1. BASIC SURVEILLANCE TOPIC BACKGROUND
Rich Edwards
Baylor University
National Policy Topic
Resolved: The United States federal government should substantially curtail its domestic surveillance.

2. 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

3. Nothing to Fear?
NYT Nov. 22, 2014; Published the FBI’s “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.

4. Nothing to Fear?
NYT Nov. 22, 2014; Published the FBI’s “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.

5. Nothing to Fear?
NYT Nov. 22, 2014; Published the FBI’s “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.

6. 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
Section 702: Targeting Non-U.S. Persons

7. 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

8. 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

9. 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 pdf.

10. USA FREEDOM ACT (2015)
Public Law 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 decade)

11. Privacy = Personhood
Kimberly Bailey, (Prof., Law, Chicago-Kent College of Law), UC DAVIS LAW REVIEW, June 2014, 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.

12. Privacy Essential to Democracy
REPORT OF THE PRESIDENT’S 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 government’s probing eye. The resulting unfreedom jeopardizes, all at once, individual liberty, self-government, economic growth, and basic ideals of citizenship.

13. 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.

14. 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.

15. 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.

16. AFFIRMATIVE CASE POSSIBILITIES
Rich Edwards
Baylor University
National Policy Topic
Resolved: The United States federal government should substantially curtail its domestic surveillance.

17. 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:

18. BULK COLLECTION Freedom of Association Undermined
Mass surveillance counterproductive
USA Freedom Act perpetuates the problem
Only the abolition of Section 215 will protect liberty
Available at:

19. 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:

20. 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:

21. FBI INFORMANTS
FBI is committed to the use of a “provocateur strategy” in Muslim communities
FBI “provocateur strategy” is counterproductive
FBI use of informants shoud be restricted
24-Page Article Available at:

22. IMMIGRANT SURVEILLANCE
U.S. now committed to an “enforcement first” strategy
Intensive surveillance results in harmful mass detention
Surveillance in immigrant communities should be curtailed
6-Page Article Available at:

23. DRONE SURVEILLANCE
Federal policy causes an explosion in the use of drones
Drone surveillance unreasonable violates personal privacy
Drone surveillance should be curtailed
34-Page Report Available at:

24. 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:

25. GEOLOCATION SURVEILLANCE
4th Amendment protections against unreasonable 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:

26. 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:

27. CENSUS SURVEILLANCE
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:

28. WELFARE SURVEILLANCE
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:

29. IRS SURVEILLANCE
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:

30. EDUCATIONALSURVEILLANCE
John Gilliom, (Prof., Political Science, Ohio U.), SUPERVISION: AN INTRODUCTION TO THE SURVEILLANCE SOCIETY, 2013, 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 practices of local control in American public education. In this light, large-scale surveillance can be understood as a powerful mechanism for remaking the world.
EDUCATIONALSURVEILLANCE
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 should be banned ˘˘

31. 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:

32. DRUG SURVEILLANCE
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:

33. SURVEILLANCE OF ATTORNEY-CLIENT CONTACT
The U.S. government now monitors attorney-client conversations for terrorism suspects
Monitoring undermines the ability to prepare an effective defense
Attorney-client monitoring should be curtailed
32-Page Report Available at: