspects of high-tech surveillance is the invisibility of those it disproportionately impacts.

technologies to spy on Muslims living in the United States. According to FBI training materials
uncovered by Wired in 2011, the bureau taught agents to treat mainstream Muslims as supporters of terrorism, to
view charitable donations by Muslims as a funding mechanism for combat, and to view Islam itself as a Death
Star that must be destroyed if terrorism is to be contained. From New York City to Chicago and beyond, local law
enforcement agencies have expanded unlawful and covert racial and religious profiling against Muslims not
suspected of any crime. There is no national security reason to profile all Muslims. At the same time, almost
450,000 migrants are in detention facilities throughout the United States, including survivors of torture, asylum
seekers, families with small children, and the elderly. Undocumented migrant communities enjoy few legal
protections, and are therefore subject to brutal policing practices, including illegal surveillance practices. According
to the Sentencing Project, of the more than 2 million people incarcerated in the United States, more than 60 percent
are racial and ethnic minorities. But by far, the widest net is cast over black communities. Black people alone
represent 40 percent of those incarcerated. More black men are incarcerated than were held in slavery in 1850, on
the eve of the Civil War. Lest some misinterpret that statistic as evidence of greater criminality, a 2012 study
confirms that black defendants are at least 30 percent more likely to be imprisoned than whites for the same crime.
This is not a broken system, it is a system working perfectly as intended, to the detriment of all.
The NSA could not have spied on millions of cellphones if it were not already spying on black people, Muslims, and
migrants. As surveillance technologies are increasingly adopted and integrated by law enforcement agencies today,

racial disparities are being made invisible by a media environment that has failed to
tell the story of surveillance in the context of structural racism.

Thats a unique reason to vote aff

Barndt 91 (Joseph R. Barndt co-director of Ministry Working to Dismantle Racism
"Dismantling Racism" p. 155)
To study racism is to study walls. We have looked at barriers and fences, restraints and limitations, ghettos
and prisons. The prison of racism confines us all, people of color and white people alike. It
shackles the victimizer as well as the victim. The walls forcibly keep people of color and white people
separate from each other; in our separate prisons we are all prevented from achieving the human potential God

The limitations imposed on people of color by poverty, subservience, and

powerlessness are cruel, inhuman, and unjust; the effects of uncontrolled power, privilege,
and greed, which are the marks of our white prison, will inevitably destroy us as well. But we
have also seen that the walls of racism can be dismantled. We are not condemned to an
inexorable fate, but are offered the vision and the possibility of freedom. Brick by brick,
stone by stone, the prison of individual, institutional, and cultural racism can be destroyed.
intends for us.

You and I are urgently called to join the efforts of those who know it is time to
teardown, once and for all, the walls of racism. The danger point of self-destruction
seems to be drawing even more near. The results of centuries of national and worldwide
conquest and colonialism, of military buildups and violent aggression, of overconsumption
and environmental destruction may be reaching a point of no return. A small and

predominantly white minority of the global population derives its power and
privilege from the sufferings of vast majority of peoples of all color. For the sake of the
world and ourselves, we dare not allow it to continue.

Warrants revitalizes the Separation of powers

Reynolds 2014 (Glenn Harlan [prof of law @ U of Tennessee]; NSA spying
undermines separation of powers: Column;
www.usatoday.com/story/opinion/2014/02/10/nsa-spying-surveillance-congresscolumn/5340281/; kdf)
Most of the worry about the National Security Agency's bulk interception of telephone
calls, e-mail and the like has centered around threats to privacy . And, in fact, the evidence
suggests that if you've got a particularly steamy phone- or Skype-sex session going on, it just might wind up being
shared by voyeuristic NSA analysts. But most Americans figure, probably rightly, that the NSA isn't likely to be
interested in their stuff. (Anyone who hacks my e-mail is automatically punished, by having to read it.) There is,

however, a class of people who can't take that disinterest for granted :

members of Congress and the

judiciary. What they have to say is likely to be pretty interesting to anyone with a
political ax to grind. And the ability of the executive branch to snoop on the phone calls
of people in the other branches isn't just a threat to privacy, but a threat to the
separation of powers and the Constitution . As the Framers conceived it, our system of government
is divided into three branches -- the executive, legislative and judicial -- each of which is designed to serve as a
check on the others. If the president gets out of control, Congress can defund his efforts, or impeach him, and the
judiciary can declare his acts unconstitutional. If Congress passes unconstitutional laws, the president can veto
them, or refuse to enforce them, and the judiciary, again, can declare them invalid. If the judiciary gets carried

if the
federal government has broad domestic-spying powers, and if those are controlled
by the executive branch without significant oversight, then the president has the
power to snoop on political enemies, getting an advantage in countering their plans,
and gathering material that can be used to blackmail or destroy them . With such power in
away, the president can appoint new judges, and Congress can change the laws, or even impeach. But

the executive, the traditional role of the other branches as checks would be seriously undermined, and our system
of government would veer toward what James Madison in The Federalist No. 47 called "the very definition of
tyranny," that is, "the accumulation of all powers, legislative, executive, and judiciary, in the same hands." That
such widespread spying power exists, of course, doesn't prove that it has actually been abused. But the temptation
to make use of such a power for self-serving political ends is likely to be very great. And, given the secrecy
surrounding such programs, outsiders might never know. In fact, given the compartmentalization that goes on in
the intelligence world, almost everyone at the NSA might be acting properly, completely unaware that one small
section is devoted to gather political intelligence. We can hope, of course, that such abuses would leak out, but they

Rather than counting on leakers to protect us, we need strong structural

controls that don't depend on people being heroically honest or unusually immune
to political temptation, two characteristics not in oversupply among our political class. That means
that the government shouldn't be able to spy on Americans without a warrant a
warrant that comes from a different branch of government, and requires probable
cause. The government should also have to keep a clear record of who was spied on, and why, and of exactly
might not.

who had access to the information once it was gathered. We need the kind of extensive audit trails for access to
information that, as the Edward Snowden experience clearly illustrates, don't currently exist. In addition, we need
civil damages with, perhaps, a waiver of governmental immunities for abuse of power here. Perhaps we should
have bounties for whistleblowers, too, to help encourage wrongdoing to be aired. Is this strong medicine? Yes. But
widespread spying on Americans is a threat to constitutional government. That is a serious disease, one that
demands the strongest of medicines.

Strong separation of powers are essential for US global

leadership
Ikenberry 2001- Professor at Georgetown University (G. John, National Interest,
Spring 2001, Lexis)
America's mature political institutions organized around the rule of law have
made it a relatively predictable and cooperative hegemon. The pluralistic and regularized
First,

way in which U.S. foreign and security policy is made reduces surprises and allows other states to build long-term,

governmental separation of powers creates a shared

decision-making system that opens up the process and reduces the ability of any
one leader to make abrupt or aggressive moves toward other states . An active press and
mutually beneficial relations. The

competitive party system also provide a service to outside states by generating information about U.S. policy and
determining its seriousness of purpose. The messiness of a democracy can, indeed, frustrate American diplomats

democratic institutions produce more

consistent and credible policies--policies that do not reflect the capricious and
idiosyncratic whims of an autocrat. Think of the United States as a giant corporation that seeks foreign
and confuse foreign observers. But over the long term,

investors. It is more likely to attract investors if it can demonstrate that it operates according to accepted
accounting and fiduciary principles.

The rule of law and the institutions of policymaking in a

democracy are the political equivalent of corporate transparency and accountability .

Sharp shifts in policy must ultimately be vetted within the policy process and pass muster by an array of

Because it is a constitutional, rule-based democracy,

outside states are more willing to work with the United States-or, to return to the
corporate metaphor, to invest in ongoing partnerships.
investigatory and decision-making bodies.

xtDrones are racist

The plan reverses racist trends
Bernd 2015 (Candice; Proposed Rules Regulating Domestic Drone Use Lack
Police Warrant Requirement; Feb 24; www.truth-out.org/news/item/29250-proposedrules-regulating-domestic-drone-use-lack-police-warrant-requirement; kdf)
"You're

not just talking about the physical border, you're talking about an area that
encompasses many major cities that have large minority populations, and the idea that
these drones can be flown with little or no privacy protections really mean that, people, just by virtue of living in

African-American
communities could well feel the disproportionate impacts of the integrated use of
domestic drones and other surveillance in the coming years , as technologies such as
that region are somehow accepting that they have a right to less privacy," she said.

StingRay are already being used mostly in the ongoing war on drugs to track those suspected of selling and buying

The drug war has long negatively impacted communities of color, based on
racialized drug policies and racial discrimination by law enforcement; two-thirds of all
drugs.

those convicted of drug crimes are people of color, despite similar rates of drug use among whites and people of

These already-existing racial disparities in intrusive policing tactics and

deployment of surveillance technologies are one of the primary reasons civil
liberties experts are saying the government often gets it backward when thinking
about privacy issues: deploying intrusive technologies first, and coming up with privacy policies governing
color.

their use afterward (when they may already be violating many people's civil rights). "What we see with StingRays is
the same phenomenon that we're seeing with [UAS], where federal agencies are using them," Guliani said. "State
and local agencies are using them. There's federal dollars that are going to buy them, and we're kind of having the
privacy debate after the fact with very little information."

AT: Utilitarianism
The aff provides the best method for comparing the
counterplan and case
Rothfuss 2014 (Ian F [George Mason School of Law]; Student Comment: An
Economic Perspective on the Privacy Implications of Domestic Drone Surveillance;
10 J.L. Econ. & Pol'y 441; kdf)
B. Economic Analysis of Drone Surveillance Song's general economic model of surveillance may be applied to
analyze domestic drone surveillance. Drones provide a very effective means to accomplish widespread, general,

The optimal amount of drone surveillance will occur where the

marginal social benefit of surveillance equals or exceeds the marginal social cost or
disutility of the surveillance. n143 Therefore, the costs and benefits resulting from drone surveillance
persistent surveillance.

must be identified and analyzed. As a result of the availability of efficient widespread surveillance, increased
domestic drone surveillance will generate utility in the form of increased security from crime and terrorism.

Drones may remain airborne for long periods of time without onboard pilots and are
very efficient at providing persistent, widespread surveillance. As a result, the societal
utility and disutility caused by the drone surveillance may be compounded . The socially
optimal amount of surveillance may increase because drones have the ability to significantly reduce the cost of
widespread surveillance. n144 The benefit of this increased security will come at the cost of individual privacy.

Given the widespread and pervasive nature of potential domestic drone

surveillance, the marginal cost of uncontrolled drone surveillance will likely exceed
the marginal benefit of the surveillance. Therefore, such widespread surveillance will be
unproductive and inefficient for society. [*457] The law must strive to allow the optimal amount of drone

drone surveillance is restricted too much, allowing less than the optimal
level, then society will not realize the full benefit that the surveillance can provide in
the form of prevention, deterrence, and security. n145 At the same time, if the limits are not
surveillance. If

strong enough, too much drone surveillance will lead to significant disutility resulting from the loss of privacy.
Therefore, the law should be structured to allow drone surveillance up to the point where the social benefit of the
surveillance exceeds or equals the marginal social cost or disutility. Following the insights gained from Song's

legal rules may be developed to efficiently implement

domestic drone surveillance while minimizing disutility and social costs of
avoidance. The government should be required to justify the use of domestic drone surveillance to ensure that
economic model of surveillance,

it is deployed in a manner that benefits society. Drones should only be used when the government is able to satisfy
the required levels of scrutiny described in Song's model. n146 Doing so will ensure that the societal benefits to be
gained from drone surveillance will outweigh the privacy disutility and social costs that may result from the loss of
privacy. The next section will apply this conclusion to analyze the current legislative and policy recommendations
for drone surveillance to determine the optimal course of action.

AT: Economy DA

2AC
Their link is just industry hype plan wont hurt the economy
Bernd 2013 (Candice [assistant editor/reporter with Truthout]; The Coming
Domestic Drone Wars; Sep 19; www.truth-out.org/news/item/18951-the-comingdomestic-drone-wars#; kdf)
States Push to Regulate Domestic Drones as Industry Pushes Back The Texas law is just one of many pieces of
legislation placing restrictions on the use of domestic drones to be introduced in 43 states this year, passing in

Many of these state-level bills seek to require search warrants for surveillance
drones used by local police departments, and at least six states have required warrants. In 2013,
eight.

Virginia put in place a two-year moratorium on the use of drones by law enforcement to develop more stringent
guidelines. Legislation restricting civilian drone use has passed in states such as Florida, Tennessee, Idaho, Montana
and Oregon, but other states such as North Dakota have tried to pass laws that would ban weapons from domestic

the industry is pushing back against privacy restrictions and

regulations on civilian drones, saying the restrictions will hinder job creation. In Maine,
drones and have failed. But

Gov. Paul LePage backed up the claim by vetoing a bill that would have required police to obtain a warrant before

"We don't support rewriting

existing search warrant requirements under the guise of privacy," Mario Mairena told
deploying a drone, citing concerns it would kill new aerospace jobs.

the AP. Mairena is a government relations manager for the Virginia-based Association for Unmanned Vehicle
Systems International (AUVSI), an industry group. The group's website boasts hundreds of corporate members,
many of which are defense contractors. The group also has ties to the Unmanned Systems Caucus in Congress.

