BASIC

SURVEILLANCE
TOPIC BACKGROUND
Rich Edwards
Baylor University
2015-16 National Policy Topic

Resolved: The United States federal

government should substantially curtail its
domestic surveillance.

HISTORY OF FISA
Church Committee Report
Foreign Intelligence
Surveillance Act of 1978
Wall of Separation
between foreign and
domestic surveillance
FISA Court or FISC
Eleven Judges Serving
Staggered 7 Year Terms
Drawn from Sitting U.S.
District Court Judges

Nothing to Fear?
NYT Nov. 22, 2014; Published the FBIs
Suicide Letter to MLK
King, look into your heart. You know you
are a complete fraud and a great liability
to all us Negroes. . . . We will now have to
depend on our older leaders like Wilkins, a
man of character and thank God we have
others like him. But you are done.

Nothing to Fear?
NYT Nov. 22, 2014; Published the FBIs
Suicide Letter to MLK
No person can overcome the facts, no
even a fraud like yourself. Lend your
sexually psychotic ear to the enclosure.
You will find yourself and in all your dirt,
filth, evil and moronic talk exposed on the
record for all time. . . . Listen to yourself,
you filthy, abnormal animal. You are on
the record.

Nothing to Fear?
NYT Nov. 22, 2014; Published the FBIs Suicide
Letter to MLK
King, there is only one thing left for you to do.
You know what it is. You have just 34 days in
which to do it (this exact number has been
selected for a specific reason, it has definite
practical significance). You are done. There is
but one way out for you. You better take it
before your filthy, abnormal fraudulent self is
bared to the nation.

USA PATRIOT ACT SECTIONS

USA PATRIOT Act: Uniting and
Strengthening America by
Providing Appropriate Tools
Required to Intercept and
Obstruct Terrorism Act of 2001
Section 203: Information Sharing
Section 206: Roving Wiretaps
Section 213: Sneak and Peek
Searches
Section 215: Any Tangible Things
Section 505: National Security
Letters

Intelligence Reform and

Terrorism Prevention Act of
2004 (IRTPA)
Amended the definition of an
agent of a foreign power
to include a Lone Wolf
terrorist
Eliminates the need for
intelligence agencies to
prove a connection between
a non-U.S. person and a
foreign terrorist group

FISA AMENDMENTS ACT OF

2008
(FAA)
Replaced the Short-Lived
Protect America Act of
2007 or PAA
Granted immunity to Internet
Providers
Authorized the FISC to
approve general procedures
for surveillance as opposed
to individualized warrants

Executive Order 12333

Issued by President Ronald Reagan in 1981,
but used as authority for intelligence
collection by all subsequent presidents.
Says, in part, All means, consistent with
applicable Federal law and this order,
and with full consideration of the rights
of United States persons, shall be used
to obtain reliable intelligence information
to protect the United States and its
interests.
The 16-page text of this Order is available
at
http://fas.org/irp/offdocs/eo/eo-12333-20
08.
pdf.

USA FREEDOM ACT (2015)

Public Law 114-23 June 2, 2015
Uniting And Strengthening America by
Fulfilling Rights and Ensuring Effective
Discipline Over Monitoring Act
Extends and Amends Section 215,
Extends
702
Private, not Public
Metadata Storage
Privacy Advocate (FISA
approved 99.77% of
requests over past

Privacy = Personhood
Kimberly Bailey, (Prof., Law, Chicago-Kent
College of Law), UC DAVIS LAW REVIEW, June
2014, 1554. According to Anglo-American
ethicists in the Kantian tradition, self
consciousness, free-will, rationality, moral
agency, and the ability to form life plans are
essential traits of personhood. Privacy creates,
sustains, and enhances personhood because it
provides individuals with the space to develop
these traits without the fear of being monitored,
judged, and sometimes even unjustifiably
punished.

Privacy Essential to Democracy

REPORT OF THE PRESIDENTS REVIEW GROUP
ON INTELLIGENCE AND COMMUNICATIONS
TECHNOLOGIES, 2014, 2. [Where] there is no
right to be let alone, people struggle to organize
their lives to avoid the governments probing
eye. The resulting unfreedom jeopardizes, all at
once, individual liberty, self-government,
economic growth, and basic ideals of citizenship.

