Islamophobia

Topicality
 1NC T-13%
A substantial curtailment is at least 13% -- the court case Shell Oil v.
Brooks established a precedent on this issue heres is Justice Utter
delivering the opinion of the Court.
J. Utter, concurring judges: C.J. Wright, Hamilton Rosellini, Brachtenbach Stafford,
Dolliver Horowitz, JJ Hicks, 88 Wn.2d 909, 567 P.2d 1132, SHELL OIL v. BROOKS
[3] The act specifies the particular circumstances in which one who leaves employment due to a labor dispute may qualify for compensation,
despite the voluntary character of such a termination. "An individual shall be disqualified for benefits for any week with respect to which the
commissioner finds that his unemployment is due to a stoppage of work which exists because of a labor dispute at the factory, establishment,
or other premises at which he is or was last employed . . ." RCW 50.20.090. The parties concede each claimant was unemployed because of the
labor dispute. The next issue presented then is whether there was a "stoppage of work" which raises the ancillary issues of how that term is to
be defined and whether the record supports the findings of the commissioner. The term "stoppage of work" refers to the operation of the
employer's plant or business rather than the activity of individual employees. LAWRENCE BAKING CO. v. UNEMPLOYMENT COMPENSATION
COMM'N, 308 Mich. 198, 13 N.W.2d 260, 154 A.L.R. 660 (1944), CERT. DENIED, 323 U.S. 738, 89 L. Ed. 591, 65 S. Ct. 43 (1944). SEE
CONSTRUCTION OF PHRASE "STOPPAGE OF WORK" IN STATUTORY PROVISION DENYING UNEMPLOYMENT COMPENSATION BENEFITS DURING
STOPPAGE RESULTING FROM LABOR DISPUTE, Annot., 61 A.L.R.3d 693 (1975); Shadur, UNEMPLOYMENT BENEFITS AND THE "LABOR DISPUTE"
DISQUALIFICATION, 17 U. Chi. L. Rev. 294 (1950). Cases from other jurisdictions interpreting statutes similar to RCW 50.20.090 are in general
agreement that the term "stoppage of work" is most often defined in terms of a substantial curtailment of the employer's overall operations at
the particular situs in question. MOUNTAIN STATES TEL. & TEL. CO. v. SAKRISON, 71 Ariz. 219, 225 P.2d 707 (1950); INTER-ISLAND RESORTS,
LTD. v. AKAHANE, 46 Hawaii 140, 377 P.2d 715 (1962); GENERAL ELEC. CO. v. DIRECTOR OF EMPLOYMENT SECURITY, 349 Mass. 358, 208 N.E.2d
234 (1965); TRAVIS v. GRABIEC, 52 Ill. 2d 175, 287 N.E.2d 468 (1972). SEE Annot., SUPRA, 61 A.L.R.3d 693, 5, at 705. Whether there is a

substantial curtailment is resolved by application of a number of established criteria to the facts of the particular case.
There are a few fixed boundaries for the meaning of the term "substantial" in
this context. The attempts by other courts to devise a formula based upon a
percentage of reduction in normal production or operations by which a line delineating substantial
from nonsubstantial could be established have varied from 50 percent of normal
production in early decisions to as low as a 20 percent decline in business activity in subsequent
decisions. More recently, the difficulty of applying a fixed percentage concept to define "substantial" has resulted in courts assessing a number
of factors.

"Since the mid-fifties, there has been a new emphasis placed upon the term "operations." As production increasingly represents less than
totality of the employing unit's performance, decreases in business revenue, services rendered, marketing, research, and maintenance,
transportation, and construction activities have come to the fore as indicia of substantialness.

(Footnote omitted.) Lewis, THE "STOPPAGE OF WORK" CONCEPT IN LABOR DISPUTE DISQUALIFICATION JURISPRUDENCE, 45 J. Urban Law 319,
332 (1967).