Whether or not requiring a warrant in law enforcement drone operations would kill
jobs remains to be seen, but the integration of civilian drones into the NAS would
create a considerable economic impact, to be sure. An AUVSI report estimates that that the
integration of unmanned systems in the U.S. will generate more than $13.6 billion
and create 74,000 jobs within the first three years. But strong regulations of
domestic drones in the states may prove especially important depending on what
guidelines the FAA puts in place to integrate the technology into the national
airspace by 2015, as some experts fear the susceptibility to co-option of unmanned systems by third-party
operators could pose serious risks to domestic security.

Surveillance guts competitiveness

Stiennon 2013 (Richard; NSA Surveillance Threatens US Competitiveness; Jun
7; www.forbes.com/sites/richardstiennon/2013/06/07/nsa-surveillance-threatens-uscompetitiveness/; kdf)
domestic spying by the NSA revealed this week threatens the global
competitiveness of US tech companies. We are told we live in a digital world and the future is bright
The vast foreign and

for tech startups as costs of launching new products and services plummet and global markets open up to the

there is a world wide perception that any data that is stored or even
routed through the United States is sucked into cavernous NSA data centers for
analysis and cataloging. That perception was solidified in 2006 when former AT&T technician Mark Klein
smallest vendor. Yet,

blew the whistle on the fiber tap that ATT had provided to the NSA in some of its data centers. Those perceptions

Email archiving services

such as ProofPoint could not sell to even Canadian customers without building local
infrastructure. Even establishing separate data centers in Canada and Europe is not enough to assure
customers that their data would forever stay out of the grasp of US intelligence services. One of the fastest
growing segments of the tech industry is cloud services , with Salesforce.com one of the
have had real consequences for US tech firms seeking to offer global services.

leading examples. Box.net, and other cloud storage solutions, are burgeoning. Cloud infrastructure providers like
Amazon, Microsoft, and Rackspace are investing billions to serve markets that should be global but will be barred

from most countries thanks to the complete abandonment of trust caused by NSA/FBI spying. Since 2006, every
time I present outside the US the same question has been asked: Is the US reading our email? Answers that allude
to protections from abuse and oversight now seem specious. From this week forward a universal suspicion has
transformed into acknowledged fact. Yes, US government agencies are reading email, tracking phone calls, and
monitoring all communications. Brian Honan Board Member of the UK & Ireland Chapter of the Cloud Security

The revelations about the PRISM program could have major

implications for US companies doing business within the European Union . Under the EU
Alliance provided this opinion:

Data Protection directive it is illegal for European companies to export the personal data of EU citizens to countries
outside of the EU and the European Economic Area. Exceptions to this are for certain countries that have similar
privacy legislation in place to that of the EU or where the strong contracts protecting the privacy of that data are in
place. The US in not one of the approved countries but has put in place the EU Safe Harbor program which US
companies can sign up to and agree to apply EU privacy protections to private data. Many of the companies
allegedly involved in PRISM are part of the Safe Harbor program. The fact the US government is potentially
accessing that data could place the European organisations in breach of EU Data Protection regulations. The news
will also heighten concerns many European organisations, especially EU government ones, will have in selecting a
US Cloud Provider for their services. Gabriel Yoran, Managing Director and Founder of German security company
Steganos added: The European Union traditionally favors strong privacy regulations. However, this policy has been
under attack recently, being seen as a competitive disadvantage in the cloud services space. This could
dramatically change now in the light of the recent Verizon findings. Privacy software maker Steganos traditionally
stresses it being headquartered in Berlin and therefore subject to the even stricter German data protection law (one
of the strictest in the world). According to a February survey, 64% of Steganos customers said it was important or

Trust is the very foundation of all

commerce. Once lost it is almost impossible to regain. This weeks revelations that the NSA has
very important to them that Steganos is a Germany-based company.

blanket data harvesting arrangements with Verizon, ATT, Sprint-Nextel, Google, Microsoft, Apple, Skype, Yahoo,
FaceBook and even credit card processors, will have immediate repercussions. Non-US customers of any US
business will immediately evaluate their exposure to these new risks and look for alternatives. European, Canadian,
and Australian tech companies will profit from this. Competitors in those regions will offer alternatives that will also

While the FBI and NSA leverage the

dramatic intelligence opportunities of a digital world, their Orwellian actions are
crushing opportunity for tech giants and startups in the United States.
draw US customers away from the compromised US services.

US risks stalling now, especially in high tech services

prevents sustainable growth
Muro, et al, February 15 [Mark Muro, a senior fellow and director of policy
for the Metropolitan Policy Program, manages the program's economic work and key
policy projects. Jonathan Rothwell, February 2015, Advanced Industries Drive
Broad-Based Growth and Prosperity New Brookings report analyzes U.S. advanced
industries sector, http://www.brookings.edu/research/reports2/2015/02/03advanced-industries#/M10420]
The need for economic renewal in the U S remains urgent
new technologies ranging from
robotics and 3-D printing to digitization
are provoking genuine excitement
nited

tates

incomes for the majority of workers have left the nation shaken and frustrated. At the same time, astonishing
the

. Years of disappointing job growth and stagnant

advanced

of everything

even as they make it hard to see where things are going. Hence this paper: At a critical moment, this report asserts the special importance to Americas future of what the paper calls Americas advanced industries sector.
Characterized by its deep involvement with technology research and development (R&D) and STEM (science, technology, engineering, and math) workers, the sector encompasses 50 industries ranging from manufacturing industries

high-tech services
Their dynamism is going to be a central
component of any future revitalized U.S. economy.
these industries
encompass the countrys best shot at supporting innovative
and
sustainable growth.
Advanced industries represent a
sizable economic anchor for the U.S. economy and have led the post-recession
employment recovery.
the sector packs a massive economic punch.
such as automaking and aerospace to energy industries such as oil and gas extraction to

such as computer software and computer system design, including for health applications.

These industries encompass the nations tech sector at its broadest and most consequential.

As such,

, inclusive,

For that reason, this report provides a wide-angle overview of the advanced industry sector that reviews its role in American prosperity, assesses key trends, and maps

its metropolitan and global competitive standing before outlining high-level strategies to enhance that.The overview finds that: 1.

Modest in size,

As an employer

and source of economic activity the advanced industry sector plays a major role in the U.S. economy. As of 2013, the nations 50 advanced industries (see nearby box for selection criteria) employed 12.3 million U.S. workers. That

U.S. advanced industries produce $2.7 trillion

in value added annually 17 percent of all
GDP That is more than any
other sector
the sector employs 80 percent of the nations
engineers; performs 90 percent of private-sector R&D; generates approximately 85
percent of all U.S. patents; and accounts for 60 percent of U.S. exports. Advanced
industries also support unusually extensive supply chains and other forms of
ancillary economic activity.
amounts to about 9 percent of total U.S. employment. And yet, even with this modest employment base,

U.S. gross domestic product (

).

