The cowardly acts of Al Qaeda has changed the way we see ourselves in the world sin 9/11.

The
shattered sense of security has influenced our lives as well as the way we conduct our daily
affairs. In order to combat the scourge of terrorism, the government has taken unprecedented
steps to ensure the safety of its citizens. These measures to enhance security do not achieve
their stated goals, but provoke a greater systemic harm to our civil liberties. Although the intent
is justified, the practice is not. Thus, we negate this months resolution.
Contention 1: Domestic surveillance by the NSA is ineffective.
Subpoint A: Terrorists are already aware of the extent of the domestic surveillance programs.
Richard Clarke, the top counter-terrorism czar under President Clinton and Bush states that
Terrorists already assume that this sort of thing is being done. Leonid Bershidsky writing for
Bloomberg notes that the infrastructure built by the NSA may only be good for gathering
information, and I quote, on the stupidest, lowest ranking terrorists. NSAs PRISM surveillance
program targets services that truly dangerous elements do not use. Former NSA
communications expert William Binney points out that the NSA collects so much information that
it lacks the proper analysis to carry out effective surveillance on legitimate threat.
Supboint B: Domestic surveillance has not prevented terrorist attacks in the U.S. Proponents of
the NSAs domestic surveillance argue that the program has resulted in 54 cases that resulted in
the prevention of terrorist attacks. However, these so called preventions lacked evidence or
were tangentially relevant in terrorist plots. According to Senator Patrick Leahy, there is no
evidence that bulk phone records collected by the NSA helped to thwart these terrorist attacks.
In a senate judiciary committee hearing, General Keith Alexander of the NSA admitted that only
13 out of the 54 had a connection to the United States. Of the 13, only one or perhaps two
resulted in foiling terrorist plots. The first one includes an indictment of a taxi cab driver who
had donated $8,500 to a Somalian terrorist group al-Shahaab. The second incident relates to the
Times Square Bomber. Although the bomber was foiled, the Guardian observes that the Times
Square Bomber was not identified by the NSA but by the conventional surveillance technique of
tip-offs provided by the INTELLIGENCE SURVEILLANCE in BRITAIN.
Contention 2: Domestic surveillance harms democratic governments. Professor Neil Richards
writing for the Harvard Law Review observes that information collected surreptitiously can be
used to blackmail or discredit opponents by revealing embarrassing secrets. Most notably, he
points to the case of Martin Luther King from whom the FBI collected his plans and activities
through a domestic surveillance program. These activities were implemented solely to
completely discredit him. In a more recent case, the NY Times reports that the NSA
inadvertently monitored a U.S. Congressman. Sociologist Maria Los observing surveillance
programs in eastern European countries further elaborates that Secret surveillance files are
routinely turned into a weapon in political struggles, seriously undermining democratic processes
and freedoms. Domestic surveillance harms the legitimacy of our elected officials. Surveillance
provides an unfair advantage to those in power, unfairly leveling the political field.
Contention 3: The cost of maintaining an ineffective program outweighs its benefits. Jeanne
Sahadi notes that it is impossible to estimate the exact costs, but according to Eric Snowden,
American spy agencies are operating at a $52.6 billion dollar budget. Considering the
ineffectiveness of the program, money could be spent elsewhere. Currently, the federal
government allocates $45.8 billion on primary and secondary education, $37.8 billion on the
police and other enforcement agencies. The funding of an ineffective program that impinges
upon our democracy and unjustifiably uses our tax dollars
At a cost of billions of taxpayers money, the NSA has caught one Somalian cab driver sending
$8,500 dollars to a political group that barely registers as a terrorist threat. It is clear that the
harms to our government virtually no benefits compared to the harms caused by the domestic
surveillance program of the NSA. Thus we strongly urge a con ballot.