The specific criteria accented by the commissioner in this case were whether there was a diminution in
production and whether there was a substantial curtailment of other normal nonproduction "operations." The parties
concede and the court found there was no curtailment of production. The parties then focused on whether there was a substantial curtailment
of other, nonproduction related, operations. Appellant placed its primary emphasis upon disruptions resulting from the necessity to reassign
nonproduction personnel. Of the nonproduction staff, a total of 64 employees out of the total employment complement of 381 employees,
were reassigned. Because these individuals were not replaced, there was at least a 16 percent reduction in the overall personnel within the

Appellant argues a 16 percent reduction in overall personnel constitutes a

employer's operations.

substantial curtailment of normal employer operations. Jurisdictions outside the state of Washington
considering the same question have varied in their conclusions, ranging from a
low of perhaps 13 percent to a high of over 50 percent in personnel reduction asbeing
indicative of "substantial curtailment" of employer operations. COMPARE MOUNTAIN STATES TEL. & TEL. CO. v.
SAKRISON, SUPRA, AND GENERAL ELEC. CO. v. DIRECTOR OF EMPLOYMENT SECURITY, SUPRA. Appellant asserts first the commissioner's
decision was fundamentally wrong as a matter of law in that he failed to consider the nature of the work that was not being performed in
relation to the total operation of the refinery, and that he should have considered factors other than simply the reduction in overall personnel.
We do not read the record as limiting the commissioner's determination solely to that factor. In this context, in his decision the commissioner
discussed at length another case involving a strike at a refinery which is in many respects factually similar to this situation. TRAVIS v. GRABIEC,
SUPRA. He emphasized the strike in TRAVIS had caused a severe curtailment in overall operations, including the destroying of work in the
treatment and research department and the suspension of construction and maintenance work, as well as truck and barge transportation. He
recognized that these factors had led the court in that case to find significant evidence of a stoppage of work despite the fact that for a period
of time full production of barrels of oil per day was carried on by a skeleton force working abnormal hours and performing abnormal functions.
Later in his opinion the commissioner made it clear that he believed the impact on normal operations caused by the reduction in personnel was
not as severe as that in the TRAVIS case.

The US population is 322,176,982 people---this means the plan has to

decrease surveillance on at least 42 million people.
Updated on November 17, http://www.census.gov/popclock/
The United States population on November 17, 2015 was: 322,176,982.

You, as the judge, do not have the jurisdiction to vote for their team
our definition makes the topic more limited in order to have better
and fairer discussions and research practicesabout the resolution.
Terror DA
 1NC Terror Turn
The risk of homegrown terrorism is increasing now the best solution
is increased domestic surveillance.
Brian Michael Jenkins, a senior adviser to the president of the RAND
Corporation, writes in 2015:
Brian Michael Jenkins, senior adviser to the president of the RAND Corporation,
The Continuing Lure of Violent Jihad, March 24, Testimony given Before the
Committee on Homeland Security, House of Representatives, p. 4-5, fwang
Both al Qaeda and ISIL believe that communications are as important as the armed struggle. Both have effectively exploited the Internet, al

al
Qaeda in a more controlled manner and ISIL using social media. We have never really abated the power of the message coming from

Qaeda, and now ISIL, through its actions and communications, has amplified that
message to inspire a broader audience. That message will continue to spread and fuel instability in regional
conflicts.

There is, nonetheless, good newsin that neither al Qaeda nor ISIL has achieved more than limited success in persuading
Americans to join their version of jihad. The terrorist organizations have not been able to build a deep reservoir of support
here; there have been few terrorist plots, and thus far there is no exodus of U.S. volunteers going to Syria.

The most likely threat to U.S. homeland security therefore comes from
homegrown terrorists carrying out unsophisticated, but lethal, attacks. As we have seen in
the terrorist assaults at Fort Hood, Paris, and Tunis, or numerous non-terrorist shootings in the United States, a pair of gunmen,

or even just one, can cause serious casualties. Over the long term, we cannot exclude the
possibility of more ambitious plots, although domestic intelligence efforts have
been remarkably successful.