, including healthcare, finance, or real estate. At the same time,

On a per worker basis, advanced industries purchase $236,000 in goods and services from other businesses annually, compared with $67,000 in purchasing

by other industries. This spending sustains and creates more jobs. In fact, 2.2 jobs are created domestically for every new advanced industry job0.8 locally and 1.4 outside of the region. This means that in addition to the 12.3
million workers employed by advanced industries, another 27.1 million U.S. workers owe their jobs to economic activity supported by advanced industries. Directly and indirectly, then, the sector supports almost 39 million jobs
nearly one-fourth of all U.S. employment. In terms of the sectors growth and change, the total number of jobs in the sector has remained mostly flat since 1980 but its output has soared. From 1980 to 2013 advanced industries
expanded at a rate of 5.4 percent annually30 percent faster than the economy as a whole. Since the Great Recession, moreover, both employment and output have risen dramatically. The sector has added nearly one million jobs
since 2010, with employment and output growth rates 1.9 and 2.3 times higher, respectively, than in the rest of the economy. Advanced services led this post-recession surge, and created 65 percent of the new jobs. Computer
systems design alone generated 250,000 new jobs. Certain advanced manufacturing industriesespecially those involved in transportation equipmenthave also added thousands of jobs after decades of losses. Advanced
industries also provide extremely high-quality economic opportunities for workers. Workers in advanced industries are extraordinarily productive and generate some $210,000 in annual value added per worker compared with
$101,000, on average, outside advanced industries. Because of this, advanced industries compensate their workers handsomely and, in contrast to the rest of the economy, wages are rising sharply. In 2013, the average advanced
industries worker earned $90,000 in total compensation, nearly twice as much as the average worker outside of the sector. Over time, absolute earnings in advanced industries grew by 63 percent from 1975 to 2013, after adjusting
for inflation. This compares with 17 percent gains outside the sector. Even workers with lower levels of education can earn salaries in advanced industries that far exceed their peers in other industries. In this regard, the sector is in
fact accessible: More than half of the sectors workers possess less than a bachelors degree. 2. The advanced industries sector is highly metropolitan and varies considerably in its composition and depth across regions. Advanced
industries are present in nearly every U.S. region, but the sectors geography is uneven. Advanced industries tend to cluster in large metropolitan areas. Looking across the country, the 100 largest metro areas contain 70 percent of
all U.S. advanced industries jobs. In terms of the sectors local clustering, San Jose is the nations leading advanced industry hub with 30.0 percent of its workforce employed in the sector. Seattle follows with 16.0 percent of its local
jobs in advanced industries. Wichita (15.5 percent); Detroit (14.8 percent), and San Francisco (14.0 percent) follow. Overall, advanced industries account for more than one in 10 jobs in nearly one-quarter of the countrys major metro
areas. This clustering occurs in a variety of configurations. Some metropolitan areassuch as Grand Rapids, MI; Portland, OR; and Wichitafocus heavily on advanced manufacturing pursuits such as automotive, semiconductor, or
aerospace manufacturing, respectively, while metros like Bakersfield and Oklahoma City exhibit strong energy specializations. By contrast, services such as computer systems design, software, and research and development
predominate in metropolitan areas like Boston, San Francisco, and Washington. For their part, San Jose, Detroit, and Seattle exhibit depth and balance across multiple advanced industry categories. Overall, the number of extremely
dense concentrations of advanced industry actually has declined. In 1980, 59 of the countrys 100 largest metropolitan areas had at least 10 percent of their workforce in advanced industries. By 2013, only 23 major metro areas

The U S is losing ground to other countries on advanced

industry competitiveness
contained such sizable concentrations. 3.

nited

tates

. The United States has the most productive advanced industries in the world, behind only energy-intensive Norway. However, this

competitiveness appears to be eroding. The nations declining

concentration

in advanced industries and its negative trade balance in the sector

do not bode well Since 2000, the sectors

.

employment and output as a share of the

economy has shrunk The

nations standing on these measures now lags world leaders.
total U.S.

Equally worrisome is the balance of trade in the sector.

Although advanced industries export $1.1 trillion worth of goods and services each year and account for roughly 60 percent of total U.S. exports, the United States ran a $632 billion trade deficit in the sector in 2012, in line with
similar yearly balances since 1999. To be sure, a handful of individual advanced industries such as royalties and other intellectual property and aerospace manufacturing enjoy trade surpluses that exceeded $60 billion and $80 billion
in 2012. However, numerous areas of historical strength such as communications equipment, computer equipment, motor vehicles, and pharmaceuticals now run sizeable deficits, as do high-value R&D services and computer and

Notwithstanding the nations strong innovation enterprise the U S

advantage on this front is slipping For certain the advanced industry sector remains
the key site of U.S. technology gains.
For example, the U.S. share of global R&D and patenting is falling
Americas research
dominance looks less impressive after adjusting for the size of its working age
population
information services.

nited

tates

However, the United States is losing ground relative to other countries on measures of innovation performance and

capacity.

much faster than its

share of global GDP and population, meaning that U.S. slippage cannot simply be attributed to demography or macroeconomic convergence. Likewise,

. Turning to the nations critical regional innovation ecosystems, surprisingly few U.S. metropolitan areas rank among the worlds most innovativeas measured by patent cooperation treaty applications

per capita. Among the nations most patent-intensive regions, just twoSan Diego and the San Jose-San Francisco combined arearank in the global top 20 and just two more (Boston and Rochester) score in the top 50.

The US isnt key to the global economy

Kenny 2015 (Charles; Why the Developing World Won't Catch the U.S.
Economy's Cold; May 4; www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2015-05-04/why-thedeveloping-world-won-t-catch-the-u-s-economy-s-cold; kdf)
first-quarter GDP growth for 2015 was an
anemic 0.2 percent. This immediately sparked fears that a U.S. slowdown could lead to a
global recession. But the clich about America sneezing and the rest of the world
catching the cold doesnt hold like it used to . The U.S. isnt as contagious as it was, and
developing countries in particular are far more robust to economic shocks. Thats good
news for everyone. It means less volatility in Asia, Africa, and Latin America, which contributes to happier
Last week the U.S. Commerce Department announced that

people, greater political stability, and stronger long-term growthall of which should help lift the U.S. out of its own

A team of IMF researchers has looked at the long-term record of the worlds
economies when it comes to growth and recession . They measured how long economies
doldrums.