Privacy Essential to
Dissent
Stephen Schulhofer, (Prof., Law, Vanderbilt U. Law School),
MORE ESSENTIAL THAN EVER: THE FOURTH AMENDMENT
IN THE TWENTY-FIRST CENTURY, 2012, 155. Political and
religious liberty are implicated as well. Americans who
follow a mainstream religion and take little interest in
politics may not care whether the FBI knows what church
they attend or what books they prefer. But a healthy
democracy requires critics and dissenters. If the
government can easily discover what everyone reads and
with whom they associate, the ability to practice religion
freely and to support unpopular causes is at grave risk.

Privacy Essential to Creativity

Daniel Murfet, (Prof., U. Southern California), BIG DATA
POWER: WHAT TO EXPECT FROM MASS SURVEILLANCE,
Jan. 2014, 6. To thrive and develop healthily we need
space space to be, space to think, space to experiment
and explore, space for trial and error, space to dream,
indulge fantasies and produce ideas. A necessary
condition for such space is a good dollop of freedom,
lack of direct or indirect intrusion and interference.
Pervasive surveillance leads to karmic disaster: we lose
virility and creativity, which are traded for meekness
and lowliness. This makes us hollow, dull and
uninteresting to ourselves, and to our actual and
potential friends and partners.

Loss of Privacy Worse than Threat of

Terrorism
John Rutherford, (Attorney & Pres., Rutherford Institute),
DOMESTIC SURVEILLANCE, 2015, 67. The reality is this:
we no longer live in a free society. Having traded our
freedoms for a phantom promise of security, we now
find ourselves imprisoned in a virtual cage of cameras,
wiretaps and watchful government eyes. All the while,
the world around us is no safer than when we started on
this journey more than a decade ago. Indeed, it well
may be that we are living in a far more dangerous world,
not so much because the terrorist threat is any greater
but because the government itself has become the
greater threat to our freedoms.

AFFIRMATIVE CASE
POSSIBILITIES
Rich Edwards
Baylor University
2015-16 National Policy Topic

Resolved: The United States federal

government should substantially curtail its
domestic surveillance.

FISA
COURT
REFORM
Right to Privacy Vital to
Democracy
Unchecked Surveillance
undermines privacy
FISA Court Fails to Check
Privacy Advocate
Essential
83-Page Report Available at:
https://www.brennancenter.org/sites/default/files/publications/W
hat_Went_%
20Wrong_With_The_FISA_Court.pdf

BULK
COLLECTI
ON
Freedom of Association
Undermined
Mass surveillance
counterproductive
USA Freedom Act
perpetuates the problem
Only the abolition of Section
215 will protect liberty
Available at:
http://www.infoworld.com/article/2931559/security/dont-fall-for-t
he-usa-freedomact.html

BIG DATA
Government profiles of
citizens uniquely harmful
Third Party exception
enables federal spying
The Electronic
Communications Privacy
Act should be amended
to require specific
warrants
130-Page Report Available at:
http://www.futureofprivacy.org/wp-content/uploads/Big-Data-and-P
rivacy-PaperCollection.pdf

PRIVATIZE
THE TSA
TSA screeners violate
privacy while failing
to provide security
TSA oversight of
passenger screening
is inherently flawed
Privatized screening
superior

16-Page Report Available at:

http://object.cato.org/sites/cato.org/files/pubs/pdf/pa742_web_1.
pdf

FBI
INFORMA
NTS
FBI is committed to the
use of a provocateur
strategy in Muslim
communities
FBI provocateur
strategy is
counterproductive
FBI use of informants
24-Page Article Available at:
shoud be restricted
http://johnjayresearch.org/cmcj/files/2012/09/
motherjones_story.pdf

T
SURVEILLA
U.S. now committed to an
NCE
enforcement first
strategy
Intensive surveillance
results in harmful mass
detention
Surveillance in immigrant
communities should be
6-Page Article Available at:
curtailed
http://csws.uoregon.edu/wp-content/docs/InitiativeArticles/Immig
rationPDFs/
GazeOfSurveillance.pdf