Curtailing surveillance as per the plan runs the risk of more jihad
attacks in the United States terrorists will try to use even more
dangerous weapons once surveillance is more lax.
Gary Ackerman and Laura Pinson described this development in 2014:
Gary A. Ackerman and Laura E. Pinson, *Director of the Special Projects Division at
the National Consortium for the Study of Terrorism and Responses to Terrorism at
the University of Maryland, **Senior Research/Project Manager at START, An
Army of One: Assessing CBRN Pursuit and Use by Lone Wolves and Autonomous
Cells, Terrorism and Political Violence, Vol. 26, Iss. 1,p. 227-30, fwang
The first question to answer is whence the concerns about the nexus between CBRN weapons and isolated actors come and whether these are

overblown. The general threat of mass violence posed by lone wolves and small
autonomous cells has been detailed in accompanying issue contributions, but the potential use of
CBRN weapons by such perpetrators presents some singular features that either amplify or supplement the
attributes of the more general case and so are deserving of particular attention.
Chief among these is the impact of rapid technological development. Recent and emerging

advances in a variety of areas, from synthetic biology to nanoscale engineering,

have opened doorsnot only to new medicines and materials, but also to new possibilities for
malefactors toinflict harm on others. What is most relevant in the context of lone actors and small autonomous cells
is not so much the pace of new invention, but rather the commercialization and consumerization of CBRN weapons-relevant technologies.

This process often entails an increase in the availability and safety of the
technology, with a concurrent diminution in the cost, volume, and technical
knowledge required to operate it. Thus, for example, whereas fifty years ago producing large
quantities of certain chemical weapons might have been a dangerous and inefficient affair requiring a large plant,
expensive equipment, and several chemical engineers, with the advent of chemical microreactors, the same processes might be

accomplished far more cheaply and safely on a desktop assemblage, purchased

commercially and monitored by a single chemistry graduate student.
The rapid global spread and increased user-friendliness of many technologies thus represents a potentially
radical shift from the relatively small scale of harm a single individual or small autonomous group could historically cause. From the limited
reach and killing power of the sword, spear, and bow, to the introduction of dynamite and eventually the use of our own infrastructures against

the number of people that an individual who was unsupported by a

us (as on September 11),

broader political entity could kill with a single action has increased from single
digits to thousands. Indeed, it has even been asserted that over time ... as the leverage provided by technology increases, this
threshold will finally reach its culminationwith the ability of one man to declare
war on the world and win. Nowhere is this trend more perceptible in the current
age than in the area of unconventional weapons.
Globalization and the expansion of
These new technologies do not simply empower users on a purely technical level.

information networks provide new opportunities for disaffected individuals in the

farthest corners of the globe to become familiar with core weapon concepts and
to purchase equipmentonline technical courses and eBay are undoubtedly a boon to would-be purveyors of violence.
Furthermore, even the most solipsistic misanthropes, people who would never be able to function

socially as part of an operational terrorist group, can find radicalizing influences

or legitimation for their beliefs in the maelstrom of virtual identities on the
Internet.
All of this can spawn, it is feared, a more deleterious breed of lone actors, what have been referred to in some quarters as super-empowered

a single(and often singular)

individuals. Conceptually, super-empowered individuals are atomistic game-changers, i.e., they constitute

individual who can shock the entire system (whether national, regional, or global) by relying only
on their own resources. Their core characteristics are that they have superior intelligence, the capacity to use complex
communications or technology systems, and act as an individual or a lone-wolf. The end result, according to the pessimists,

is that if one of these individuals chooses to attack the system, the

unprecedented nature of his attack ensures that no counter-measures are in
place to prevent it. And when he strikes, his attack will not only kill massive
amounts of people, but also profoundly change the financial, political, and social
systems that govern modern life. It almost goes without saying that the same concerns attach to
small autonomous cells, whose members capabilities and resources can be
combined without appreciably increasing the operational footprint presented to intelligence
and law enforcement agencies seeking to detect such behavior.