expanded without interruption, as well as the depth and length of downturns. Over the past two decades, low and
middle-income economies have spent more time in expansions, while downturns and recoveries have become
shallower and shorter. This suggests countries have become more resilient to shocks. In the 1970s and '80s, the

median developing economy took more than 10 years after a downturn to recover to the GDP per capita it had prior
to that slump. By the early 2000s, that recovery time had dropped to two years. In the 1970s and '80s, countries of
the developing world spent more than a third of their time in downturns, but by the 2000s they spent 80 percent of
their time in expansions. The first decade of the 21st century was the first time that developing economies saw
more expansion and shorter downturns than did advanced economies: Median growth in the developing world was
at its highest since 1950 and volatility at its lowest. Developing countries still face a larger risk of deeper recession
when terms of trade turn against them, capital flows dry up, or advanced economies enter recessions themselves.
But the scale of that risk has diminished. Thats because low and middle-income economies have introduced policy
reforms that increase resilience: flexible exchange rates, inflation targeting, and lower debt. Economies with
inflation-targeting regimes see recovery periods less than a third as long as economies without targeting, for
example. Larger reserves are associated with longer expansions. And median reserves in developing countries more
than doubled as a percentage of GDP between the 1990s and 2010. Median external debt has dropped from 60
percent to 35 percent of GDP over that same period. Such policy changes account for two-thirds of the increased
recession-resilience of developing countries since the turn of the century, suggest the IMF researchersleaving
external factors, such as positive terms of trade, accounting for just one-third. Thats good news for the developing
worldnot least because volatile growth is particularly bad for poorer people, who are most at risk of falling into
malnutrition or being forced to take children out of school, which has long-term consequences for future earnings.
That might help explain the relationship between growth volatility, slower reductions in poverty, and rising
inequality. Sudden negative income shocks can also be a factor in sparking violence: When rains fail, the risk of civil
war in Africa spikes, and when coffee prices in Colombia fall, municipalities cultivating more coffee see increased
drug-related conflict. The African analysis suggests that a five percentage-point drop in income growth is associated
with a 10 percent increase in the risk of civil conflict in the following year. Finally ,

because volatility
increases the uncertainty attached to investments, it can also be a drag on overall
long-term economic performance. Viktoria Hnatkovska and Norman Loayza of the World Bank
estimated that moving from a comparatively stable to a relatively volatile growth trajectory is associated with a

Lower volatility in the developing

world and its associated long-term growth performance is also good news for the
U.S. A strong global economy is still a positive force for growth in every country, including developed nations. And
drop in average annual growth of as much as 2 percent of GDP.

with the developing world accounting for about one-third of trade and GDP at market rates, as well as three-fifths of

Those hoping for

a recovery in U.S. output should be grateful for stronger economic immune systems
in the rest of the world.
U.S. exports, its role in supporting American economic performance has never been greater.

1AR Link Turn Extension

Domestic surveillance causes massive offshoringundermines
the economy
Miller 2014 (Hugo; NSA Spying Sends Data Clients North of the Border; Jan 9;
www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2014-01-09/nsa-spying-sends-data-clients-northof-the-border; kdf)
In the British Columbia town of Kamloops, arid as a desert with cool summer nights, Telus Corp. only has to turn on

chilly
temperatures are part of Canadian companies sales pitch to businesses looking for
places to store their growing troves of digital information as cheaply as possible. They also
boast of inexpensive hydroelectric power and low seismic activity. And now theyre touting what they
say is a new advantage: less snooping. Revelations that the U.S. National Security
Agency has spied on data networks run by American companies have given
Canadian data-center operators an opportunity. Theyre telling customers from Europe
and Asia that laws north of the border are more protective of privacy. Sales of storage
services in Canada are growing 20 percent a year at Telus and Rogers Communications Inc. U .S.-based
technology companies, meanwhile, complain that the NSA scandal has hurt their
business. There is a structural advantage in Canada in that the data is here and the privacy protection is more
the air conditioning about 40 hours a year to keep its computer servers from overheating. The

stringent, said Lloyd Switzer, who runs Teluss network of data centers. The company has 10 data centers in
Quebec, Ontario, Alberta and British Columbia, where it opened a C$75 million, 215,000-square-foot (20,000square-meter) facility in Kamloops last year. That site has room for six more modules of expansion, which would
increase the investment into the hundreds of millions of dollars.

-- AT: Canada Good

Canada doesnt solve the aff
Miller 2014 (Hugo; NSA Spying Sends Data Clients North of the Border; Jan 9;
www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2014-01-09/nsa-spying-sends-data-clients-northof-the-border; kdf)
Snowdens Revelation Data privacy came under scrutiny in the U.S. in June after former NSA contractor Edward
Snowden revealed that his employer was monitoring phone and e-mail traffic emanating from the U.S. International
outrage over NSA surveillance may cost U.S. companies as much as $35 billion in lost revenue through 2016,
according to the Information Technology & Innovation Foundation, a policy research group in Washington whose
board includes representatives of companies such as International Business Machines Corp. and Intel Corp. Rogers,
which competes with Telus for phone and Internet customers, gets about C$70 million ($66 million) in annual
revenue from data storage -- still tiny at less than 1 percent of total sales. The unit has had more inquiries in the
past 12 months from companies outside North America than in the entire previous decade, A.J. Byers, who heads up

A lot of international companies trying to

gain access to the U.S. used to go directly to the U.S., Byers said. Now we see a lot of
European and Asian companies talking to us. Rogers and Telus are looking to capitalize on the
the business, said in an interview. Overseas Demand

surge in demand for data storage to make up for the slowing growth of smartphones, which more than half of
Canadians already have. Stock gains for the companies also have slowed. Shares of Rogers climbed 6 percent last
year after gaining 15 percent in 2012. Telus rose 12 percent last year, its smallest annual increase in four years.
Last month, a U.S. federal judge ruled that the NSA probably acted illegally in collecting telephone-call data,
allowing a lawsuit to go forward claiming the practice violates the U.S. Constitution. U.S. District Judge William H.
Pauley III in Manhattan late last month ruled the NSAs bulk collection of phone records is legal, challenging the
earlier ruling. The NSA has said its pleased with Pauleys decision. Facing Charges Snowden has been charged with
theft and espionage by the U.S. government and has avoided arrest by remaining in Russia. While editorials in
newspapers such as the New York Times have recommended that he get clemency, Janet Napolitano, the former
head of the Department of Homeland Security, has said he doesnt deserve a reprieve. Canadas Privacy Act,
enacted in 1983, imposes obligations on 250 federal-government departments and agencies to limit collection and

the datacenter sales pitch glosses over the long history of intelligence-sharing between
Canada and the U.S. The governments have collaborated as far back as the 1940s, said Ron Deibert, an
Internet-security expert who runs the University of Torontos Citizen Lab. Anyone who would look to
Canada as a safe haven would be fooling themselves, Deibert said in a phone interview.
Canada would be one of the poorest choices as we have a long-standing
relationship with the NSA. Surveillance Allowed Communications Security Establishment, the countrys
use of personal information, and gives citizens the right to access that data and correct mistakes. Still,

intelligence agency for communications and electronics, is forbidden from monitoring purely domestic traffic.