DRONE
SURVEILLA
NCE
Federal policy causes an
explosion in the use of
drones
Drone surveillance
unreasonable violates
personal privacy
Drone surveillance should
34-Page Report Available at:
be curtailed
http://www.brookings.edu/~/media/Research/Files/Reports/2014/1
0/drones%20aerial%20surveillance%20legislators/
Drones_Aerial_Surveillance_McNeal_FINAL.pdf

CYBER
ATTACKS
Encryption essential to
preventing cyber threats
Federal policy currently
undermines encryption
Passage of the Secure
Data Act will best
protect privacy and
prevent cyber attacks

Available at:
https://www.eff.org/files/2014/01/03/cryptowarsonepagers1_cac.pdf

ON
SURVEILLA
4 Amendment protections
NCE
against unreasonable
th

search are vital

The federal government
now engages in
unreasonable searches
The GPS Act will best
preserve geolocational
privacy
20-Page Law Review Article Available
at:
http://arizonastatelawjournal.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/04/45-A
riz.-St.-L.J.-1277-2013.

FAMILIAL
DNA
Racial profiling is harmful
Familial DNA searches
perpetuate racial profiling
Current FBI policies for the
CODIS DNA database enable
familial DNA searches
The federal government should
ban the use of familial or
partial DNA searching

12-Page Report Available at:

http://www.aclu-il.org/wp-content/uploads/2011/03/Speech-DNA-fam
ilialtesting.pdf

CENSUS
SURVEILLA
NCE

THE U.S. Census Bureau

currently requires monthly
administration of the
American Community Survey
The ACS unduly violates
personal privacy
Administration of the ACS
should be banned

Available at:
http://www.socialsciencespace.com/2015/03/american-communitysurvey-back-in-the-frying-pan
/

WELFARE
SURVEILLA
NCE
Federal welfare legislation
promotes the surveillance
of welfare recipients
Welfare surveillance is
debilitating
The federal government
should curtail its promotion
of welfare surveillance
56-Page Law Review ArticleAvailable at:
http://practicum.brooklaw.edu/sites/default/files/print/pdfs/journ
als/brooklyn-law-review/volume-77/issue-4/blr_v77iv_0.

IRS
SURVEILLA
NCE

The IRS regularly uses its

surveillance powers to
intimidate political opponents
IRS intimidation of political
opponents undermines
democracy
IRS use of political targeting
should be banned

77-Page Report Available at:

http://oversight.house.gov/wp-content/uploads/2014/06/How-Politic
s-Led-to-the-IRS-Targeting-Staff-Report-6.16.14.
pdf

John Gilliom, (Prof., Political

Science, Ohio U.),
SUPERVISION: AN
INTRODUCTION TO THE
SURVEILLANCE SOCIETY,
2013, 83-84. With new
testing regimes, we get a
standardizing of content
over thousands of
classrooms, schools, and
districts; a centralized
command to focus on
measurable basics like
readin and writin and
rithmetic; and a
displacement of local
authority by state and
national test-makers. With
this, the powers of
surveillance may well have
achieved a fundamental
reorganization of the

EDUCATIO
NALSURVE
ILLANCE
No Child Left Behind
currently requires the
intensive use of
standardized testing
High-stakes standardized
testing undermines the
quality of education
Federal promotion of
standardized
educational testing

MUSLIM
CHARITIES
The U.S. government engages in
intensive surveillance of
Muslim charities
Intensive surveillance deters
support for programs essential
to alleviate suffering
The U.S. government should
curtail its surveillance of
Muslim Charities
166-Page Report Available at: https
://www.aclu.org/files/pdfs/humanrights/blockingfaith.pdf

DRUG
SURVEILLA
NCE

The U.S. Drug Enforcement

Agency engages in intensive
surveillance of drug offenders
Intensive drug enforcement
results in massive prison
crowding
The U.S. DEA should curtail its
surveillance of drug offenders

Available at:
http://www.democracynow.org/2013/8/6/a_domestic_surveillance_
scandal_at_the
#

CE OF
ATTORNEYCLIENT
The U.S. government now
monitors attorney-client
CONTACT

conversations for terrorism

suspects

Monitoring undermines the

ability to prepare an effective
defense
Attorney-client monitoring
should be curtailed

32-Page Report Available at:

https://www.nlg.org/sites/default/files/Breach%20of%20Privileg
e%20COLOR_3.
pdf