With the exception of the largest truck or aircraft bombs, the most likely means by which to accomplish this level of system perturbation is

lone actors and small autonomous

through the use of CBRN agents as WMD. On the motivational side, therefore,

cells may ironically be more likely to select CBRN weapons than more established
terrorist groupswho are usually more conservative in their tactical orientationbecause the
extreme asymmetry of these weapons may provide the only subjectively feasible
option for such actors to achieve their grandiose aims of deeply affecting the
system. The inherent technical challenges presented by CBRN weapons may also
make them attractive to self-assured individuals who may have a very different
risk tolerance than larger, traditional terrorist organizations that might have to be concerned with a variety of
constituencies, from state patrons to prospective recruits. Many other factors beyond a perceived potential to achieve mass casualties might
play into the decision to pursue CBRN weapons in lieu of conventional explosives, including a fetishistic fascination with these weapons or the
perception of direct referents in the would-be perpetrators belief system.

Others are far more sanguine about the capabilities of lone actors (or indeed non-state actors in general) with respect to their potential for
using CBRN agents to cause mass fatalities, arguing that the barriers to a successful large-scale CBRN attack remain high, even in todays
networked, tech-savvy environment. Dolnik, for example, argues that even though homegrown cells are less constrained in motivations,
more challenging plots generally have an inverse relationship with capability, while Michael Kenney cautions against making presumptions
about the ease with which individuals can learn to produce viable weapons using only the Internet. However, even most of these pundits

concede that low-levelCBR attacksemanating from this quarter will probably lead to
political, social, and economic disruption that extends well beyond the areas
immediately affected by the attack. This raises an essential point with respect to CBRN terrorism:
irrespective of the harm potential of CBRN weapons or an actors capability (or lack
thereof) to successfully employ them on a catastrophic scale, these weapons invariably exert a stronger

psychological impact on audiencesthe essence of terrorismthan the traditional gun and bomb. This is surely not
lost on those lone actors or autonomous cells who are as interested in getting noticed as in causing casualties.

Proven Capability and Intent

While legitimate debate can be had as to the level of potential threat posed by lone actors or small autonomous cells wielding CBRN weapons,

actors
possibly the best argument for engaging in a substantive examination of the issue is the most concrete one of allthat these

have already demonstrated the motivation and capability to pursue and use
CBRN weapons, in some cases even close to the point of constituting a genuine WMD
threat. In the context of bioterrorism, perhaps the most cogent illustration of this is the case of Dr. Bruce Ivins, the perpetrator behind one
of the most serious episodes of bioterrorism in living memory, the 2001 anthrax letters, which employed a highly

virulent and sophisticated form of the agent and not only killed five and seriously sickened 17 people, but led to widespread

disruption of the U.S. postal services and key government facilities.16

Other historical cases of CBRN pursuit and use by lone actors and small autonomous cells highlight the need for further exploration. Among the
many extant examples:17

Thomas Lavy was caught at the Alaska-Canada border in 1993 with 130 grams of 7% pure ricin. It is unclear how
Lavy obtained the ricin, what he planned to do with it, and what motivated him.

In 1996, Diane Thompson deliberately infected twelve coworkers with shigella

dysenteriae type 2. Her motives were unclear.
In 1998, Larry Wayne Harris, a white supremacist, was charged with producing and

stockpiling a biological agentbacillus anthracis, the causative agent of anthrax.

In 1999, the Justice Department (an autonomous cell sympathetic to the Animal Liberation Front) mailed over

100 razor blades dipped in rat poison to individuals involved in the fur industry.
In 2000, Tsiugio Uchinshi was arrested for mailing samples of the mineral

monazite with trace amounts of radioactive thorium to several Japanese

government agencies to persuade authorities to look into potential uranium being smuggled to North Korea.
In 2002, Chen Zhengping put rat poison in a rival snack shops products and killed 42
people.