Surveillance of foreign communications that involve someone in Canada may be

authorized, as long as one of the parties is outside the country -- a rule established after the Sept. 11 terrorist
attacks. CSE works with its Five Eyes information-gathering partners -- the U.S., U.K., Australia and New Zealand -and must comply with Canadian law in its interactions with them, Andrew McLaughlin, a spokesman for the agency,
said by e-mail. A CSE commissioner, typically a retired judge, submits an annual report to Canadas Parliament
through the defense ministry. Justice Robert Decary, who did the last such report in June, wrote that he was deeply
disappointed that legislative amendments to Canadas National Defense Act proposed by his predecessors that
would improve the provisions that were hastily enacted in the aftermath of September 2001 havent yet been
adopted.

1ARNo Impact
The global economy determines the US economy, not vice
versa
Rasmus 2015 (Jack; US Economy Collapses Again; May 14;
www.counterpunch.org/2015/05/14/us-economy-collapses-again/; kdf)
The problem of weak, stop-go, recovery in the U.S. today is further exacerbated by a
global economy that continues to slow even more rapidly and , in case after case, slip
increasingly into recessions or stagnate at best. Signs of weakness and stress in the global economy are
everywhere and growing. Despite massive money injections by its central bank in 2013, and again in 2014, Japans
economy has fallen in 2015, a fourth time, into recession. After having experienced two recessions since 2009,

Europes economy is also trending toward stagnation once more after it too, like
Japan, just introduced a US$60 billion a month central bank money injection this past winter. Despite daily hype in
the business press, unemployment in the Eurozone is still officially at 11.4 percent , and in
countries like Spain and Greece, still at 24 percent. Yet we hear Spain is now the poster-boy of the Eurozone,
having returned to robust growth. Growth for whom? Certainly not the 24 percent still jobless, a rate that hasnt
changed in years. Euro businesses in Spain are doing better, having imposed severe labor market reforms on

Italy
remains the economic black sheep of the Eurozone, still in recession for years now,
while France officially records no growth, but is likely in recession as well. Elites in both Italy
and France hope to copy Spains labor market reforms (read: cut wages, pensions, and make
workers there, in order to drive down wages to help reduce costs and boost Spanish exports. Meanwhile,

it easier to layoff full time workers). In order to boost its growth, Italy is considering, or may have already decided,
to redefine its way to growth by including the services of prostitutes and drug dealers as part of its GDP. Were the

Across the Eurozone, the

greater economy of its 18 countries still hasnt reached levels it had in 2007, before
the onset of the last recession. Unlike the U.S.s stop-go, Europe has been stop-go-stop.
USA to do the same redefinition, it would no doubt mean a record boost to GDP.

AT: Terrorism DA
-Look in the aff portion of the terror DA for more work

2AC No Link
Drones are inefficient mechanism to solve terrorism
Rothfuss 2014 (Ian F [George Mason School of Law]; Student Comment: An
Economic Perspective on the Privacy Implications of Domestic Drone Surveillance;
10 J.L. Econ. & Pol'y 441; kdf)
Conclusion
U.S. citizens want to be safe from terrorist attacks and other threats, but not at the
expense of their privacy rights. Therefore, a delicate balance must be achieved
between privacy and security interests. Drones represent a surveillance technology
advancement that threatens to dramatically alter the balance between these
interests. As discussed in this comment, the current legal framework does not
adequately protect privacy from the widespread surveillance that will likely result
from the unrestricted domestic use of drones. Therefore, prompt legislative action is
necessary to address the fundamental privacy challenges presented by the use of
drones. Such legislation should allow for constructive use of drones within a
framework that contains restrictions to protect individual privacy rights. While
widespread general surveillance could make the nation safer from crime and
terrorism, such extensive surveillance will ultimately be inefficient. The surveillance
that could result from the domestic use of drones would detract from individual
privacy and cause individuals to reduce productive activities and invest in
countermeasures. Such "privacy disutility" will outweigh the societal benefits unless
domestic drone surveillance is restricted. Therefore, [*462] without legislative
action we may soon live in a world where "every time we walk out of our front door
we have to look up and wonder whether some invisible eye in the sky is monitoring
us." n175

2AC Cyber War turn

Federal regulation of drones is necessary to build safeguards
against cyber war
Bernd 2013 (Candice [assistant editor/reporter with Truthout]; The Coming
Domestic Drone Wars; Sep 19; www.truth-out.org/news/item/18951-the-comingdomestic-drone-wars#; kdf)
Cyber warfare may prove to be the most enduring challenge
for the FAA when it comes to ensuring guidelines that will protect Americans
adequately as drone technology makes its transition into civilian life. Peter Singer is the
Domestic Drone Weaknesses

director of the Center for 21st Century Security and Intelligence and a senior fellow in the Foreign Policy program at
Brookings Institute. He is the author of Wired for War: The Robotics Revolution and Conflict in the 21st Century.

the primary weakness of drone technology is many systems'

dependence on GPS signals and remote operation. Even military-grade drone
technology can be co-opted, he said. In December 2011, the Iranian Army's electronic warfare unit
According to him,

brought down an American drone, the RQ-170 Sentinel, after it crossed into Iranian airspace. In Iraq in 2009, Iraqi
insurgents were able to use $26 software to intercept the video feeds of US Predator drones in a manner "akin to a
criminal listening in on the police radio scanner," Singer told Truthout. Most recently ,

a research team at
the University of Texas was able to demonstrate successfully the spoofing of a UAV
by creating false civil GPS signals that trick the drone's GPS receiver. "There aren't easy
answers to these other than good encryption requirements," Singer told Truthout in an email. The Texas research
team hoped to demonstrate the dangers of spoofing early on in the FAA's task to write the mandated rules for UAS
integration in the national airspace, and the Department of Homeland Security invited the team to demonstrate the
spoofing in New Mexico. "Vulnerability

to jamming and spoofing depends highly on the

design of the aircraft and control systems and vary across differing architectures.
Minimum system performance and design standards developed for civil UAS designs
will address these vulnerabilities, " an FAA spokesman told Truthout. Whether minimum
standards for system performance will be enough to address the changing dynamic
of cyber warfare, and for that matter, technology, remains a question, but it's something the
FAA and Homeland Security are examining as drone technology becomes more
widespread in the US.

Its the most probable existential threat

Paikowsky and Baram 2015 (Deganit [post-doctoral fellow at the Davis Institute for
International Relations at Hebrew University in Jerusalem and a senior researcher at the Yuval Neeman
Workshop for Science, Technology, and Security at Tel-Aviv University, also a research associate at the
Space Policy Institute at George Washington University and a consultant to the space committee of
Israels National Council for Research and Development] and Gil [Ph.D. candidate in the department of
political science at Tel-Aviv University, and a researcher at the Yuval Neeman workshop for Science,
Technology, and Security at Tel-Aviv University]; Space Wars; Jan 7;
www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/142690/deganit-paikowsky-and-gil-baram/space-wars?cid=rss-rss_xmlspace_wars-000000; kdf)

In September 2014, hackers from China broke into the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration
(NOAA) network in an attempt to disrupt data related to disaster planning, aviation, and much
more coming from U.S. satellites. This breach was the latest in a series of cyberattacks on space
systems, exposing the Achilles heel of such technology: the vulnerability of its computers and the information it creates and
transmits. Cyberattacks, which are on the rise in every industry, pose particularly significant threats to
space systems as they are used so ubiquitously in corporate and military operations, making them increasingly attractive
targets for hackers. Although only about a dozen countries have the capability to launch a satellite into space , billions of

people around the world rely on space systems for nearly every aspect of modern
life. Satellites are used to support phones, the Internet, and banking systems . They are also used to
monitor land, air, and maritime traffic; facilitate global communication s; transmit mass media in real time;
monitor the earth for climate change or severe weather threats and natural disasters; gather
intelligence; and send early warnings of incoming ballistic missiles . It is no wonder, then, that
the global economy depends on communication satellites , navigation systems, and
earth-observation satellites. The backbone of all these services consists of 1,200 operational satellites currently orbiting the earth,
which have the potential to cause significant tangible damage by attacking national or global space systems across countries and
continents. Even a small glitch can wreak havoc. For example, in April 2014, the Glonass System, the Russian equivalent of the
American-designed GPS, malfunctioned due to two small mathematical mistakes in the software. Significantly, fixing the system
took more than 13 hours, and the half-day breakdown led to severe disruption of Glonass receivers, which affected iPhone5 users.

space systems are the brass ring

of cybercrimes: They are low effort and high return . Therefore, a relatively simple hack
can inflict considerable damage. It is easy to see why space systems are the brass ring of cybercrimes: They are
While the disruption was not caused by ambitious hackers, it is easy to see why

low effort and high return. Therefore, a relatively simple hack can inflict considerable damage. EASY PREY Although a space system
is composed of three connected segmentssatellites and spacecraft that orbit the earth, ground stations, and the communication
systems that link the twocybercriminals only need to find the vulnerabilities in one of these segments. For example, for a few
hundred dollars, a hacker can buy a small jamming device on the Internet to interfere with satellite signals. We have to make it
(satellite navigation systems) more robust, warned Colonel Bradford Parkinson, who led the creation of the GPS. Our cellphone
towers are timed with GPS. If they lose that time, they lose sync and pretty soon they dont operate. Our power grid is synchronized
with GPS [and] so is our banking system. Space systems have become the target of hacking. In July of
last year, the United States identified a 28-year-old British citizen who hacked a number of government networks, including NASA.
He attempted to grab highly sensitive data and claimed he would do some hilarious stuff with it. Four months later, in November
2013, viruses infected the computers used by the International Space Station. Japans space agency also discovered a computer
virus inside a few of its computers in January 2012 and Germanys space center recently suffered an espionage attack, with several
of its computers getting hit with spyware. Since 2009, the BBC has complained of disruptions to its Persian-language radio and
television programs and has accused Tehran of interfering with international satellite broadcasts beamed into Iran. Only after the EU
made a diplomatic complaint to pressure Iran to cease and desist did the attacks stop. When North Korea jammed South Koreas
GPS signals in May 2012, it affected the navigation of over 250 flights. The list goes on. One of the reasons space systems,
especially commercial ones, are such easy prey is that they often operate with outdated software. Developing a space system is
generally a long process that, depending on the complexity of the system, takes several years to complete. And once the system is
operational, it is expected to last for at least several yearssometimes even more than a decade. This process makes it difficult to
update the systems security software. Moreover, in many cases, the information systems that are being used to manage space
systems are mostly based on commercial off-the-shelf products, with known vulnerabilities and low levels of protection, especially
compared to supposedly better-protected military systems. In 2014, a number of think-tanks, from the Council on Foreign Relations
to London-based Chatham House, as well as the information-security firm IOActive, sounded the alarm on how vulnerable space
systems are to cyberattacks. These reports warned of the ease with which backdoors in softwarean undetected remote access to a
computercan be exploited, and of the prevalence of unsecured software, non-protected protocols, and unencrypted channels. One
of the studies recommendations was to immediately remove software updates from the public websites of various companies that
provide satellite services and equipment, in order to prevent hackers from reverse-engineering the source code. However, despite

the space industry is barely aware of these risks and its responses are
slow. Herein lies a challenge: to produce and put into practice standards and regulations regarding multinational and commercial
these warnings,

activities in space technology and exploration. MOVING FORWARD In the past year, several space-faring nations have begun to
tackle the issue. Three months ago, the U.S. Air Force announced that it hopes to develop technologies that would prevent hackers
from jamming its satellites. Russia intends to significantly update the robustness and security of its military and government satellite
communication system by 2025. Despite these positive steps, national governments and international bodies have more ground to
cover. First, governments need to increase their efforts to raise awareness regarding the growing threat of cyberattacks against both
government and commercial space systems. Second, in order to provide better protection, governments and corporations should
take a holistic rather than piecemeal approach regarding the protection of all segments of their systems, and work toward solutions
that will ensure the performance of the systems and their services, rather than protecting a specific asset. For example, satellites
are and will continue to be damaged by cyberattacks; but the ability of an entire system to operate smoothly and recover rapidly is
more crucial than the security and safety of a single satellite. Third, military, civil, and commercial actors should engage in more
dialogue in order to strengthen overall protection. They can do so by sharing information and working jointly toward better
standards and regulations. Fourth, governments and international bodies should try to standardize protocols for protecting space
systems. For example, when NOAA was breached in September, the Inspector General for the Commerce Department, which
oversees the network, had just criticized it for an array of high-risk vulnerabilities in the security of its satellite information and
weather service systems. It took nearly a month for NOAA to admit it had been hacked. Hiding such information hampers
meaningful and timely discussion about the issue and delays the development of preventive measures. Enforcing a standard
protocol could help alleviate this problem. And finally, protecting space systems must be an international effort. Space-faring nations
should work together to achieve international cooperation on all of the areas mentioned above: raising awareness, sharing

The potential for colossal damage and the

relative ease of launching a cyberattack on space systems make them tantalizing
targets for cybercriminals. The threat is already at our doorstep, and it will only get
bigger. It is time for the international space community to muster the political will to rise to this growing challenge.
information, and developing much-needed standards.