10 letters containing a radioactive substance were mailed to major

In 2005,

organizations in Belgium including the Royal Palace, NATO headquarters, and the U.S. embassy in Brussels. No injuries
were reported.

federal agents arrested four elderly men in Georgia who were plotting to
In 2011,

use ricin and explosives to target federal buildings, Justice Department officials, federal judges, and
Internal Revenue Service agents.

Two recent events may signal an even greater interest in CBRN by lone
malefactors. First, based on one assessment of Norways Anders Breiviks treatise, his references to CBRN weapons a) suggest that
CBRN weapons could be used on a tactical level and b) reveal (to perhaps previously uninformed
audiences) that even low-level CBRN weapons could achieve far-reaching impacts driven

by fear.18 Whether or not Breivik would actually have sought or been able to pursue CBRN, he has garnered a following in several (often
far-right) extremist circles and his treatise might inspire other lone actors. Second, Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula

(AQAP) released two issues of Inspire magazine in 2012. Articles, on the one hand, call for
lone wolf jihad attacks to target non-combatant populations and, on the other,
permit the use of chemical and biological weapons. The combination of such directives
may very well influence the weapon selection of lone actor jihadists in Western
nations.19
 2NC Muslims Link
Counterterrorism policies that target Muslims are not racist; they are
a legitimate response there is a difference between saying all
Muslims are bad and radical Islam is dangerous.
The Financial Times had an article about this earlier last year:
Tanjil Rashid, freelance writer, The Muslims are Coming!, by Arun Kundnani
Review by Tanjil Rashid, 3-16, Financial Times,
http://www.ft.com/intl/cms/s/2/af5ef4c6-aa15-11e3-8bd6-00144feab7de.html,
fwang
counterterrorism policies targeting Muslims are a legitimate response to
In truth,

homegrown extremism, from the murder of Fusilier Lee Rigby to the 366 (by one count)
British citizens waging jihad in Syria. Furthermore, the victims of the 2005 London
bombings bear witness to the reality of radicalism bred at home.
At best, Kundnanis argument is compelling in its dissection of governments disproportional responses. He estimates the FBI has one
counter-terrorism agent per 94 Muslims in the US, which approaches a Stasi-esque ratio of spies to citizens. He shows that authorities keep
drawing spurious lists of suspected radicals; one in the UK included almost 300 children under 15.

A commonplace at the core of Kundnanis critique is that radicalism is mainly the byproduct of western
foreign policy. Religion had nothing to do with this, according to Kundnani, citing a conspirator in the London bombings. This view
is undermined by the existence of two generations of British Muslims predating
the war on terror men who fought in Afghanistan in the 1980s and in Bosnia in
the 1990s. The diminution of religions role in stoking radicalism is as inaccurate
as UK Labour politicians denial that wars in Iraq and Afghanistan acted even as recruiting
sergeants.
This
nability to differentiate between discourse and practiceat the level of discourse not everything can or should be called Islamophobia.

implies veiled criticism of how the term Islamophobia has grouped such a variety
of forms of discourse and acts, aiming to show that any act marked as
Islamophobic proceeds from a same ideological core23, which has distorted and/or lost its original
meaning. This criticism aims to show that indiscriminate use of this terminology is

not positive and that not all Islamophobic acts or incidents are Islamophobia. To
avoid this generalization, it holds that all the observable and related nuances of
acts marked as Islamophobic must be studied in depth, as it would be wrong to
have to choose between Islamophobia or nothing. To that end, it proposes distinguishing, per national
specificity, between academic discussions about Islam and modernity; public debates about whether Islam recognizes the principle of
separation of church and state; the public clamour which essentializes Islam; and the forms of inciting hatred, such as discourse associated to
the death of Theo van Gogh, etc.
 --- XT: Impact Exaggerated