AT: Other args

AT: States CP Perm do both

The perm solves
Kaminski 2013 (Margot E [Executive Director of the Information Society Project,
Research Scholar, and Lecturer in Law at Yale Law School]; Drone Federalism:
Civilian Drones and the Things They Carry; 4 Calif. L. Rev. Circuit 57; kdf)
DRONE PRIVACY REGULATIONS There are, broadly speaking, two subjects of drone privacy regulation: law
enforcement drone use and civilian drone use. n8 Most advocates and academics have focused on establishing
privacy regulations to govern law enforcement drone use. n9 This task is worthy of immediate attention. The FAA
already permits law enforcement drone use, where it does not yet permit commercial private drone use. n10 A
number of state and federal bills thus propose warrant requirements for drone surveillance by law enforcement. n11

The federal government could regulate law enforcement drone use as it has
historically regulated other law enforcement behavior, by providing a floor for state
laws. n12 Federal legislation already governs law enforcement use of wiretaps and
pen registers. n13 Drone surveillance is likely to additionally involve video
surveillance, location tracking, and/or facial recognition, among other possible
technologies. Thus federal legislation governing law enforcement surveillance could
be expanded to govern location tracking, video surveillance, and the use of facial recognition software by law
enforcement. n14 [*60] Regulating law enforcement drone use poses few countervailing dangers from legislating
thoughtlessly or in haste; such legislation would implicate Fourth Amendment rights rather than First Amendment
rights, so the worst case scenario is that such legislation might eventually be found by courts not to protect enough
privacy. n15

AT: FISA Court Model

Those courts fail in the context of drones
Selinger and Kaag 2015 (Evan and John [Associate prof of philosophy @ U of
Massachusetts Lowell]; Why domestic drones stir more debate than ones used in
warfighting abroad; Mar 9; http://www.csmonitor.com/World/Passcode/PasscodeVoices/2015/0309/Why-domestic-drones-stir-more-debate-than-ones-used-inwarfighting-abroad kdf)
The FISA courts
are very weird. Our legal system is based on an adversarial model. In other words, courts are places to
dispute charges and impartial parties a judge and jury make a decision about the
case. The FISA courts arent like this. At all. FISA requests are not disputed . Only a very,
Selinger: Why are you skeptical about replicating the FISA court model in this context? Kaag:

very small percentage of FISA requests have been denied over the courts 30 year history. Most are approved as a
matter of course. Sarah Kreps and I have argued that one of the more disturbing aspects of the FISA courts are their

the special needs doctrine, which allows the government to carry

out surveillance without detailed warrants in order to address an overriding public
danger. We are concerned that this sort of governance, when applied to the issue of drones,
might provide strategists and policy makers with a type of carte blanche over the
targeted killing program. The alternative proposed by the Obama administration what the President
called an independent oversight board in the executive branch doesnt make us feel much better. It does not
address the question of checks and balances that has prompted calls for judicial
oversight.
recent expansion of

2AC Generic DA Answer

A lack of transparency in data collection makes their impact
inevitable
Scheer 2015 (Robert [Prof @ USCs School of journalism and communication];
They Know Everything About You; Nation Books; p. 157-8; kdf)
OUR GOVERNMENT, LIKE OTHERS THROUGHOUT history, tells us that repressive, invasive, and
paranoid national security policies are for our own good , especially in terms of our safety. Yet
where do the prerogatives of a surveillance state driven by fear and governed by
secrecy really take us? The reality is that these procedures not only are unconstitutional but
all too often lead to bad government policies, both at home and abroad. One need
only review the invasion of Iraq to see the folly of toppling a regime that was an
implacable enemy of al Qaeda-an invasion driven by a fear of weapons of mass destruction that free
access to the available data would have discounted. The direct result, billions of dollars and
hundreds of thousands of deaths later, is a fractured Iraq that, at the time of this writing a
decade later, seems to be in a constant state of bloody division. Or as veteran correspondent
Patrick Cockburn summarized in the London Review of Books in 2014, after the extremist Islamic State of Iraq and
Syria (ISIS) seized huge swaths of both countries: For America, Britain and the Western powers, the rise of lsis and
the Caliphate is the ultimate disaster. Whatever they intended by their invasion oflraq in 2003 and their efforts to
get rid of Assad in Syria since 2011, it was not to see the creation of a jihadi state spanning northern Iraq and Syria
run by a movement a hundred times bigger and much better organised than the al-Qaida of Osama bin Laden. The
war on terror for which civil liberties have been curtailed and hundreds of billions of dollars spent has failed

The obvious lesson of that debacle, and others like it, is that an informed public
with access to accurate information-even when the facts are embarrassing to the
government- is the best safeguard against such errors. Aren't we better off knowing
when our freedoms are threatened or we are being lied to, even by our own leaders,
so that we can rectify such policies? In other words, didn't Edward Snowden, regardless of
the legality of his actions, actually make us safer?
miserably.1

AT: Federalism DA
The plan sets a floor states can go beyond it
Kaminski 2013 (Margot E [Executive Director of the Information Society Project,
Research Scholar, and Lecturer in Law at Yale Law School]; Drone Federalism:
Civilian Drones and the Things They Carry; 4 Calif. L. Rev. Circuit 57; kdf)
DRONE PRIVACY REGULATIONS There are, broadly speaking, two subjects of drone privacy regulation: law
enforcement drone use and civilian drone use. n8 Most advocates and academics have focused on establishing
privacy regulations to govern law enforcement drone use. n9 This task is worthy of immediate attention. The FAA
already permits law enforcement drone use, where it does not yet permit commercial private drone use. n10 A
number of state and federal bills thus propose warrant requirements for drone surveillance by law enforcement. n11

The federal government could regulate law enforcement drone use as it has
historically regulated other law enforcement behavior, by providing a floor for state
laws. n12 Federal legislation already governs law enforcement use of wiretaps and
pen registers. n13 Drone surveillance is likely to additionally involve video
surveillance, location tracking, and/or facial recognition, among other possible
technologies. Thus federal legislation governing law enforcement surveillance could
be expanded to govern location tracking, video surveillance, and the use of facial recognition software by law
enforcement. n14 [*60] Regulating law enforcement drone use poses few countervailing dangers from legislating
thoughtlessly or in haste; such legislation would implicate Fourth Amendment rights rather than First Amendment
rights, so the worst case scenario is that such legislation might eventually be found by courts not to protect enough
privacy. n15