Actual civil rights violations are small compared to ALLEGED threat to

liberties
Deflem & McDonough, 15 --- *Professor of Sociology at the University of
South Carolina, AND ** Instructor, Social Sciences at Allen University (February
2015, Mathieu & Shannon, Society, The Fear of Counterterrorism: Surveillance
and Civil Liberties Since 9/11, Volume 52, Issue 1, SpringerLink database, WM)
Surveillance and counterterrorism activities are by definition oftentimes secretive
and raise sensitive matters on rights and justice. Such issues are particularly important
in a democratic society where violations of civil liberties by intelligence and other security
agencies, even in an area as pressing as terrorism, cannot be condoned. Yet, a democratically
committed society will also be more likely to produce a cultural climate in which
concerns surrounding privacy and civil liberties can lead to claims over rights-
related violations that cannot be substantiated on the basis of actual incidents of
such violations. Our findings suggest that the amount of civil rights violations in
the post-9/11 context is relatively small when compared to the alleged threat to
civil liberties suggested in the surveillance discourse among academicians and
advocates.In view of our analysis, it is important for social-science scholars to understand the
social realities involved with surveillance and counterterrorism as involving a subjective
dimension related to legitimacyespecially the lack thereof that co-exists with objective
conditions that are rooted in technology and bureaucratic development. For whereas
government and private measures against terrorism and other security concerns have certain
measurable consequences, it is also to be noted that they are evaluated by a citizenry that is
more or less concerned about such issues irrespective of actual violations. The need is thereby
affirmed for sociologists to examine the social conditions affecting security measures regardless
of stated motives. Since the classic contributions of Emile Durkheim on the role of law and
punishment (Durkheim 1893), it can no longer suffice to view counterterrorism (and other
forms of social control) as a mere dependent variable related to terrorism (and other crimes).
Instead, as our analysis shows, a more useful framework examines the entire range of factors
shaping surveillance activities, ranging from situational factors to deep-rooted cultural
traditions. From the viewpoint of civil liberties, our study should not be misinterpreted to
assume that we would suggest that the contemporary practices of surveillance and
counterterrorism in post-9/11 America (and in other nations across the world) would not have
the potential and actuality to violate civil rights. Our analysis does not imply that the threats
that surveillance programs and practices may pose to civil liberties should be dismissed, a priori
or otherwise. Instead, we suggest that a cultural fear of surveillance and
counterterrorism may be so pervasive and deep-rooted that it leads to
overstating the amount of civil liberties violations. The culturally embedded
assumption that surveillance is powerful and harmful to rights and liberties, which
is also sustained by claims-making by surveillance scholars and activists alike, may
drive civil liberties allegations independent from actual violations thereof. In the
interest of both social-science analysis as well as civil liberties protection, surveillance
scholars and civil liberties advocates would do well to not overestimate and
speculate, without evidence, on the powers of surveillance and counterterrorism
outside of the social context in which relevant practices as well as their study and
debate take place.
 Inherency
The FBI and NYPD are revising their surveillance policies and moving
away from informal informants
Apuzzo and Goldstein, 14- Matt Apuzzo is a Pulitzer Prize-winning American
journalist. Apuzzo was born in Cumberland, Maine and attended Colby College.
(4/15/14, New York Drops Unit that Spied on Muslims,
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/04/16/nyregion/police-unit-that-spied-on-
muslims-is-disbanded.html)//Yak
The New York Police Department has abandoned a secretive program that
dispatched plainclothes detectives into Muslim neighborhoods to eavesdrop on
conversations and built detailed files on where people ate, prayed and shopped,
the department said.
The decision by the nations largest police force to shutter the controversial
surveillance program represents the first sign that William J. Bratton, the
departments new commissioner, is backing away from some of the post-9/11
intelligence-gathering practices of his predecessor. The Police Departments
tactics, which are the subject of two federal lawsuits, drew criticism from civil
rights groups and a senior official with the Federal Bureau of Investigation who
said they harmed national security by sowing mistrust for law enforcement in
Muslim communities.
To many Muslims, the squad, known as the Demographics Unit, was a sign that
the police viewed their every action with suspicion. The police mapped
communities inside and outside the city, logging where customers in traditional
Islamic clothes ate meals and documenting their lunch-counter conversations.
The Demographics Unit created psychological warfare in our community, said
Linda Sarsour, of the Arab American Association of New York. Those documents,
they showed where we live. Thats the cafe where I eat. Thats where I pray.
Thats where I buy my groceries. They were able to see their entire lives on those
maps. And it completely messed with the psyche of the community.
Ms. Sarsour was one of several advocates who met last Wednesday with Mr.
Bratton and some of his senior staff members at Police Headquarters. She and
others in attendance said the departments new intelligence chief, John Miller,
told them that the police did not need to work covertly to find out where Muslims
gather and indicated the department was shutting the unit down.
The Demographics Unit, which was renamed the Zone Assessment Unit in recent
years, has been largely inactive since Mr. Bratton took over in January, the
departments chief spokesman, Stephen Davis, said. The units detectives were
recently reassigned, he said.
Understanding certain local demographics can be a useful factor when assessing
the threat information that comes into New York City virtually on a daily basis,
Mr. Davis said. In the future, we will gather that information, if necessary,
through direct contact between the police precincts and the representatives of
the communities they serve.
The departments change in approach comes as the federal government
reconsiders and re-evaluates some of its own post-9/11 policies. Although the
police departments surveillance program was far smaller in scope than, say, the
bulk data collection by the National Security Agency, a similar recalibration seems
to be unfolding.
The Demographics Unit was the brainchild of the Central Intelligence Agency
officer Lawrence Sanchez, who helped establish it in 2003 while working at the
Police Department and while he was still on the spy agencys payroll.
The goal was to identify the mundane locations where a would-be terrorist could
blend into society. Plainclothes detectives looked for hot spots of radicalization
that might give the police an early warning about terrorist plots. The squad, which
typically consisted of about a dozen members, focused on 28 ancestries of
interest.
Detectives were told to chat up the employees at Muslim-owned businesses and
gauge sentiment about America and foreign policy. Through maps and
photographs, the police noted where Albanian men played chess in the
afternoon, where Egyptians watched soccer and where South Asians played
cricket.
After years of collecting information, however, the police acknowledged that it
never generated a lead. Since The Associated Press published documents
describing the program in 2011, Muslims and civil rights groups have called for its
closing.
Mr. Bratton has said that he intends to try to heal rifts between the Police
Department and minority communities that have felt alienated as a result of
policies pursued during the Bloomberg administration. The meeting last week put
Mr. Bratton in the room with some of his departments harshest critics.
This is the first time weve felt that comfort sitting with them, said Ahmad
Jaber, who resigned from the Police Departments Muslim advisory board last
year to protest the surveillance tactics. Its a new administration, and they are
willing to sit with the community and listen to their concerns.

Current Scholarship exaggerates the claims of civil liberties abuses.

Deflem & McDonough, 15 --- *Professor of Sociology at the University of
South Carolina, AND ** Instructor, Social Sciences at Allen University (February
2015, Mathieu & Shannon, Society, The Fear of Counterterrorism: Surveillance
and Civil Liberties Since 9/11, Volume 52, Issue 1, SpringerLink database, WM)
The terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001 have dramatically heightened
concerns over national security and brought about, in the United States perhaps more
than anywhere else, a sharp rise in anti-terrorism laws and related initiatives to build
and improve counterterrorism efforts. In addition to a sharp increase in the budget and
resources assigned to counterterrorism investigations and intelligence-gathering agencies, US
Congress formally approved the expansion of power of the executive branch,
including the authorization of new surveillance techniques and procedures for law
enforcement agencies in terrorist-related investigations (Deflem 2010). The most
prominent and commonly scrutinized source of the formal expansion of investigative powers in
the United States since 9/11 is the 2001 USA PATRIOT Act (Uniting and Strengthening America
by Providing Appropriate Tools Required to Intercept and Obstruct Terrorism), which was
swiftly passed with little congressional debate in October of 2001. Civil liberties
organizations as well as a number of academic scholars have routinely criticized
post-9/11 counterterrorism initiatives as unconstitutional and major threats to
civil liberties and privacy. Harmonizing with the claims from civil liberties groups are
contributions in the popular and scholarly discourse on surveillance and counterterrorism that
lament the purported negative impact of governmental policies and related surveillance and
`intelligence activities on personal rights and liberties. The revelations by former security
contractor Edward Snowden in June 2013 concerning alleged spying practices by the National
Security Agency (NSA) greatly reinvigorated these debates. We investigate here if there is any
counter-evidence to the alarmist statements that are often made in the popular and scholarly
discourse on civil liberties and surveillance. Against the background of academic scholarship on
surveillance and criticisms from civil liberty and privacy groups, we rely on archival sources,
government documents, and media reports to examine a variety of claims made concerning
civil liberties violations by security agencies. Our analysis reveals that at least a sizeable
number of claims raised against counterterrorism practices are without
objective foundation in terms of any actual violations. As an explanation for this
markeddiscrepancy, we suggest that, as various survey data show, there is a relatively
distinct, albeit it uneven and not entirely stable, culture of privacy and civil liberties in
contemporary American society which independently contributes to a fear of
counterterrorism, rather than of terrorism. These specific cultural sensitivities bring
about an increase in the amount of civil rights allegations independent of actual
violations thereof. Surveillance Studies Meets Civil Liberties Advocacy In recent years,
especially since the events of 9/11, a new social-science field of surveillance studies has been
developing (Ball et al. 2012; Contemporary Sociology 2007; Lyon 2007). Briefly reviewing this
new burgeoning area, it can be observed that most contributions exhibit a critical and,
implicitly or explicitly, fearful view of surveillance as a powerful and deeply
invasive social force. Such worrying observations are particularly made in the
context of the development of technologically advanced means of information
gathering that can threaten privacy and civil liberties. Surveillance expert David
Lyon (2003, 2007), for example, laments the inherent consequences of the new
surveillance methods as a powerful tool for profiling that would produce and
reinforce long-term social inequalities. Surveillance scholars have suggested such
novel concepts as a surveillant assemblage to denote the convergence of once
separate and discrete surveillance systems in order to mark nothing short of a
gradual destruction of privacy (Haggerty and Ericson 2000). Surveillance technologies
are argued to turn into instruments of totalitarian control that create or
exacerbate inequality and lack accountability (Haggerty and Ericson 2006). Some
differences in perspective on the impact of surveillance are to be noted among social-science
scholars (Deflem 2008; Dunr 2005), but the research community has nonetheless not
sufficiently acknowledged whatever gains and positive contributions have been
made in providing security.
No FBI racial profiling --- it doesnt target individuals based on race or
ethnicity and investigates only to protect the communities it serves
Arab American News, 11
(10/29/11, Arab American News, ACLU says documents obtained from FBI show
unconstitutional racial profiling, ProQuest)//Yak
In response to the ACLU release, Detroit Special Agent in Charge of the FBI Andy
Arena said that accusations of profiling were not accurate.
"I would not describe it as racial profiling, it is geo-spacial mapping and domain
awareness, it's about knowing the area that you serve," he said.
"All it basically is looking at the makeup of communities across the board, not any
specific person, and learning about who are potential victims and targets but not
targeting any specific individual or group."
His office also said that it is mainly responding to profiling allegations with a
statement on the FBI's website. The statement said: "FBI joins the ACLU in
opposing racial or ethnic discrimination. The AG Guidelines and the FBI's
Domestic Investigations and Operations Guide(DIOG) clearly prohibit the
predication of investigative activity solely on the exercise of First Amendment
rights, including freedom of religion, or on race or ethnicity. The FBI does not
investigate individuals, groups, or communities based on ethnicity or race.
"Certain terrorist and criminal groups target particular ethnic and geographic
communities for victimization and/or recruitment purposes. This reality must be
taken into account when determining if there are threats to the United States.
"These efforts are intended to address specific threats, not particular
communities."